...in 2000 I put away my Soldier Suit for the last time, got on the Freedom Bird, and left the Korean Peninsula behind for a new life, where I wouldn't be leaving Mrs. Drang every year or so*...
*...for a year or so.
Two weeks later I realized I left that off.
Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts
Thursday, July 16, 2020
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Flash Back!
A little way into the Korean Basic, once we had gotten to the point that we could manage more advanced grammar, we had a lesson in which "Dad" came home from work to find his sons brawling, and yelled "POK DONG AH! SSA-OOH JI MA!"; colloquially translated, "What is this riot?! Stop fighting!"
Only we thought he was calling one of his sons "Pok Dong" -- riot or civil disturbance -- and did not quite grasp yet the nuances of Korean grammar; in this case, the imperative forms indicated by the "AH/MA" verbs endings.
(Confession digression: I are grammaring goodly in English, written or spoken, but if you require me to diagram a sentence, I'm heading for the door. I still have a hard time telling the difference between an adverb and an adjective, and I'm not clear on what a gerund is.)
So several years later I'm in Korea on my second tour, my first at the Second Infantry Division, and one weekend I scored a day pass to head down to Seoul. Maybe I was Christmas shopping, I don't recall, but I don't remember it as being particularly cold, so may not.
Anyway, the bus route went by several universities, including Yeon Sei Dae Hak ("tae hak" = university; commonly referred to as "Yeon Dae", which, confusingly, is also the word for "regiment".)
The student body was participating in their favorite intramural activity, loudly proclaiming their opinions on various and sundry matters of great concern, featuring a variety of special effects and training aids by both said student body and their critics, to wit: bricks, rocks, fire bombs, and tear gas.
In other words, rioting.*
I caught a whiff of said tear gas, leaving me a bit hoarse for a day or two. When a Korean acquaintance asked if I was well, I explained that I had gotten too close to the "pok dong" near Yeon Dai.
And was promptly corrected: "Not a pok dong, it was a demo!"
And that, boys and girls was my first exposure to the concept that, if the cause is exalted enough, any amount of riotous, destructive, behavior can be excused by the simple process of designating it a "demonstration" or "peaceful protest."
*See P.J. O'Rourke's hilarious essay "Seoul Man" from Rolling Stone, reproduced in his collection Holidays in Hell.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
69 years ago today
(Originally posted 06/25/2014)
..north Korea invaded the Republic of Korea.
The commie still claim that the ROKs invaded them, but when the USSR collapsed the Kremlin revealed that, in fact, Kim Il Sung asked Stalin for permission to move, and Stalin said "Go ahead." US Secretary of State Dean Acheson had just laid out the US Sphere of Interest, and neglected to include the Korean Peninsula...
Acheson did persuade President Harry Truman to intervene, sending in elements of the US Occupation Forces from Japan. Unfortunately, the US forces in Japan were pretty hollow, despite the prevailing feeling that, in the aftermath of defeating both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, that America was unbeatable.\
Said feeling, coupled with the idea that the Atomic Bomb had made war "impossible", may have had something to do with the stripping of all combat units in Japan to the bare bones: Regiments having three battalions on paper had two, battalion had two companies instead of three, companies had two platoons. Worse, weapons and equipment were either not present, or not maintained, and the troops were similarly poorly trained and in poor shape, mostly garrison troops.
Furthermore, the US Army military advisors in Korea had pronounced it "not tank country", and had therefore not only deprived the nascent ROK Army of armored fighting vehicles, but also of anti-tank weapons.
Which left the ROK Army with little but bundles of dynamite to fight Kim Il Sung's T-34s. They worked, sort of, but the ROKs petty much ran out of soldiers willing to do that sort of thing about the same time they ran out of dynamite. Unfortunately, the commies still had some tanks left, which came as a shock to the troops of the U S Army's Task Force Smith. That they were heavily outnumbered didn't help, but the fact that the commies were better equipped and better trained would undermine the confidence of the US forces for months to come.
Driving the commies to the Am Nok River and then being pushed back by every Chinaman in the world didn't help.
Previous posts from 6/25:
..north Korea invaded the Republic of Korea.
The commie still claim that the ROKs invaded them, but when the USSR collapsed the Kremlin revealed that, in fact, Kim Il Sung asked Stalin for permission to move, and Stalin said "Go ahead." US Secretary of State Dean Acheson had just laid out the US Sphere of Interest, and neglected to include the Korean Peninsula...
Acheson did persuade President Harry Truman to intervene, sending in elements of the US Occupation Forces from Japan. Unfortunately, the US forces in Japan were pretty hollow, despite the prevailing feeling that, in the aftermath of defeating both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, that America was unbeatable.\
Said feeling, coupled with the idea that the Atomic Bomb had made war "impossible", may have had something to do with the stripping of all combat units in Japan to the bare bones: Regiments having three battalions on paper had two, battalion had two companies instead of three, companies had two platoons. Worse, weapons and equipment were either not present, or not maintained, and the troops were similarly poorly trained and in poor shape, mostly garrison troops.
Furthermore, the US Army military advisors in Korea had pronounced it "not tank country", and had therefore not only deprived the nascent ROK Army of armored fighting vehicles, but also of anti-tank weapons.
