Posts Tagged ‘Korea’

…kick ass.
If I do say so myself.

I stumbled across this on my PC.
This was back in 1995 doing the Manchu (9th Infantry Regiment) 25 mile march. We had 12 hours to do it, we did it in 9 1/2 hours.

Yeah, that’s me leading the pack.

My calves hurt for a week after this one. Humping the yamas in Korea tends to do that.

This was close to the 18 mile mark. The previous 6 miles was all up hill.

Hooah!

If anyone recognizes themselves in this photo, drop me a line.

But, if you are a student of history, or just some poor schmuck that lived through it, you’ll remember that we went through something like this back in the 90s.

I was stationed in the ROK from 1993-1996. I saw a lot of Korea’s political turmoil and went through a lot of alerts and in 1994, there was one particular one that was different from the rest. We actually pulled our ammo, loaded up all our shit, and made a mad dash towards the North. We came to a halt looking straight into North Korea. And we sat there. Thankfully, we didn’t have to start slinging lead down range. My point? We’ve done this already. They bit us in our ass for being nice and taking them at their word.

Let’s see how that works out this time around, eh? Please note, it’s another Democrat administration playing this game with them again. The Norks know who to play.

Some background into the previous fiasco in the 90s, you’ll notice about half way through that McCain “urged a number of additional military steps for the United States” that’s the part where we rattled our sabres:

North Korea Nuclear Crisis
February 1993 – June 1994

The nuclear challenge from North Korea in 1993 and 1994 focused on halting of the existing North Korean nuclear program, which by June 1994 was poised to leap forward in its production of weapons-grade plutonium.

In late 1991 North and South Korea signed an Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression, Exchanges and Cooperation and the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Joint Declaration called for a bilateral nuclear inspection regime to verify the denuclearization of the peninsula and in 1991 George Bush pulled American tactical nuclear weapons off the Korean Peninsula. The Declaration, which came into force on 19 February 1992, states that the two sides “shall not test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deployor use nuclear weapons,” and that they “shall not possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities.” When North Korean Deputy Prime Minister Kim Tal-Hyon visited South Korea for economic talks in July 1992, President Roh Tae Woo announced that full North-South Economic Cooperation would not be possible without resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. There was little progress toward the establishment of an inspection regime, and dialogue between the South and North stalled in the fall of 1992.

Pyongyang finally signed the accord with the IAEA in 1992. The North’s agreement to accept The North’s agreement to accept IAEA safeguards initiated a series of IAEA inspections of North Korea’s nuclear facilities. This promising development was halted by the North’s refusal to allow special inspections of two unreported facilities suspected of holding nuclear waste. Ignoring the South-North Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, North Korea refused IAEA inspections and operated nuclear reprocessing facilities, making the world suspicious of its nuclear intentions.

On February 10, 1993, North Korea refused to permit the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct special inspections, as permitted under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), of two undeclared nuclear-related sites to clarify discrepancies related to North Korea’s nuclear program, and on March 12, 1993, North Korea announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT effective on June 12, 1993, due to the insistence of the IAEA on exercising inspection rights under the NPT.

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And today, we have this gem:

US: North Korea suspends nuclear activities, takes food aid

As its population suffers widespread malnutrition, North Korea has agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and put a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests in exchange for 240,000 metric tons of food and the promise for potentially more to come.

U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that after two days of talks in Beijing last week the North has agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Inspectors to verify and monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment and confirm disablement of its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

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Korea heating up a tad. Kind of normal though. Whenever the US and South Korea do any combined forces drill, NorKo has a fit and declares that they will retaliate with the full might of the North Korean people, yada, yada.

US shows its power to NKorea with carrier drills
By ERIC TALMADGE

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON – If you want to let someone know you’re thinking about them, send a massive aircraft carrier.

The East Sea off the coast of the Korean peninsula roiled with U.S. and South Korean ships, submarines, fighter jets and helicopters Monday in a set of high-profile military maneuvers intended to show North Korea that it is being watched.

Military officials said that despite threats of retaliation, North Korea was staying clear. Most of the firepower for the four-day exercises — which North Korea condemns — has been flying off the decks of the USS George Washington, a U.S. supercarrier that can carry up to 70 aircraft and more than 5,000 sailors and aviators.

