By Long time ROK Drop reader and commenter Mark has decided to take on USFK authorities over not being able to enroll his daughter into school at Yongsan:
A U.S. Army major has claimed non-command sponsored families are hurt at what they see as unfair practices employed by U.S. Forces Korea in the ongoing Department of Defense (DoD) Dependent school row.
Mark Gardner, who tried to enroll his 5-year-old daughter in preschool at the Yongsan Army Garrison in Seoul, saw her put on a waiting list after being denied a spot because he is not command-sponsored.
Gardner and his Korean wife wanted to send their daughter to other international schools here, but high tuition fees proved a burden.
Their daughter is now attending a Korean school and Gardner is worried that his daughter will not be able to communicate with him in English.
The couple was left shocked after learning that Korean nationals who are unaffiliated with the U.S. military are attending the school, as reported by The Korea Times Jan 22.
Gardner said non-command sponsored families are “really hurt by the unfair practices” by U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), claiming they are being discriminated against.
His wife said the school is failing to serve its original purpose.
“I don’t understand what DoD schools here are for. I heard some Korean-Americans working in the U.S. Army adopt Korean children to enroll them in DoD schools. What if the adopted children are command-sponsored?” Mrs. Gardner told The Korea Times in a telephone interview.
His wife said her friend, who is also married to an American soldier based in the United States, wants to come to Korea but is hesitant over worries about her children’s education.
“While she and her husband are waiting for command-sponsored status, they doubt they can enroll children at a DoD school in Korea even after being command-sponsored as they know about the corruption here.” [Korea Times - HT reader]
Make sure to read the rest of the article, but I think it is a valid point that Korean children through the adoption scam are able to get enrolled into the DOD schools in Korea but a child that is actually the daughter of a US servicemember cannot.
8:40 am on February 10th, 2009 1
Hell, even us contractors would like to send our kids to DoD School. A lot of the companies won’t pay for tuition for our kids and ICS is $10,500 a year for 1 kid. DoD is $18K per kid per year if they have space available for you to pay for their tuition. That is rediculous, it’s cheaper to send your kids to public land grant universities after they graduate.
Lots of guys I know with Filipina wives send them packing to the Philippines when their kids reach school age and keep the family split because it’s cheaper to send the kids to private school down there and buy a house for the wife to live than spend money for school here. That’s rediculous!
8:57 am on February 10th, 2009 2
This is in response to Mark’s comment from another post….
What part of Non-Command sponsored do you not understand? You think just because you took it upon yourself to have your family reside without sponsorship you should be granted CS? Horse squeeze. Just because your spouse is of Korean decent you should get special consideration? Again HS. You stat you got NCO quarters for your family? You are lucky to even get quarters! You fought your Kampf since 2005? Man up and dry your tears. You took the chance knowing full well that NCS is a hardship and it’s there for a reason. Because you put yourself in that predicament you think people should bend to your will and bail your poor decisons out? Wrong.
Out of my seven tours in Korea, I only had ONE CS tour and I knew full well what would happen if I was NCS, only ONE tour was in Seoul the rest was with 2ID! I paid for it all out of my pocket. Yes, I had TWO kids of school age, and my wife is Korean. We were just realistic about what to expect and planned for it. You are not ‘entitled’ to anything other than what’s in the regulation for NCS, regardless of grade.
Want to discuss self-induced hardship tours? Bring it. My first tour was in ’84 and my last was 2007. Experience? Yeah, I got that..
BTW, forget trying to pick apart my comments using spellcheck or a grammar lesson. It’s a blog. (a damn fine one at that!)
10:13 am on February 10th, 2009 3
@ Mrs. Gardner said about her friend, “While she and her husband are waiting for command-sponsored status, they doubt they can enroll children at a DoD school in Korea even after being command-sponsored as they know about the corruption here.”
That’s right – there’s so much corruption that even if you get command sponsorship, you can’t get your kids in school.
And don’t forget – you won’t be allowed to go to the commissary or hospital either – even if you’re command sponsored.
And also tell them that they can’t drive – or even ride a bike on base – even if they’re command sponsored.
They sound like they’re stupid enough to believe you. Have a little fun with them.
3:18 pm on February 10th, 2009 4
The KT article does not mention the fact that Gardner is not stationed in Korea, but is currently stationed in the US. Command sponsorship is applicable to his situation.
What does this quote mean, or did the reporter stretch it out of context?
“I heard some Korean-Americans working in the U.S. Army adopt Korean children to enroll them in DoD schools. What if the adopted children are command-sponsored?”
