By This topic is already getting plenty of comments on another posting here on the ROK Drop so I figured I would go ahead and create a separate posting for people to discuss this:
With too many soldier ID cards going missing, 2nd Infantry Division troops soon will be sporting a new piece of equipment — a plastic card holder and string they will be required to wear around their necks, or in their pockets but attached to their belts.
Maj. Gen. Michael Tucker, division commander, said this week the move was prompted because personnel are losing about 70 ID cards each month “in cabs, subways and buses … and none of them are coming back.”
That creates “an enormous security risk” if unauthorized people are using the cards, or the information on them, for illicit purposes, he said.
The division’s 10,000 soldiers in South Korea will be required to use the card holders with both their uniforms and civilian clothes starting in mid-December. [Stars & Stripes]
Read more details at the link.
This is Not A New Problem
Just so everyone knows, this is not a new issue. ID cards have been going missing in Korea at rates far higher than anywhere else I have ever been stationed in the Army. This Stars & Stripes article from 2004 explains why:
Second Infantry Division identification cards are going missing at an average rate of more than 60 per month according to Military Police, who are anxious to stop them from falling into the hands of people wanting to access U.S. bases on the Korean Peninsula illegally.2nd ID/Area I Provost Marshal Lt. Col. Patrick Williams said the division’s soldiers — 14,000 before 2nd Brigade Strike Force deployed to Iraq, 10,000 thereafter — lost more than 720 identification cards from Jan. 1 to the end of September.
The issue received increased attention after an article in a recent edition of Indianhead, the 2nd ID newspaper, suggested ID cards could be bought on the black market for up to $1,000. [Stars & Stripes]
What happens is that soldiers run up a debt at the juicy bar and pay their debt by giving up their ID card to ajumma. I have heard that these cards are worth so much because they can be used to get Korean nationals on post to use the slot machines and golf courses. The new 2ID policy hints at putting clubs off limits that take ID cards in exchange for settling debts, but how are they going to enforce this when the soldiers isn’t going to say he sold his ID card in the first place?
So this is why the command is trying to do something to make it harder for a soldier to say that they lost their ID card in the taxi. I’m sure their will be plenty of more excuses dreamed up in response to the card holder policy, the obvious question here is will the command give the soldier an Article 15 for being found not having his ID card in a card holder?
I thought the reason the drinking age was possibly being lowered and removing the curfew was to reduce the amount of stupid things that could soldiers in trouble and here comes yet another regulation that no where in the Army except 2ID a soldier could get in trouble for. Three strikes for getting into trouble in the ville, but only one strike for losing your ID card?
Here is What Should Be Done
If you want to reduce the amount of ID cards that go missing how about telling the club owners they cannot keep charge books? If they do the soldier has no obligation to pay. That is what I used to tell club owners who tried that crap at Stanleyville. I told the ajummas that run the tents out in the field not to keep a charge book either and that soldiers will pay for everything they buy in cash. This is of course pisses off the ajummas, but I could care less because this reduces a lot of headaches later on when ajumma wants to settle debts.
The other thing that can be done is tighten up security in regards to checking ID cards as well getting rid of the slot machines and tightening up who accesses the golf courses, which are both things I have been saying for years. That would reduce the lost ID card problem right there without giving Article 15’s to soldiers for something they would most likely not get charged with anywhere else.
5:19 pm on November 27th, 2009 1
Interesting, but I’m not really getting the security issue. Since going to the CAC/DBIDS system once a card is reported as “lost” it is immediately deactivated. Since all cards are scanned prior to base entry you can’t get on base with a deactivated ID. Why these IDs would have the purported value of $1,000 is beyond me.
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5:44 pm on November 27th, 2009 2
I notice you advocate getting rid of slot machines. Fine (though they do not seem to get much action these days). Why not get rid of the golf courses. I rarely, even to this day, have seen anyone other than Koreans, who seem to have no other reason to be on post, using them. I think the golf courses result in and attract way more corruption than any slot machine room.