Which left the ROK Army with little but bundles of dynamite to fight Kim Il Sung's T-34s. They worked, sort of, but the ROKs petty much ran out of soldiers willing to do that sort of thing about the same time they ran out of dynamite. Unfortunately, the commies still had some tanks left, which came as a shock to the troops of the U S Army's Task Force Smith. That they were heavily outnumbered didn't help, but the fact that the commies were better equipped and better trained would undermine the confidence of the US forces for months to come.
Driving the commies to the Am Nok River and then being pushed back by every Chinaman in the world didn't help.
Previous posts from 6/25:
- 65 years ago...
- The Clue Meter: Three-score and four years ago...
- 6/25+61 Years
- 60 Years Ago Today
- Another year older...
- 58 Years Ago Today...
- Tomahawk!
- They just don't make commie thugs like they used to
- More north Korean stuff
- Korea (AKA "Drang's Greatest Hit")
- More on Korea (Sequel to above)
Thursday, June 14, 2018
June 14th...
...is the US Army's Birthday.
Also Flag Day.
I hear it's also President Trump's birthday, although TBH I don't generally celebrate the birthday of folks I don't know personally. (Note it, sure, but celebrate, no.)
Here are a few pics I just dug out of the archive:
Team Spirit, 1986:
My Motley Crew for Team Spirit 1986. 3 KATUSAs and two round eyes, on a mountain for two weeks. Part of why I laugh when I hear people speak nostalgically about MREs, or act like ramyun* is a gourmet delight...
I wish I could remember this guy's name, he was a Ground Surveillance Radar operator augmenting my team. Good guy, despite the (mostly) good-natured rivalry between the "Electronic Grunts" and us SIGINT Geeks.
Here I am, a year or so later at Ft. Ord, the 7th Infantry Division (Light)
"Fight Light, Freeze at Night!"(I can pinpoint this as to date because I am wearing OD green "jungle fatigue" trousers, still authorized for field wear at the time. They got destroyed at the National Training Center soon after this.)
My buddy, Steve W. If you recognize him, have him drop me a line.
IIRC, Steve M. (on the left) and Dave J. (on the right.) No, that's not a duffel bag full of poagie bait, it's the 50+ pound direction finding antenna.
If The Steves and Dave look like drowned rats in these, it's because it was raining non-stop. We were supposed to be dropped in an airmobile insertion, move cross-country, and then get picked up. Somewhere in there, the skies opened up and the pick up got cancelled, and we spend a miserable night under poncho hooches. (Actually, IIRC, it was one big hooch and we pulled the Heinlein Starship Troopers thing where we huddled together...)
This is my ruck. There are many like it, but this one was mine.
PRC77 radio with KY57 crypto device, a week's worth of batteries, MREs and water, poncho and poncho liner,
and one change of socks.
≈125 pounds.
Tactical Hipsters can speak of their "woobie" like it's some sort of security blanket, but I spent too many nights freezing under one to get all misty-eyed.
Airmobile insertion, waiting for the bird to pull pitch...
All the pics (except the one at the top, taken by Mrs. Drang), were taken on film, before consumer-priced digital cameras were even science fiction. The ones from Ft Ord were taken with a Vivitar pocket 35mm, that just fits in a 20 round M16 magazine pouch. I'm pretty sure the ones from Korea were taken with a Nikon SLR, otherwise I couldn't have gotten that time-delay group pic. No idea what lens either camera had/has.
*Ramyen -- or "namyun" -- is Korean, Ramen is Japanese...
Also Flag Day.
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| Photo ©2010 & 2018 Mrs. Drang & The Cluemeter. |
Here are a few pics I just dug out of the archive:
Team Spirit, 1986:
 |
| Photo ©1986 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
 |
| Photo ©1986 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
 |
| Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
 |
Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
 |
Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
If The Steves and Dave look like drowned rats in these, it's because it was raining non-stop. We were supposed to be dropped in an airmobile insertion, move cross-country, and then get picked up. Somewhere in there, the skies opened up and the pick up got cancelled, and we spend a miserable night under poncho hooches. (Actually, IIRC, it was one big hooch and we pulled the Heinlein Starship Troopers thing where we huddled together...)
 |
Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
≈125 pounds.
Tactical Hipsters can speak of their "woobie" like it's some sort of security blanket, but I spent too many nights freezing under one to get all misty-eyed.
 |
Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
 |
| Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter. |
*Ramyen -- or "namyun" -- is Korean, Ramen is Japanese...
Friday, April 27, 2018
20 years, down the drain
And just like that, my Army career was rendered irrelevant.
Pacific Stars and Stripes: Moon and Kim Discuss Denuclearization at Historic Summit
BBC: North Korea's Kim Jong-un Pledges 'New History' With South Korea
The Times: Koreas Poised For ‘Great Transition in World History’
Voice of America: North, South Korean Leaders Hold Historic Meeting
Not really, of course.
Note, by the way, that Kim and Moon did not sign a peace treaty, which some of the reporting implied happened. It sounds like they agreed to look into it later this year.
No, what is so momentous is the fact that the heads of state met: Neither country has heretofore even acknowledged that the other existed legitimately. North Korea has always insisted on meeting with the USA alone, while the USA refuses to meet separately, and officially designates it "north Korea", with a small "n".
As I was explaining to a colleague in The Salt Mines, I served for 20 years, 3 months, and 3 days, and almost 9 of those years were in the Republic of Korea. I spent a fair amount of time on, or within rifle-shot of, the Demilitarized Zone.
