There seems to be a plan now for American servicemen to bring their families with them while on their tour in South Korea. Involuntary tourism is a great thing for Korea after all.
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10 Comments
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/.....ed-report/
The general acknowledged that the change in policy that he was advocating could be costly, because additional housing, schools and medical facilities would have to be built. But he noted that some of those expenses might be borne by the South Korean government. (NYT)
The Korean military has long separated its soldiers from their families. This is obviously true for its draftees, but even in the case of its career military personnel, many change station over time to locations throughout the country while their families remain at the same home.
This difference has been a stumbling block in the path of American troop realignment on the penninsula. Frankly, the Korean military isn’t entheusiastic about creating - and paying for - bases of this type. Bases like these (which Bell terms ’sanctuaries’ in the article) are in effect small culturally American towns which provide ammenties not only to soldiers but to their families as well. While this may seem reasonable from an American perspective, it is also something unavailable to Korean military personnel. Indeed, it’s also unimaginable to some: they tend to think that soldiers are best developed and managed when separated from their families. For the Korean military, the great expense of creating bases for American soldiers would be unreasonably increased by the inclusion of services provision for non-military personnel.
This idea, despite whatever good intentions may be behind it, has a long way to go before Koreans start footing the bill.
“Involuntary tourism is a great thing for Korea after all.”
What exactly is this comment supposed to imply?
Involuntary tourism? More like, MORE foreigners that will have a hatred/disgust for Koreans and Korea.
#2: What you say applies only to the conscripts. The officers and NCOs have their families nearby.
This would be a good excuse to draw down the forces further if Korea balks.
I have some strong, if mixed, feelings about this.
Positively speaking, assuming they dare venture much outside of their compounds, getting more Americans exposed to foreign cultures cannot be a bad thing.
Less positively speaking, technically putting American families in a theater that is technically a war zone is not a brilliant idea. Yes, this concern is a much less of a genuine liability than say 30 years ago, but should anything go suddenly haywire, one can imagine the additional havoc from families’ evacuation and the soldiers’ personal priorities if Honey & The Kids are in harm’s way.
Another, perhaps more practical concern is when Honey is brought over here for a couple of years, the Army understandably wants peace at home. In other words, soldier morale can plummet if the spouse is going nuts out from boredom. Ergo, USFK tries its best to provide in-country employment for dependents.
The problem is that there is a prohibition to hire any American who has been in Korea for more than something like 2.5 years for many USFK civilian jobs, including jobs dealing with community relations with the surrounding local population. Those jobs are reserved for the likes of Honey from Omaha. Korean-speaking, long-term Korea resident American citizens need not apply. So operational priorities seem to get skewed inside out to keep Honey from making a man or woman’s castle at home into a virtual hell.
Frankly speaking, what I think really need to take place is a hard-nosed reassessment of what is the genuine, contemporary role of USFK — and staff accordingly, even if it means leaving Honey & The Kids at home.
@ #2,
Wedge already hit it but ROK NCOs and officers have their families with them but they do not live in conditions nearly equivalent to the US military. Conscripts cannot have their families with them.
The US military is an all volunteer force that is dependent on people joining unlike the ROK that can make people join. Thus that is why high standards for living conditions for US soldiers and families is so important even in Korea.
The NY Times reporter needs to do some basic research because this relocation he says is currently happening to Camp Humphreys is not happening and in fact being delayed by the ROKs.
It would need much better to simply continue to wind down the number of US Army soldiers and etc stationed here, until the barest minimum has been achieved. Just enough to maintain the facilities and equipment that would be necessary in advance in case America had to once again send a large force here for some reason, currently unforeseeable. Then do whatever we can to make that barest minimum comfortable, down south of Seoul…
Regarding comments from nos. 5 and 7, sorry if what I wrote seemed confusing or inaccurate. ROK commisioned and noncommisioned officer do indeed have the opportunity that you describe, but it would be wrong to say that this is always taken. In fact, it is sometimes not taken when families are currently living in areas which are perceived to offer good educational opportunities, and it’s even more the case if the area to which the officer is being reassigned is viewed as being educationally inferior to where the family lives now.
In twelve years of work teaching Koreans, I have taught officers (Konyang University, Nonsan) and the children of officers; I am simply repeating what they have given as their reasons for being separated. Perhaps it would have been better to have written ‘This is obviously true for its draftees, but even in the case of some its career military personnel…’ in order to be more accurate.
I agree that there is a difference between how the US and Korea obtains its soldiers - in fact, that was an important element in the point I was making. I simply described attitudinal differences between the two groups. Folks, please don’t take what I wrote as a description of any preference to either. Frankly, I’m for packing the troops up and and shipping them off penninsula, not for building new bases of any type.
Ajumma loves it until SOFA personel begins to purchase real
estate. Especially if they’re Koreans or Ko-Ams with SOFA status!
Marry them Korean ladies and buy apartments off base!