4:22 pm on February 10th, 2009 5
Jeff and Unsatisfied beat me to the punch. MAJ Gardner is not assigned to Korea so he’s made his choice and now has to live with it; albeit a work in progress since he was originally slotted to Afghanistan then to Iraq when he decided to leave his family in Korea. He might be back in the US now, but I am not sure about that. It sounds like he has lots of issues. I hope that everything will work out for him and his family. But hope is not a strategy as someone in high office is quickly learning. On the quarter’s issue, he might even be breaking the law if he is in the US living in a BOQ and his family is occupying quarters here in Korea. His status would be that of a geographical bachelor and therefore not be entitled to living in post housing since his family is already occupying a set of quarters in another command. Ditto on the fine blog comment.
4:43 pm on February 10th, 2009 6
Best of luck to you Mark…
Reference the adoption scam, I really don’t see any recourse there. If a command sponsored couple “legally” adopts a child, what can USFK do but support that child? Who investigates “adoption fraud.” CID? KNP? MP’s?
6:02 pm on February 10th, 2009 7
There are probably some command sponsored kids on the pre school waiting list. I was command sponsored and had to wait four months for an opening for pre-school.
No sure if it is a good idea for a lot of non-command sponsored wives to move to Korea when Husbands deploy/PCS to Iraq. I think the AF had a program to move Foreign spouses back to their homeland when the sponsor went remote, but you had to prove the spouse could not function in the US alone. If they had US citizenship it showed they were capable of living in the US without their sponsor.
7:42 pm on February 10th, 2009 8
Guitard, I already told my wife to correct them and let them know command sponsorship makes their children “space required” and they will get slots.
7:47 pm on February 10th, 2009 9
Mr. Kang interviewed my wife in Korea over the phone, but I think she meant something to the effect of, “What if the Korean-American families doing all this ‘adopting’ are command-sponsored?” implying that the adopted children should not gain the privileges of command sponsorship if they were adopted under false pretense.
7:49 pm on February 10th, 2009 10
FYI, I am a patient at Walter Reed hospital in Washington DC, and I don’t do illegal shit.
7:57 pm on February 10th, 2009 11
But imagine PCS from Korea to Kuwait with TCS in Iraq with TDY enroute at Riley, and being attached to Walter Reed but assigned to Kuwait. This complicates the problem to an extent that no bureaucratic Vogon can comprehend, so the only viable solution was to leave family in place of last permanent duty station.
8:02 pm on February 10th, 2009 12
Thy cup runneth over.
8:14 pm on February 10th, 2009 13
Everyone,
Keep the ad hominem attacks coming and I’ll try my best to respond; I’ve got a lot of canteen cups ready to pass around. This will all become a moot point soon, for I’m being boarded/chaptered and will hopefully have no family in Korea to need school period.
My point is merely that wealthy Koreans and Koreans adopted under false pretenses should not trump non-command sponsored kids for anything, especially schools.
Mr. Kang approached me on email to add me to his story, and I agreed. I would have consulted PAO had I been in Korea. I fully expect some retribution, but frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass at this point.
Thank you.
9:22 pm on February 10th, 2009 14
Mark,
I did not mean to imply that you might be doing something illegal; my bad. Several of my friends got bitten by that situation. I hope you get well soon and everything works out for you and your family. You are not alone in being done in by USFK. An air force friend’s family got booted out of their on base quarters about a month after his deployment to Iraq because someone reviewd his waiver and found reason to revoke it. So much for taking care of their own.
9:27 pm on February 10th, 2009 15
My information is a little dated, but unless things have changed:
If you are a geographical bachelor and the unit to which you are assigned has space in the baracks, you can live there and you won’t be breaking any regulations. You will, however, be the first one to have to move out if the baracks runs out of space.
9:28 pm on February 10th, 2009 16
Mark,
I did not mean to imply that you are doing something illegal. I had some friends that got caught up in the geographical bachelor situation and I should have worded my comment better. For what it is worth, you are not alone being done in by the USFK wisdom. An air force friend’s family got booted out of their government quarters when he deployed to Iraq becasue he was no longer command sponsored. He got a waiver to leave them in his quarters while he was gone and after he left someone got the waiver recinded. I hope you recover soon and that all is well for your family.
10:11 pm on February 10th, 2009 17
To Mark’s Attackers,
The most important aspect of this issue is America’s priorities.
This question determines which is more important, the education of an American military member’s child or the education of another country’s citizens?