One year I was Watch NCO at Field Station Korea; this was under Bush 41, when Mrs. Drang and I were still newlyweds, and de-nuclearization talks on The Peninsula were proceeding well enough that every installation in the republic of Korea was required to make plans for how to deal with commie inspectors.
At a facility that was a wholly-owned subsidiary, so to speak, of the National Security Agency (which was still commonly referred to as "No Such Agency" at the start of my career) you might assume this resulted in some angst.
You would be correct, but it might surprise you that the Secret Squirrel contingent just read the instructions, and made plans accordingly. (Collection operations would be suspended, equipment turned of, and contents of filing cabinets and the like would be covered with kraft paper. IIRC, things would filed so that the kraft paper could be pulled back to reveal files, but they would be set up in such a manner that nothing could be learned of the contents of files by so doing. They would not have the right toinspect read the files, just do a quick scan with the Mark I Eyeball, and wave a Geiger Counter over it, if they wanted.)
(This was the first use I saw of an Access Card scanner; some genius covered those boxes with kraft paper...)
No, the person who really got all spun up was the NCOIC of the Information Technology Section. (Whatever we called it back on 1990.)
Mind you, that doesn't mean we were all impressed, those of us who had already invested a significant amount of time and effort into the "Korean Mission" fully expected the whole thing to come to naught, which it did.
So.
My standard answer regarding peace on the Korean Peninsula remains "I'll believe it when I see it", but I must admit, for the first time since 1980 I do feel some hope.
Pacific Stars and Stripes: Moon and Kim Discuss Denuclearization at Historic Summit
BBC: North Korea's Kim Jong-un Pledges 'New History' With South Korea
The Times: Koreas Poised For ‘Great Transition in World History’
Voice of America: North, South Korean Leaders Hold Historic Meeting
 |
| Moon and Kim Photo from The Small Wars Journal |
 |
| Moon and Kim Photo from The Small Wars Journal |
Note, by the way, that Kim and Moon did not sign a peace treaty, which some of the reporting implied happened. It sounds like they agreed to look into it later this year.
No, what is so momentous is the fact that the heads of state met: Neither country has heretofore even acknowledged that the other existed legitimately. North Korea has always insisted on meeting with the USA alone, while the USA refuses to meet separately, and officially designates it "north Korea", with a small "n".
As I was explaining to a colleague in The Salt Mines, I served for 20 years, 3 months, and 3 days, and almost 9 of those years were in the Republic of Korea. I spent a fair amount of time on, or within rifle-shot of, the Demilitarized Zone.
One year I was Watch NCO at Field Station Korea; this was under Bush 41, when Mrs. Drang and I were still newlyweds, and de-nuclearization talks on The Peninsula were proceeding well enough that every installation in the republic of Korea was required to make plans for how to deal with commie inspectors.
At a facility that was a wholly-owned subsidiary, so to speak, of the National Security Agency (which was still commonly referred to as "No Such Agency" at the start of my career) you might assume this resulted in some angst.
You would be correct, but it might surprise you that the Secret Squirrel contingent just read the instructions, and made plans accordingly. (Collection operations would be suspended, equipment turned of, and contents of filing cabinets and the like would be covered with kraft paper. IIRC, things would filed so that the kraft paper could be pulled back to reveal files, but they would be set up in such a manner that nothing could be learned of the contents of files by so doing. They would not have the right to
(This was the first use I saw of an Access Card scanner; some genius covered those boxes with kraft paper...)
No, the person who really got all spun up was the NCOIC of the Information Technology Section. (Whatever we called it back on 1990.)
Mind you, that doesn't mean we were all impressed, those of us who had already invested a significant amount of time and effort into the "Korean Mission" fully expected the whole thing to come to naught, which it did.
So.
My standard answer regarding peace on the Korean Peninsula remains "I'll believe it when I see it", but I must admit, for the first time since 1980 I do feel some hope.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Damnit, 2016!
Just had to get one last shot in: William Christopher, Father Mulcahy on ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 84 - The New York Times
William Christopher on IMDb.
William Christopher on IMDb.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
"Mount Paektu is tall!"
In Korea, when two people say the same thing at the same time they say "Paektusan nop'ida!", Mount Paektu is tall!" Not sure why, but then, why do we say "Jinx!" or proclaim that the other guy owes you a coke?
Anyway. Mount Paektu is in north Korea, and is the tallest mountain on the peninsula. Kim Il Sung was allegedly born there, which makes it sacred to north Koreans, despite commies supposedly being atheists. (Then, there is that whole dynastic dictatorship thing...)
And despite being hundreds of miles from the nearest joint between two tectonic plates, with no apparent reason for there to be a volcano there, NatGeo now tells us that Sacred Volcano in North Korea May Be Waiting to Blow.
Apparently there is a "mushy mixture of liquid, gas, crystals, and rock" under what I always heard was a extinct volcano.
Because, you know, just what north Korea needs is a volcano going off in the backyard...
Anyway. Mount Paektu is in north Korea, and is the tallest mountain on the peninsula. Kim Il Sung was allegedly born there, which makes it sacred to north Koreans, despite commies supposedly being atheists. (Then, there is that whole dynastic dictatorship thing...)
And despite being hundreds of miles from the nearest joint between two tectonic plates, with no apparent reason for there to be a volcano there, NatGeo now tells us that Sacred Volcano in North Korea May Be Waiting to Blow.
