You sure like to shut people down… but when they reply with a good dose of reality, you get awfully quiet.

Now, I have pretty much let you off the hook over all that hateful stuff you said to me about my crazy ideas that Fukushima was a little bigger problem than TEPCO was letting on…

…as I now feel more pity for your misguided perceptions of the world (which have no-doubt been a burden throughout your life) than irritation at your snotty-but-oh-so-wrong attitude.

But how many times can you expect people to be called out to explain themselves and then suddenly ignored when they do?

This is da Internets, man. That shyt don’t fly!

Tear my explanations apart with logic and facts… and let the other readers decide…

…or slink back to the deathly quiet peanut gallery where you seem to belong, peanut.

You can’t respond to it because it is a correct assessment.

Now go ahead a rattle on about navigating paper work and how that makes you an “effective leader”. It will make you a good Supply Officer! I say that knowing your Troops, their capabilities and environment is far greater.

I have no doubt that by “your” definition, you are a very effective leader.

Now please excuse me. I gotta go and brush my teeth. Got some nails stuck in back. And I sh!t 5.56

Sure… but, until recently, for about 10 years, curfew enforcement was a huge priority for USFK. Lots of dirty stuff was overlooked while curfew violations were used as filler statistics to show how hard-working everybody was.

I don’t know what has changed since curfew has been relaxed… but this type of mindset doesn’t just go away. Since obvious prostitution and human trafficking still exist in front of USFK installations, and nobody seems to notice, I can only assume there is some new diversion to keep the generated paperwork looking plentiful.

“Ive said it before and I’ll stay it again, stop saying that senior military leaders are being bribed,”

Ding dong. You act as if I said all senior military leaders are being bribed. I did not. Maybe, technically, none of them are being bribed… as in accepting a white envelope on the golf course.

But, I was rather tuned into the Ville culture for a number of years and regardless of what you wish to believe, many (all?) the ones with Korean wives made decisions and/or pushed for decisions that benefited the Good Neighbors over the military or GI Joe when they could get by with it.

If the wife was not locally connected, the locals were quick to make a connection with her… and there was much social pressure coupled with much reward to use her influence to help her fellow Koreans in their special situations. This reward frequently involved cash and was (probably) never delivered in such a way her husband could be connected to it.

This is the same process that keeps the Korean wives’ black market rings going year after year after year… and you would be foolish or blind to think it simply ends there.

Some husbands pretend it isn’t happening, some husbands go along, and some husbands get actively involved.

Sometimes they get noticeably greedy and DO “risk their careers on something that could so easily be proven should the feces hit the oscillator”… all 25 years of it.

http://www.stripes.com/news/colonel-gets-4-years-for-bribe-scam-in-s-korea-1.6523

For the most part, though, they are smart enough to buffer themselves… and the System allows it even when there is no other explanation for the situation or their actions… as all the “leaders” without Korean wives just want to escape from a tour in Korea without any attention.

You can deny all of this and say it is impossible… but you would be lying to yourself as well as us.

As I don’t think you are stupid or totally unaware, when you enthusiastically deny something that is so clearly happening, I start to wonder if maybe you have, or have had, some involvement in this type of thing.

“You want to know how to get things done in the US Army in Korea? Find out who the OIC is sleeping with. Works every time.”

Completely and utter BS, not worth responding to.

“So what do you pay a SPC to lose your paper work? How much is THAT worth? They don’t do it for free! I never knew any that Stupid and I’ve known a few.”

Now I KNOW that your out of touch with the US Military, had suspected it before but this confirms it. This is a well known scam that’s been out there for a long time. In the last 10 years it’s picked up significantly. So much that many units are now requiring that the leave form have a control number on it before the soldier sign’s out on leave. This ensures that then an entry was made into the S1′s computer system and that the paperwork can’t be “lost”, it also means leave paperwork can take over a month to process in a large unit.