Some will endlessly quote (poor) rules and regulations. Many will enthusiastically defend a (broken) system. Many more will be quick to blame all but the boot which kicks them. Most lack the ethical foundation, the moral courage or the force of character, to stand up to corruption, indifference and injustice.
Regardless of the rhetoric, the real question is very simple. Is Mark’s American child less deserving of American benefits than a foreign child?
Should someone in a leadership position ask themselves this question and act in the best interest of the organization they are leading?
America has lost its Priorital Compass ™.
We give free medical care to illegal aliens. We give free education to criminals. We give free money to those who refuse to work.
We take from the productive and give to the destructive. We waste even more money setting up complex levels bureaucracy to do so.
Mark’s situation is a drop of water in this great sea of skewed values and misguided intentions fueled by self-serving enablers who thrive, not on merit, but on the ability to maneuver through a tangle of directives no longer directly coupled with reality.
Whatever the rules, whatever the situation, if you want to defend the position that Mark shouldn’t expect (and fight for) his child to take priority over foreign children (and possibly even contractor’s children) in getting an American DOD education, you deserve nothing but the worst the System has to offer.
1:53 am on February 11th, 2009 18
Mark,
Sorry to hear that and good luck to you.
5:40 am on February 11th, 2009 19
I can see people claiming Korean children as their dependents more than I can see someone actually adopting a Korean child for the purpose of sending them to a DoDDS school. There’s a difference between registering someone as a dependent and actually going through the formal adoption process. I could claim my mother-in-law as a dependent by showing minimal evidence of my supporting more than 50% of her annual financial needs. This would entitle her to an ID card and all of the other benefits that DoD dependents are entitled. It’s really not that hard.
I don’t know why anyone, including Gardner, would be so hard-up to get their kids into a DoDDS school. A better education can be obtained through any of the English-only preschools, kindergartens, or private schools in Korea. They aren’t all as expensive as people think that they are. A DoDDS education is comparable to a public school education in the US (crappy), except the class sizes are a little smaller.
5:48 am on February 11th, 2009 20
I think that’s right, Guitard. The shady battery commander who I replaced on Camp Sears a few years ago had a barracks room as well as quarters off-post. As soon as the new battalion commander found out, he made him vacate his barracks room the next day. Also, I had a room on Red Cloud for exercise purposes with the understanding that I would need to vacate if they ever became tight on space…this would have been too easy since all I kept in there was some personal hygiene items and a sleeping bag.
6:04 am on February 11th, 2009 21
“His wife said her friend, who is also married to an American soldier based in the United States, wants to come to Korea but is hesitant over worries about her children’s education.”
I was refering to above statement when I said No (sic) sure if it is a good idea for a lot of non-command sponsored wives to move to Korea when their Husbands deploy/PCS to Iraq. If your family is having problems and they were there already, the problem would multiply based on the number of wives comming over by themself non-command sponsored.
6:15 am on February 11th, 2009 22
Home School your children
After seeing the slugs that sloth across the street at SAHS during lunch, I would home school my kids.
6:34 am on February 11th, 2009 23
Exactly, and I hope enough people out there do some research before making such a decision.
6:41 am on February 11th, 2009 24
Solution, I hear you, but my daughter loves her friends at preschool too much. She’s even got a boyfriend, which is why I keep a loaded squirt gun on my porch behind the door.
1:17 pm on February 11th, 2009 25
Mark,
Sounds like you were on a MiTT team and I can sympathize with your plight. I was faced with the same situation (I’m on a team now and was CS in Korea prior to this) and gave serious thought to keeping my wife and kids in Korea when I left. However, I was told by the Yongsan Pass & ID section that we’d lose SOFA status as soon as I PCSed (you have to pay to register your car off post, you are not protected in case of legal issues), which would require us to move from Hannam and my family to take their chances w/ getting into school on Yongsan. We opted out and resettled at Lewis for my time here in Iraq. Did you decide to lessen the impact on your family by not moving them to your HAAP?
3:45 pm on February 11th, 2009 26
You keep making reference to American children and foreign children. If a child is a legal dependent of a US service member, it doesn’t matter if he/she is a US citizen – that child has just as much of a right to attend a DoD school as any other kid. There are plenty of dependent kids who – for any number of reasons – are not yet US citizens.
7:00 pm on February 11th, 2009 27
(I refuse to use the Reply feature because it is such a pain to scroll back through many messages to try to find the newly added one when you can simply look at the last message).
guitard,
“it doesn’t matter if he/she is a US citizen – that child has just as much of a right to attend a DoD school as any other kid.”