Apparently there is a "mushy mixture of liquid, gas, crystals, and rock" under what I always heard was a extinct volcano.
Because, you know, just what north Korea needs is a volcano going off in the backyard...
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
About those north Korean defectors...
This is as good a backgrounder/analysis as I've found: If Kim Jong-un can’t trust his own spies and assassins, who can he trust? (updates)
I could probably get more in-depth info with a couple of phone calls, but I wouldn't be able to post it...
Not surprising that the commies are squawking more over the mass defections of the staff of restaurants than they are over a Reconnaissance Bureau Colonel or embassy staff, they wouldn't want to admit to the latter.
That article ends with many links to further info, but here are some more:
What's the big deal with north Korean restaurants? The commies need hard currency. They used to get it running Pachinko parlors in Japan, until the Yakuza moved in. (I leave it to you to decide what it says about an allegedly ruthless dictatorship's intelligence/assassination bureau when it gets run out of a business by the mob.)
Anyway, the government started opening restaurants in supposedly supportive countries, staffed by allegedly loyal subjects, who discovered that life outside Chosun wasn't all that bad... in fact, it beats the hell out of the worker's paradise...
And then the host countries stopped the transfer of the hard currency.
And then the staff pops up on TV in the Republic of Korea...
I could probably get more in-depth info with a couple of phone calls, but I wouldn't be able to post it...
Not surprising that the commies are squawking more over the mass defections of the staff of restaurants than they are over a Reconnaissance Bureau Colonel or embassy staff, they wouldn't want to admit to the latter.
That article ends with many links to further info, but here are some more:
- Defections Rock North Korea - The Daily Beast
- North Korea calls mass defection 'kidnapping'
- Before defecting, North Korean waitresses shopped for backpacks | Reuters
- North Korea Threatens South Korea Over 13 Defectors - The New York Times
- Defector TV: the North Korean escapees who sparked a craze | Television & radio | The Guardian
What's the big deal with north Korean restaurants? The commies need hard currency. They used to get it running Pachinko parlors in Japan, until the Yakuza moved in. (I leave it to you to decide what it says about an allegedly ruthless dictatorship's intelligence/assassination bureau when it gets run out of a business by the mob.)
Anyway, the government started opening restaurants in supposedly supportive countries, staffed by allegedly loyal subjects, who discovered that life outside Chosun wasn't all that bad... in fact, it beats the hell out of the worker's paradise...
And then the host countries stopped the transfer of the hard currency.
And then the staff pops up on TV in the Republic of Korea...
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
"Rocket Salad", you say?
U.S. serves up Korean rocket salad in war drill response to North's nuclear threats | Reuters
Or, north of there, during the same exercise, you can be driving down the road that runs along the ridgeline paralleling the DMZ and have a small piece of metal come up and pierce the hydraulic line for the brakes of same HMMWV, leaving you stranded for the night until they can get a tow vehicle up to you.
Fun times, fun times.
Well, yes, many more things to do. You can drive your HMMWV through a ford, and have a rock fly up into the engine compartment and knock off all the blades of the fan, which are theoretically a flexible plastic.
There's more to do in South Korea's heavily forested Rocket Valley, just a few miles from the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, than fire rockets. In quieter times, people tend vegetable patches along ice-cold streams.
But on Wednesday, a U.S. artillery brigade based in the South heated things up, launching a barrage of rockets close to the border town of Cheorwon.
Or, north of there, during the same exercise, you can be driving down the road that runs along the ridgeline paralleling the DMZ and have a small piece of metal come up and pierce the hydraulic line for the brakes of same HMMWV, leaving you stranded for the night until they can get a tow vehicle up to you.
Fun times, fun times.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Another item from the inbox
Is N. Korean airline world’s worst? It may be the quirkiest | The Seattle Times
...North Korea’s airline has earned a singular distinction: It’s been ranked the world’s worst airline for four straight years.
Air Koryo is the only carrier to have been awarded just one star in rankings released recently by the UK-based SkyTrax consultancy agency. More than 180 airlines are included in the five-star ranking system, which is widely considered the global benchmark of airline standards.
Some experts and frequent Air Koryo passengers disagree with the “world’s worst” title. The airline is a definitely a unique ride, but fairly reliable, they say. The SkyTrax ratings are focused on service and not safety.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
"How a defector from North Korea realized almost everything she learned about her country was a lie | National Post"
Via Instapundit: How a defector from North Korea realized almost everything she learned about her country was a lie | National Post
It would be easy to think that I managed to miss out on all the Big Things that occurred during my military career, not to mention the fact that they never seemed to think that I would be of much help in the Global War on Terror.
Then I read things like this, and remember that, while I may not have helped bring down a loathsome tyranny, I was part of the effort to prevent it's expansion.
I can live with that.
It would be easy to think that I managed to miss out on all the Big Things that occurred during my military career, not to mention the fact that they never seemed to think that I would be of much help in the Global War on Terror.
Then I read things like this, and remember that, while I may not have helped bring down a loathsome tyranny, I was part of the effort to prevent it's expansion.
I can live with that.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
WTF? Blogger Edition
A while back I posted a review of The Birth of Korean Cool, by Euny Hong, which was mostly a link to a Via Meadia review of same, with my own observations.
Now it's gone. Poof! Disappeared, along with comments. (Which were about the mechanism of blogging, not the book.)
I'm pretty sure I haven't deleted any published posts.
I wonder if I deleted what looked like an untitled draft...?