Now I’m really beginning to doubt many of your claims. Paperwork isn’t anything new to the Army, it basically runs off paperwork. Nothing can happen without some piece of paper being signed by someone and handled by some clerk. To be an effective leader you must know how to navigate the paperwork game so that you can take care of your soldiers and ensure that things get done. No amount of “tough talk” and “eating nails to sh!t bullets” will do so much as move a rock. So either you retired as a career SPC (back when they allowed that), were an extremely poor leader, or are talking out your fifth point of contact here. Even buck sergeants are required to know how to properly submit and follow up on paperwork, even something as simple as putting together a promotion packet requires those skills.

You want to know how to get things done in the US Army in Korea? Find out who the OIC is sleeping with. Works every time.

So what do you pay a SPC to lose your paper work? How much is THAT worth? They don’t do it for free! I never knew any that Stupid and I’ve known a few.

I’ve said it before and I’ll stay it again, stop saying that senior military leaders are being bribed, it’s extremely unlikely that they would risk their careers on something that could so easily be proven should the feces hit the oscillator.

If you want to look for bribery then look at the senior federal workers who are making the reports and briefings that go in-front of the commanders. They are the ones controlling which establishments get put off-limits and how they are removed from the OL list. A federal employee with a Korean wife would be in a much better position to accept and conceal bribes and ensure that certain establishments are kept off the radar. The senior commander isn’t out in the villes scouting out the bars himself, he must rely on information passed up to him. That info goes through office workers and eventually makes it’s way into, or is kept from a report / briefing. There is plausible deny-ability if any suspicion was ever cast as the offending office worker could just state they made a mistake.

In the military sometimes there are “leave” scandals. What happens is some soldier wants to take leave but doesn’t want to use up their accrued leave time. Instead of giving money to the S1 OIC / NCOIC they instead make a deal with one of the junior clerks. The soldier then submits their leave form through the chain of command, it gets approved and sent over to S1. The S1 clerk is then supposed to create a control number and make an entry that deducts the taken leave from the soldiers acquired leave balance. But instead the clerk “loses” the leave paperwork and it gets shredded and never makes it into the system. All the command see’s is that the soldier went and came back from approved leave. That leave is never charged and essentially becomes “free”. If ever asked about the paperwork the S1 clerk can just say he has no idea and that it was probably lost somewhere. This actually happens and the Army has been trying to stamp down on it pretty hardcore over the last decade.

In the US Military if you want to make paperwork vanish / appear you deal with the clerks not the leaders. Or in other words, SPC’s move the Army.

The problem is this… the military puts cheap and easy prostitution off-limits, discourages stress-relieving/camaraderie-building drinking, and makes a big deal of small issues that should be kept at a lower level by involved leadership.

Of course, the prostitution (based partly on human trafficking) still exists… but much of the fun is gone and it is shockingly expensive.

Even though everybody knows where, how, who, and why, leadership overlooks it and focuses on easy things like curfew violation and contrived alcohol-related incidents.

Part of the reason is because there is big money to be made from grossly over-priced Filipina prostitutes. Some of this money filters back to American military leadership directly or in the form of other favors… especially to the ones who have locally-connected Korean wives, are in a position to control Downtown, and stay in Korea while other “leaders” come and go while hoping nothing scandalous happens on their watch.

So, it is a big balancing act between pretending nothing is going on, having deniability if something makes the papers, and keeping the cash flowing from young and inexperienced GIs to Good Neighbor club owners who have enough pull to damage the career of anyone they find too interfering in their business.

The losers are the young and inexperienced GIs who have nobody looking out for them.

When USFK wants to lean on an unconnected club, they start talking about American Standards in things such as “extreme drinking” or wild parties and they are quick with the indefinite off-limits… but they are even quicker to say they have no power over downtown businesses when there are a thousand dollars in charges on a sloppy-drunk GI’s credit card to talk to a Filipina juicy for a couple of hours.

This could end quickly if the Wives Back Home got together and made a stink to the media… but they either don’t know, don’t believe THEIR husband is doing it, or can’t get their act together.

The reality is that the military should either take de facto control of the Villes using a codified and transparent off-limits to protect GIs… or back off completely and let the free market separate the good clubs from the dishonest and greedy ones.