Maybe.
“There are plenty of dependent kids who – for any number of reasons – are not yet US citizens.”
I’m trying to think of a situation where a non-citizen should have more rights (or even equal rights) to an American citizen. I am not finding one.
Give me a hint.
10:03 pm on February 11th, 2009 28
Matt,
Get this…my branch wouldn’t give me a HAAP! They said to contact them when I’m 6 months into my tour. If I had a HAAP, I would have at least been able to consider moving them there.
10:41 pm on February 11th, 2009 29
Right, wrong or indifferent, I totally agree. The problem is not with DoDDS admission policy, but with adoption scams. If the child has been legally adopted, what can DoDDS do? They have no choice but to support that child as a command sponsored dependent.
Fraudulent adoption has to be stopped before the DoDDS problem will ever be remedied. And again, how do you stop it, and who investigates it? Is it a crime?
10:51 pm on February 11th, 2009 30
JAFO, I totally get your point, and agree that it’s just not right, but aren’t there members of the armed forces who are not US citizens? I’m pretty sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, who honorably serve in all branches of the service these days. Should they receive less rations per month, or half of a real citizen’s base pay?
The way I see it, it’s an ethics issue. Those who are doing it are knowingly defrauding the government, so there has to be some sort of recourse, “if” proven, which would probably be a very hard thing to do.
12:03 am on February 12th, 2009 31
Rob,
That’s a valid reason. If a non-citizen is serving in America’s military, they should be treated the same as all other military members, including education for their children.
Allow me to clarify my position.
If American military Mark’s American citizen child is being denied an American education at an American taxpayer-funded American school set up for the educational needs of Americans because of a lack of space, it would be correct to focus on insuring that other students are not taking up that space due to corruption or fraud instead of blaming Mark for wanting to help his family.
If all other students have an equal (or better, due to CS) right to be there, sorry, Mark, no space. If some Itaewon community leader’s nephew is taking up a space, perhaps Mark deserves less criticism.
Military members who are willing to bring their families with them at their own expense should be commended and assisted whenever possible instead of told to dry their tears when pointing out that services are more easily available to Korean nationals who are unaffiliated with the U.S. military.
Many posts were more concerned with rationalizing and speculating about Mark’s status than discussing glaring irregularities in the adoption/admission/dependent practices.
That’s pretty standard in USFK.
1:31 am on February 12th, 2009 32
It’s definitely a messed up deal, and I wish Mark and everyone else in a similar situation the best of luck.
2:56 am on February 12th, 2009 33
Mark,
My branch wouldn’t give me orders to my HAAP until, well I still haven’t got them and we’re three months from RIP/TOA), but they told me they would commit to giving me Lewis when I was w/i six months. Ironically, my wife (God bless her)despised the weather at Lewis so much she asked if branch could get us another CS spot in Korea? Branch said they could get me one in the unit I left and I’m waiting for EUSA G-1 to begin farming out my application now to DODSS and housing. Incredibly, the BDE CDR in 2ID was telling HRC to please advertise that he had 100 CS spots in Casey that he wanted to use. Now my wife wasn’t going for that (she would have seen only on the weekends while her and the family stayed in Hannam), but I wonder how much that is being advertised and how much that would worsen the situation at SAS and SAHS if those positions were filled with families needing schooling for their kids. It seems like the long term solution to this problem would be to contact DODSS or their higher (Congress?) and get them to adjust the priority order of who gets in. It seems as if non-CS dependents should be higher simply because their taxes are still paying for DODSS’ budget and such anyway.
3:59 am on February 12th, 2009 34
I have no dog in this fight so I should probably keep my mouth shut, but when you say “adjust the priority order of who gets in,” are you suggesting that NCS American citizen kids should have priority over CS non-American kids who have been legally adopted?
6:15 am on February 12th, 2009 35
Matt, I’d give my left nut for Lewis.
Anyways, one idea you might think of is having your family off-post in Area I and bussing or subwaying to school on Yongsan every day. A bit of a hassle no doubt, but it works and I’ve seen others do it that way.
7:23 am on February 12th, 2009 36
Matt, I knew a guy that worked on Casey and had his family live in Uijongbu. He would travel to and from work every day to Uijongbu using the train, which is now even easier with the opening of the subway.
His wife used to take their kids to school every day to Yongsan where she had a job at during the day. It would be a bit of hassle but the commute to and from Uijongbu isn’t too bad, but Uijongbu to Seoul is a bit long.