Crap. See, this is why people turn into hoarders, you never know when the useless thing might turn out to be important...
Now it's gone. Poof! Disappeared, along with comments. (Which were about the mechanism of blogging, not the book.)
I'm pretty sure I haven't deleted any published posts.
I wonder if I deleted what looked like an untitled draft...?
Crap. See, this is why people turn into hoarders, you never know when the useless thing might turn out to be important...
Monday, September 1, 2014
This Kind Of War, Kindle Deal!
TR Ferhenbach's classic tale of the US Army's Korean War experience, This Kind of War, is available on Kindle for $1.99.
My hardcopy edition was printed in the Eighth US Army print shop in Seoul. I had been told by a tin-foil hat roommate in college that it was on "the official list of banned books", largely I think, because of the way it described the way the Army slid from being victorious in WWII, through going soft and hollow as an Army of Occupation, and then fumbling it's way through the first year of the Korean War. (As far as I can tell, a unit he was in had photocopied the chapter titled "Lost Legions" and used it as an Officer Professional Development reading...)
As noted in the Amazon comments, the original subtitle of the book was "A Study In Unpreparedness."
Which suggests that anyone with an interest in military affairs should take another look at it...
My hardcopy edition was printed in the Eighth US Army print shop in Seoul. I had been told by a tin-foil hat roommate in college that it was on "the official list of banned books", largely I think, because of the way it described the way the Army slid from being victorious in WWII, through going soft and hollow as an Army of Occupation, and then fumbling it's way through the first year of the Korean War. (As far as I can tell, a unit he was in had photocopied the chapter titled "Lost Legions" and used it as an Officer Professional Development reading...)
As noted in the Amazon comments, the original subtitle of the book was "A Study In Unpreparedness."
Which suggests that anyone with an interest in military affairs should take another look at it...
Monday, August 18, 2014
The crap this could start...
So, it was a long, hot afternoon/evening at work, and I had just about finished a tall, cold glass of iced tea as described in the post Mmm-mm, good!, which is to say a mix of 3 parts iced tea/lemonade to one part vodka, when I saw a post on Facepsace in which someone was mocking the fact that the AT-4 rocket launcher, AKA "SMAW", has pictographic instructions on the side that basically says, like the M18 Claymore Mine, "Front Towards Enemy."
The post consisted of a photo of the instruction, with a caption that said, essentially ""This is here because someone somewhere screwed up!"
First off, I disagree. As I commented on the Facespace thread, the way these weapons are issued (like the claymroe mine, and the AT-4's predecessor M72 LAW rocket) "as a round of ammunition." What this means to the average soldier is that they might find themselves in the midst of the balloon going up and being handed a weapon that they know exists but never saw before the current "cluster flop", to quote the edited-for-television version of Heartbreak Ridge.1
How do I know? Well, early one morning the Second Infantry Division had a divisional alert, and my company commander announced that we were going to hit the Ammo Supply Point bunkers -- which were conveniently located on the back 40, so to speak, of our dinky little post2, and actually practice our load-out.
Now, I haven't talked a lot about the systems I dealt with in the Army. Suffice to say, the AN/TSQ-138 Trailblazer did not belong in Korea. It was huge. The five-ton truck itself was too big to get where it needed to go to operate in the mountains of South Korea, the generator trailer was adding insult to injury. Inspired by an off-the-cuff remark I made one day ("Getting these up the mountains here is like an orca going up a fish ladder") I was about to name the five (count 'em! Five!) systems I had Shamu, Namu, Keiko, Willy, and... I forget. Wilma, maybe.
These things were HUUUUUGE!!!
We objected to their presence, Big Army said "The Second Infantry Division is a Heavy Division, ergo, you get Heavy Division SIGINT assets." Big Army is a bureaucracy, ergo, doctrinaire, ergo, ignored the fact that most Heavy Divisions do not consist of two mechanized infantry battalion, two armored (tank) battalion, and two light infantry battalions. (Plus, let us not forget, a National Guard Heavy Brigade, and a ROK Army Mechanized/Armored Brigade3.)
Anyway. Come The Day, Division alert, the CO, the First Sergeant, the Platoon leaders and Platoon Sergeants all go to the ammo bunkers and prepare to walk through loading ammo...
...Holy crap. Each of my five teams has as much ammo assigned as an infantry platoon.4 Including crates of (IIRC) four (4)5AT-4 rockets, one per team.
And we only have enough soldiers to field three teams.
Anyway, this is how I know that the reason Big Army puts stupid pictographic instructions on some weapons is that Big Army may be bureaucratic and doctrinaire, but it is smart enough to realize that, when Specialist Schmuckatello needs to shoot the Godless Communist Hordes with an AT-4, he may very well have never even have held the frigging thing in his hands before, let alone done a familiarization range with the damned thing, so he might need the instructions to take into account that he might be a little rushed...
Anyhoo, by way of making a short story long, I posted a shorter version of this to the thread on Facespace, and added something about how the girly-girl training NCO of the company also drove the company command track, and held high score for the battalion on the Mk 19 grenade launcher. Except that I had a brain cramp, and had to look up the nomenclature of the damned grenade launcher, which led me to this photo:
That photo is of Mexican troops on a checkpoint with a Mark 19 grenade launcher mounted in the bed of a Chevy Silverado pick 'em up truck. The Wikipedia article on the Mark 19 grenade launcher says that the Mark 19 Grenade Launcher has been "Used extensively by the (presumably Mexican) army in the Mexican drug war."