Washington and Seoul are hoping the drills — and the deployment of the most potent symbol of American military reach in the U.S. Navy — will send a powerful message to North Korea in the wake of the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. An international investigation determined the ship was sunk by torpedo, likely in a sneak attack by a North Korean submarine.

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60 years later.

I read the book Battle for Korea: The Associated Press History of the Korean Conflict not that long ago. If you are interested, it is an easy read with a lot of AP photos from the war. I recommend it.

The men and women that fought in that war suffered greatly at the hands of the North Koreans, Chinese and the weather. They endured what most people couldn’t even begin to imagine.

I spent three winters in Korea. I know exactly how cold it gets and have a frame of reference when I read their stories of the bitter cold that sweeps across Korea out of Siberia. I don’t complain about the heat anymore.

Here’s a few posts around the web related to this.

God Bless these men and women. They deserve far greater respect and admiration than they’ve gotten.

60th anniversary of the Korean War

June 25, 1950. [Updated]


More on Korea…

SKorea resumes psychological warfare with NKorea
By HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea blared propaganda broadcasts into North Korea on Tuesday after a six-year halt and Pyongyang said its troops were bracing for war as tensions spiked on the divided peninsula over the sinking of a warship.

One Seoul-based monitoring agency reported that North Korea’s leader ordered its 1.2 million-member military to get ready for combat after South Korea blamed the North for a March 26 torpedo strike that sank the warship Cheonan and killed 46 sailors. South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report.

The South’s restarting of psychological warfare operations – including radio broadcasts into the North and placing loudspeakers at the border to blast out propaganda – were among measures the government announced Monday to punish Pyongyang. The South is also slashing trade and denying permission to North Korean cargo ships to pass through South Korean waters.

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I’ve been a little remiss in posting. I am doing an audit, two last week and continuing one this week, so I was a bit busy.

I’ve decided to revisit the issue with Korea. It is a rather volatile one, and may turn into a hot war again fairly quick.

Remember, the two Korea’s are still at war with each other. There has never been a peace treaty signed between them, or us, for that matter. The U.S. is also technically still at war with North Korea.

We have 28,000 troops still stationed in Korea, which is merely a token of our commitment to South Korea. If NorKo decides to attack the South, we’re in it knee deep.

I pray that nothing of the sort happens, but NorKo will be made to answer for sinking the South Korean Corvette.

Let’s look at past and present events.

NKorea warns of war if punished for ship sinking
By JEAN H. LEE and HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Tensions deepened Thursday on the Korean peninsula as South Korea accused North Korea of firing a torpedo that sank a naval warship, killing 46 sailors in the country’s worst military disaster since the Korean War.

President Lee Myung-bak vowed “stern action” for the provocation following the release of long-awaited results from a multinational investigation into the March 26 sinking near the Koreas’ tense maritime border. North Korea, reacting swiftly, called the results a fabrication, and warned that any retaliation would trigger war. It continued to deny involvement in the sinking of the warship Cheonan.

“If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us …. we will answer to this with all-out war,” Col. Pak In Ho of North Korea’s navy told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.

An international civilian-military investigation team said evidence overwhelmingly proves a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo that caused a massive underwater blast that tore the Cheonan apart. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea waters, but 46 perished.

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Now look at this:

Obama to military commanders: Get ready in case North Korea makes a move
Allahpundit

Nothing’s happened yet but something big could happen soon, so let’s get a post up to make sure we’re all on the same page. Remember in March when that South Korean ship exploded, killing 46 sailors on board? It was no mystery who did it, but not until this past week did U.S. intelligence conclude that the orders to sink it came straight from the top.

The officials said they were increasingly convinced that Mr. Kim ordered the sinking of the ship, the Cheonan, to help secure the succession of his youngest son.

“We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military.”…

Under the leading theory of the American intelligence agencies, Mr. Kim ordered the attack to re-establish both his control and his credentials after a debilitating stroke two years ago, and by extension reinforcing his right to name his son Kim Jong-un as his successor…

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former official in the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s second term in office, noted that when Mr. Kim was on the rise three decades ago, “there were similar incidents designed to build his credibility” as a leader.

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