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November 28th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Actually, more MWR revenue is brought in by slot machine winnings than golf; millions of dollars per location. Golf courses are expensive to operate, slots machines are cheap to operate….
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November 28th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Sure. But that’s not the big picture. Golf courses are where the Big Deals are made. Good Neighbors play golf *wink* wink*. It costs money to make money.
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8:23 pm on November 27th, 2009 3
The guy at the slot machine doesn’t have bids. just show him a real looking ID card.
The problem has been around for a while and it’s easy to find. All of a sudden 3 or 4 people from the same unit will lose their ID card. You could probably find the truth by going to the PX or Ration system after they ‘lost’ it and look for a large purchase.
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10:26 pm on November 27th, 2009 4
How do people use the ID cards to get into facilities?
Don’t they have to do a thumb print check to get in in the first place?
And don’t they check the picture when someone tries to use the facilities themselves?
Or are the people selling these cards doctoring them so well that they pass the biometric data check?
Anyway, I always thought having the 21-on-post and 19-off-post drinking age discrepancy was dumb. I saw no other purpose than fulfilling the dry dreams of religious zealots. I’m not a big drinker myself and I loathe people who get shit-faced and then make trouble for me and mine, but geez, isn’t it obvious that you’re just encouraging 19- and 20-year-olds to go drink in hiding off-post?
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12:25 am on November 28th, 2009 5
I love this policy.
I no longer need to buy ID cards from GIs. I no longer need to guess which pocket it is in when I pickpocket in a crowded subway or club.
It’s easy to remove from the neck and it is even easier to remove from a pocket with the handy and informative sting attached.
USFK leadership has always been composed of first-level thinkers who knee-jerk their way through problem-solving rather than thinking things through.
This, like so many failed programs before it, will quietly go away… or, even worse, will still exist but not be enforced… until it needs to be used to screw someone for unrelated reasons.
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3:29 am on November 28th, 2009 6
OPSEC, er, never mind…
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9:27 am on November 28th, 2009 7
I would like to officially get this ball rolling.
From now on, let’s call all 2ID soldiers, “tampons”…
…because of the mandatory sting, of course.
For example: “Hey, I thought you guys were from the Hump but now I see you are tampons.”
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9:55 am on November 28th, 2009 8
I found these: http://cgi.ebay.com/SpongeBob-SquarePants-Lanyard-Neck-ID-Card-Holder-new_W0QQitemZ180433645122QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20091117?IMSfp=TL091117182010r24597
Be the first one in your platoon to get one!
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1:57 pm on November 29th, 2009 9
Don’t blame Tucker for this. Blame his subordinates. A failure has occurred within the ranks of leadership below him if this problem couldn’t be stopped without coming to a general officer’s attention.
The problem here is that, except for the people at Humphreys, all of the division’s leadership lives in Seoul with their command-sponsored families, while all of the troops live in Casey and CRC. Most of the leaders take off for Seoul on the weekends to be with their (fat) wives and kids, leaving the (NASCAR-fan) masses alone to supervise themselves.
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November 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Truth
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3:27 pm on November 29th, 2009 10
What a bunch of retards
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11:00 pm on November 29th, 2009 11
Current on base BIDS will prevent lost ID cards from being used to access the base. But they may be able to “flash” it at the PX to get into purchasing things.
I do know that at the CP Walker PX and Commissary their pretty good at checking that the picture on the card match’s who’s purchasing the stuff. Ms. Kim doesn’t look like PFC Duff, regardless of what she says about it.
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November 30th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Well, they are scanning all the cards now at the PX and AAFES, so really, a deactivated card ain’t gonna have much value these days…
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9:14 am on November 30th, 2009 12
Just another example of “Classic Military Reaction”.
1. Have a sh#t fit.
2. Make a new rule.
3. Put somebody in charge of new rule.
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