And I can't help think that all you'd have to do is Tweet that pic and claim it was Ferguson, MO, or Brownsville,TX...
2. Camp Essayons. The cognoscenti will recognize from the name that it was originally a combat engineer post. (Except that, like a lot of the military installation in Korea, it was originally Japanese) During my first three tours in Korea it was an artillery post, then division swapped untis around to more precisely align with wartime missions, which is only surprising when you realize that it didn't happen until the mid-1990s.
3. IIRC, it was the Fifth Mechanized Brigade, but there is no reference to this in current Tables of Organization., Which is no surprise.
4. The explanation seems to involve being besieged on a mountaintop, which is not exactly reassuring...
5. A crate might have held five rockets. I don't remember for sure.
The post consisted of a photo of the instruction, with a caption that said, essentially ""This is here because someone somewhere screwed up!"
First off, I disagree. As I commented on the Facespace thread, the way these weapons are issued (like the claymroe mine, and the AT-4's predecessor M72 LAW rocket) "as a round of ammunition." What this means to the average soldier is that they might find themselves in the midst of the balloon going up and being handed a weapon that they know exists but never saw before the current "cluster flop", to quote the edited-for-television version of Heartbreak Ridge.1
How do I know? Well, early one morning the Second Infantry Division had a divisional alert, and my company commander announced that we were going to hit the Ammo Supply Point bunkers -- which were conveniently located on the back 40, so to speak, of our dinky little post2, and actually practice our load-out.
Now, I haven't talked a lot about the systems I dealt with in the Army. Suffice to say, the AN/TSQ-138 Trailblazer did not belong in Korea. It was huge. The five-ton truck itself was too big to get where it needed to go to operate in the mountains of South Korea, the generator trailer was adding insult to injury. Inspired by an off-the-cuff remark I made one day ("Getting these up the mountains here is like an orca going up a fish ladder") I was about to name the five (count 'em! Five!) systems I had Shamu, Namu, Keiko, Willy, and... I forget. Wilma, maybe.
These things were HUUUUUGE!!!
We objected to their presence, Big Army said "The Second Infantry Division is a Heavy Division, ergo, you get Heavy Division SIGINT assets." Big Army is a bureaucracy, ergo, doctrinaire, ergo, ignored the fact that most Heavy Divisions do not consist of two mechanized infantry battalion, two armored (tank) battalion, and two light infantry battalions. (Plus, let us not forget, a National Guard Heavy Brigade, and a ROK Army Mechanized/Armored Brigade3.)
Anyway. Come The Day, Division alert, the CO, the First Sergeant, the Platoon leaders and Platoon Sergeants all go to the ammo bunkers and prepare to walk through loading ammo...
...Holy crap. Each of my five teams has as much ammo assigned as an infantry platoon.4 Including crates of (IIRC) four (4)5AT-4 rockets, one per team.
And we only have enough soldiers to field three teams.
Anyway, this is how I know that the reason Big Army puts stupid pictographic instructions on some weapons is that Big Army may be bureaucratic and doctrinaire, but it is smart enough to realize that, when Specialist Schmuckatello needs to shoot the Godless Communist Hordes with an AT-4, he may very well have never even have held the frigging thing in his hands before, let alone done a familiarization range with the damned thing, so he might need the instructions to take into account that he might be a little rushed...
Anyhoo, by way of making a short story long, I posted a shorter version of this to the thread on Facespace, and added something about how the girly-girl training NCO of the company also drove the company command track, and held high score for the battalion on the Mk 19 grenade launcher. Except that I had a brain cramp, and had to look up the nomenclature of the damned grenade launcher, which led me to this photo:
 |
| From Borderland Beat: Sedena Coverup Continues |
And I can't help think that all you'd have to do is Tweet that pic and claim it was Ferguson, MO, or Brownsville,TX...
***
1. The Marine Corps keeps trying to claim they had a piece of that battle, but a quick check of maps shows that it's a specious claim. Probably they wee afraid of having the movie makers change it from a Marine movie to an Army one. Like Hollywood would show the Army any love. 2. Camp Essayons. The cognoscenti will recognize from the name that it was originally a combat engineer post. (Except that, like a lot of the military installation in Korea, it was originally Japanese) During my first three tours in Korea it was an artillery post, then division swapped untis around to more precisely align with wartime missions, which is only surprising when you realize that it didn't happen until the mid-1990s.
3. IIRC, it was the Fifth Mechanized Brigade, but there is no reference to this in current Tables of Organization., Which is no surprise.
4. The explanation seems to involve being besieged on a mountaintop, which is not exactly reassuring...
5. A crate might have held five rockets. I don't remember for sure.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
This'll be interesting...
So, up jumped a monkey from a coconut grove, er, popped a proposal for a unit reunion in Tacoma.
Now, the thing with have served 20 years in a (mostly) peacetime Army is that you tend to move around, and in most MOSs you don't really get a lot of chance to put down metaphorical roots. The "career model" I had explained to me somewhere along the line is that, in a 20 year career, a soldier will serve one overseas "long tour" of three years, and one overseas "short tour" of one year. The Army being a big bureaucracy some will do two long tours and no short tour, some will do two short tours, guys are always pulling strings to get an extra short tour.
