January 10th, 2013 at 6:24 am » Comments (15)

Apparently the Pentagon’s budget problems is causing USFK to be short on money to expand the command sponsorship program in Korea.  This is going to lead to US troops spending more time away from their families: Bringing families to South Korea remains out of reach for most U.S. troops due to financial constraints preventing the military from expanding the popular tour normalization program. Addressing what it called “current news reports,” U.S. Forces Korea issued a statement last week saying that “while improvements to readiness remain the command’s first priority, tour
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November 17th, 2012 at 6:07 pm » Comments (8)

It looks like the local governments in Dongducheon and Uijongbu are taking notice as well of the fact that appears that the 2nd Infantry has little interest in closing their installations by 2016: Officials with two cities north of Seoul have expressed concern the U.S. military will not be moving out as scheduled in 2016, which would throw a wrench into the plans they have for the bases to be vacated. “We have no anti-American sentiment — not even 0.1 percent,” said Lim Sang-o, head of the Dongducheon Municipal Assembly’s
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February 16th, 2012 at 3:27 am » Comments (8)

US Ambassador to South Korea, Sung Kim says that no troop cuts are coming to USFK: The new U.S. ambassador to South Korea said this week that the only impending change to the U.S. military presence on the peninsula will be the relocation of servicemembers to a smaller number of bases — not a decrease in troop levels. During a forum Tuesday, Ambassador Sung Kim addressed longstanding concerns that the U.S. might station fewer troops in South Korea as part of the military’s overall cost-cutting efforts. Many South Koreans believe
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September 29th, 2011 at 5:32 pm » Comments (13)

That is what Wikileaks has supposedly released that the South Korean media is now running with: South Korea vastly under reported its share of the cost of a massive U.S. base relocation project to lawmakers and the public, according to U.S. diplomatic dispatches cited by the South Korean media Wednesday. The dispatches, released by WikiLeaks, said Ministry of National Defense publicly stated that South Korea would pay for half of the project, but the U.S. estimated in 2007 that South Korea might be responsible for as much as 93 percent
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June 18th, 2011 at 5:26 pm » Comments (2)

It looks like the Defense Department will continue to follow through on its plans to consolidate US troops on Camp Humphreys despite the recent criticism from Congress:  U.S. military officials say they remain committed to the planned consolidation of American troops in South Korea in areas south of Seoul despite a growing movement in the Senate to derail the effort. While U.S. Forces Korea will follow any changes directed by the Pentagon, “The consolidation of forces remains on plan,” USFK spokesman Army Col. Jonathan Withington said. “Relocation of U.S. forces
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May 30th, 2011 at 8:37 am » Comments (76)

It looks like this may be further evidence that the USFK transformation may not happen as originally planned: A report by the Government Accountability Office shows the realignment of forces in South Korea, Japan and Guam could cost the United States and its allies more than $46 billion this decade. Military estimates of the various components have been inaccurate or nonexistent, the report said.  (………….) The report adds to growing doubt in recent weeks over the long-planned overhaul in the region, which could eventually allow servicemembers in South Korea to
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May 11th, 2011 at 10:47 pm » Comments (19)

It is because of news like this that I continue to maintain that I will have to see USFK actually move out of Yongsan and close that post with my own two eyes before I will ever believe it will happen: Influential senators called Wednesday on the United States to freeze plans to relocate military bases in Japan and South Korea, describing the moves as politically unfeasible and too costly. The three senators — John McCain, Carl Levin and Jim Webb — also suggested that Japan needed to focus on
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July 23rd, 2010 at 10:20 pm » Comments (3)

Here is an update from the Stars & Stripes on the progress of the USFK transformation plan in Daegu: U.S. and South Korean officials are in a key stage of negotiations that would see a portion of land at the Camp Walker heliport returned to South Korea, the Army said Wednesday.Negotiators for the U.S. military, South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense and Daegu city are meeting this week to work out details for the eventual handover of about 17 acres at the Walker Army Heliport, also known as H-805, in
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April 14th, 2010 at 7:00 am » Comments (49)

Joshua Stanton over at One Free Korea has an article published in the New Ledger that I recommend everyone check out that is very timely considering USFK Commander General Walter Sharp had just commented about the transformation of USFK into KORCOM by 2012: Because South Korea, now one the world’s wealthiest nations, expects up to 600,000 American soldiers to arrive protect it from any security contingency, successive South Korean governments actually cut their nation’s defense rather than modernizing it and building an effective independent defense. Consequently, South Korea still has
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April 3rd, 2010 at 7:25 am » Comments (17)

Here is a construction update from Camp Humphreys: Work crews will demolish so many buildings at Camp Humphreys in the next two years that two temporary warehouses will be constructed to store property from those buildings, the post’s chief planner said. They may need to build still more “swing space” warehouses in the future, said Todd Dirmeyer, chief of the master planning division at the U.S. Army Garrison-Humphreys. Humphreys, in Pyeongtaek, will triple in size in coming years to become the flagship installation of the U.S. military in South Korea
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