9:15 am on February 12th, 2009 37
Matt, I knew a guy that worked on Casey and had his family live in Uijongbu. He would travel to and from work every day to Uijongbu using the train, which is now even easier with the opening of the subway.
His wife used to take their kids to school every day to Yongsan where she had a job at during the day. It would be a bit of hassle but the commute to and from Uijongbu isn’t too bad, but Uijongbu to Seoul is a bit long.
GI,
I did exactly the same thing with my family in 1999-2001; except I was in UJB and had them (wife and kids) go to YS every morning on the subway to school. They did this for a year then I had them move close by Gate 20 to an apartment where I foot the bill without any BAQ. I knew this when I made the decision to have them come with me. I was lucky to have them get in school by being on the NCS stand-by list. I didn’t do anything special. I just followed the current regs and prepared for the consequences. I knew the difference between NCS and CS and accepted the reasons for having the policy the way it is.
I remember one tour NCS, where my youngest one was only a few weeks old when we flew. I was stationed at Cp Pelham then. Yes, they lived in Songyu-ri in an apartment. It wasn’t so bad then, neither was of school age yet. But again, I was prepared for them to leave if it came down to it. Man, my kids will have some stories to tell! They turned out just fine. Stories? yeah, I got them…!
Not going to touch the adoption issue thing…
The differences between CS and NCS are there for a reason, if it seems archaic, accept it and deal with it. If you can’t then maybe you should attend a town hall meeting with Obama and grovel and beg him to ‘help’ you…
11:52 pm on February 12th, 2009 38
I didn’t know that DoDDS has a Pre-School. They have a thing called Sure Start, but that is for low income soldiers(and a very small capacity) certainly not a Major. So that would automatically keep Mark’s kids out, and has nothing to do with Koreans or Adopted kids. Also, I don’t think DoDDS has turned anyone away, as they are not at full capacity. I think there is a misunderstanding here and the KT is full of there usual manure and half truths.
1:56 am on February 13th, 2009 39
So my co-worker here in Korea, who married a German woman who has two kids, both of whom of course are German citizens – you’re saying even though he’s command sponsored, his kids don’t have as much of a right to attend school on base as command sponsored kids who are US citizens?
I say you’re wrong.
5:39 am on February 13th, 2009 40
Question, I know what you’re saying, and I tried my best to convey to Mr. Kang that it was the Child Development Center rather than DoDDS Kindergarten that we tried to get my daughter into. Sorry if the article portrays a different angle.
3:29 am on February 14th, 2009 41
When was Camp Pelham renamed Camp Garry Owen? I’d never heard of Pelham until the posting of this comment. I had to Google it.
9:17 am on February 14th, 2009 42
I left Pelham late in 94, so it was around that time. Garry Owen was closed and moved to Pelham. It had the 50th Engr Co, 4/7 Cav, an MP Platoon, it was small, but it had some great times.
8:07 pm on February 26th, 2009 43
My comment is very late, but shows a strange turn of events: General Walter Sharp has asked to allow Koreans to attend USFK schools.
“The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) made an official proposal to the Korean education ministry Thursday to allow Korean students to attend schools at its camp in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.”
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/02/117_40358.html
9:26 pm on February 26th, 2009 44
KwangdongBrian: Any particular reason why you didn’t include the following in your post?
4:54 am on February 27th, 2009 45
The article also points out:
If this is true, wouldn’t it be Human Trafficking?
6:09 pm on February 27th, 2009 46
Thanks for the link Brian. I have left a posting on this here:
http://rokdrop.com/2009/02/27/usfk-looking-to-enroll-korean-students-in-dod-schools/
8:02 pm on February 27th, 2009 47
What about the USFK allowing Korean national children into the new Camp Humphrey School..? Who approved this? this is illegal..Are we here to educate the Korean children? What kind of a scam is this YET AGAIN against the American Citizens–CONTACT PRESIDENT OBAMA AND YOUR 2 SENATORS AND cONGRESSMAN now…WE NEED A CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO TGHIS FILTHY SCHOOL ISSUE HERE IN KOREA? ps: how much did the korean government pay the usfk officials? i would love to see the amounts deposited into their bvamk accounts!
7:07 am on February 28th, 2009 48
guitard@19
I was more interested in complaints about too many Korean children at the schools on the one hand and plans to invite more Korean children on the other. It is a strange juxtaposition.
Oh, and I missed that part.