Then we have Fort Brag, NC, often called the most appropriately named installation in the US Military, to which a guy will report straight out of AIT and never leave until it's time to retire. Theoretically, he does an overseas tour in there; if he's really plugged in, it'll be with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy, so he can stay on jump status. If less plugged in, he'll go to Korea for a year. (No kidding, I knew First Sergeants and Sergeants Major who were on their first overseas tour ever.)
Now, being an MI Geek means that assignment models and theories about career development go out the window. Especially if you're a Korean linguist, what with effectively NO overseas long tours. The longest I was stateside was not quite two and a half years, at Ft Ord, and that was because the Seventh Infantry Division (Light) had priority to make the Light Division Concept work, or something. (As Alton Brown might say, that's another blog post.)
There were also slots in Hawaii. Hawaii sort of counted as an overseas tour, simply because it costs so much to move someone there and back. People assigned to Hawaii often need to be removed by the US Marshals Service because, well, it's Hawaii...
So, that leaves the assignments in Korea. Which, at the time, were all "short" and all considered "hardship." Oh, you could apply to extend, and they practically begged you to, and I am probably the only 98GxLKP SIGINT/Electronic Warfare Voice Intercept Operator - Korean1 to apply four times, on three different tours, for extension and to be turned down all four times.2
Anyway, in 20 years I had 7 overseas tours, plus various and sundry TDYs and exercises, for almost 9 years in Korea. So the idea of a "reunion" is a little odd, what with all that moving around, the confirmed list has a few people I never heard of, and a bunch I was last assigned with 20 or 30 years ago, but I always heard their names. I spent a total of maybe three years assigned to this unit.
So, anyway, if you hear of a riot in Tacoma Friday night, the creaky old MI Geeks had nothing to do with it...
35S 35P SIGINT Linguist. Gee, they actually improved something! {Corrected}
2. The first time the company clerk lost my paperwork. The second time I was heading to Ft Ord and the 7<th ID, see above comments regarding Light Division workability. The third and fourth times I don't know why they did it, but it led to my meeting Mrs. Drang, so that worked out after all. The only time I was successful in getting extended was when I didn't want to, I was retiring and they kept me in Korea for an extra six months. On flight status, collecting flight pay...
3. No, there is no "three" above. I made a couple of minor corrections to this post, including actually publishing it; apparently, I saved it as a draft, and tried to link the draft on facebook, which doesn't work too good.
Now, the thing with have served 20 years in a (mostly) peacetime Army is that you tend to move around, and in most MOSs you don't really get a lot of chance to put down metaphorical roots. The "career model" I had explained to me somewhere along the line is that, in a 20 year career, a soldier will serve one overseas "long tour" of three years, and one overseas "short tour" of one year. The Army being a big bureaucracy some will do two long tours and no short tour, some will do two short tours, guys are always pulling strings to get an extra short tour.
Then we have Fort Brag, NC, often called the most appropriately named installation in the US Military, to which a guy will report straight out of AIT and never leave until it's time to retire. Theoretically, he does an overseas tour in there; if he's really plugged in, it'll be with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy, so he can stay on jump status. If less plugged in, he'll go to Korea for a year. (No kidding, I knew First Sergeants and Sergeants Major who were on their first overseas tour ever.)
Now, being an MI Geek means that assignment models and theories about career development go out the window. Especially if you're a Korean linguist, what with effectively NO overseas long tours. The longest I was stateside was not quite two and a half years, at Ft Ord, and that was because the Seventh Infantry Division (Light) had priority to make the Light Division Concept work, or something. (As Alton Brown might say, that's another blog post.)
There were also slots in Hawaii. Hawaii sort of counted as an overseas tour, simply because it costs so much to move someone there and back. People assigned to Hawaii often need to be removed by the US Marshals Service because, well, it's Hawaii...
So, that leaves the assignments in Korea. Which, at the time, were all "short" and all considered "hardship." Oh, you could apply to extend, and they practically begged you to, and I am probably the only 98GxLKP SIGINT/Electronic Warfare Voice Intercept Operator - Korean1 to apply four times, on three different tours, for extension and to be turned down all four times.2
Anyway, in 20 years I had 7 overseas tours, plus various and sundry TDYs and exercises, for almost 9 years in Korea. So the idea of a "reunion" is a little odd, what with all that moving around, the confirmed list has a few people I never heard of, and a bunch I was last assigned with 20 or 30 years ago, but I always heard their names. I spent a total of maybe three years assigned to this unit.
So, anyway, if you hear of a riot in Tacoma Friday night, the creaky old MI Geeks had nothing to do with it...
***
1. Now 2. The first time the company clerk lost my paperwork. The second time I was heading to Ft Ord and the 7<th ID, see above comments regarding Light Division workability. The third and fourth times I don't know why they did it, but it led to my meeting Mrs. Drang, so that worked out after all. The only time I was successful in getting extended was when I didn't want to, I was retiring and they kept me in Korea for an extra six months. On flight status, collecting flight pay...
3. No, there is no "three" above. I made a couple of minor corrections to this post, including actually publishing it; apparently, I saved it as a draft, and tried to link the draft on facebook, which doesn't work too good.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Three-score and four years ago...
..north Korea invaded the Republic of Korea.
The commie still claim that the ROKs invaded them, but when the USSR collapsed the Kremlin revealed that, in fact, Kim Il Sung asked Stalin for permission to move, and Stalin said "Go ahead." US Secretary of State Dean Acheson had just laid out the US Sphere of Interest, and neglected to include the Korean Peninsula...
Acheson did persuade President Harry Truman to intervene, sending in elements of the US Occupation Forces from Japan. Unfortunately, the US forces in Japan were pretty hollow, despite the prevailing feeling that, in the aftermath of defeating both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, that America was unbeatable.\
Said feeling, coupled with the idea that the Atomic Bomb had made war "impossible", may have had something to do with the stripping of all combat units in Japan to the bare bones: Regiments having three battalions on paper had two, battalion had two companies instead of three, companies had two platoons. Worse, weapons and equipment were either not present, or not maintained, and the troops were similarly poorly trained and in poor shape, mostly garrison troops.
Furthermore, the US Army military advisors in Korea had pronounced it "not tank country", and had therefore not only deprived the nascent ROK Army of armored fighting vehicles, but also of anti-tank weapons.
Which left the ROK Army with little but bundles of dynamite to fight Kim Il Sung's T-34s. They worked, sort of, but the ROKs petty much ran out of soldiers willing to do that sort of thing about the same time they ran out of dynamite. Unfortunately, the commies still had some tanks left, which came as a shock to the troops of the U S Army's Task Force Smith. That they were heavily outnumbered didn't help, but the fact that the commies were better equipped and better trained would undermine the confidence of the US forces for months to come.
Driving the commies to the Am Nok River and then being pushed back by every Chinaman in the world didn't help.
Previous posts from 6/25:
Also of possible interest:
The commie still claim that the ROKs invaded them, but when the USSR collapsed the Kremlin revealed that, in fact, Kim Il Sung asked Stalin for permission to move, and Stalin said "Go ahead." US Secretary of State Dean Acheson had just laid out the US Sphere of Interest, and neglected to include the Korean Peninsula...
Acheson did persuade President Harry Truman to intervene, sending in elements of the US Occupation Forces from Japan. Unfortunately, the US forces in Japan were pretty hollow, despite the prevailing feeling that, in the aftermath of defeating both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, that America was unbeatable.\
Said feeling, coupled with the idea that the Atomic Bomb had made war "impossible", may have had something to do with the stripping of all combat units in Japan to the bare bones: Regiments having three battalions on paper had two, battalion had two companies instead of three, companies had two platoons. Worse, weapons and equipment were either not present, or not maintained, and the troops were similarly poorly trained and in poor shape, mostly garrison troops.
Furthermore, the US Army military advisors in Korea had pronounced it "not tank country", and had therefore not only deprived the nascent ROK Army of armored fighting vehicles, but also of anti-tank weapons.
Which left the ROK Army with little but bundles of dynamite to fight Kim Il Sung's T-34s. They worked, sort of, but the ROKs petty much ran out of soldiers willing to do that sort of thing about the same time they ran out of dynamite. Unfortunately, the commies still had some tanks left, which came as a shock to the troops of the U S Army's Task Force Smith. That they were heavily outnumbered didn't help, but the fact that the commies were better equipped and better trained would undermine the confidence of the US forces for months to come.
Driving the commies to the Am Nok River and then being pushed back by every Chinaman in the world didn't help.
Previous posts from 6/25:
Also of possible interest:
- Tomahawk!
- They just don't make commie thugs like they used to
- More north Korean stuff
- Korea (AKA "Drang's Greatest Hit")
- More on Korea (Sequel to above)
Friday, July 26, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
More on Korea
First, links to a couple of articles:
The headline refers to "Shock" video and photos; I'm afraid that I'm familiar enough with the tales recounted here that I find them sad, tragic, but not "shocking."
North Korea is covered withconcentration "reeducation" camps, where the inmates, often imprisoned for the heinous crime of being related to someone who failed to bow deeply enough on front of Kim Il Sung's, or Kim Chong Il's, or Kim Jong Un's, portraits, are worked to death.
With a rifle butt or a club. The lucky ones are simply shot with a minimum or torture.
Children starving in the streets while people pass by? Old news, I'm afraid:the US News article Ilink about quote the World Food Program as saying that one third of north Korean children are "stunted, due to malnutrition."
We were hearing stories of cannibalism in the mid-90s. Hard to say with any certainty whether, and how many, of these stories were true, but the evidence did suggest that there at least two or three separate instances.
Anecdotal evidence at that time also indicated that the north Korean populace was malnourished enough that girls were not having their first period until age 18.
That's got to do bad things to population growth; a chart at World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer, based on data from the World Bank, shows north Korea's population growing from just over 10 million in 1960 to just under 25 million in 2011. In the same time frame, the population of the Republic of Korea (AKA "South Korea") rose from about 25 million to 50 million. So, on paper, north Korea's population has more than doubles, while that of South Korea has almost almost exactly doubled; however, the trend line for north Korea is much shallower, almost flattening out starting in 2000, whereas South Korea's trend line continues at a steeper rate all along. (South Korea actually suffered greater destruction during the Korean War, and north Korea started the war with almost all of the industrial development on the peninsula, as well as most of the natural resources.)
Another piece of anecdotal evidence: the "Truce Village" at Pan Mun Jom is guarded on both sides of the border; the US turned the security role there over to the ROK Army years ago, although we do have personnel assigned to the UN Command there.
When I first went to Korea in 1982, if you were an infantryman or an MP who was over 6 feet tall you were automatically vetted for a high state of fitness, recruiting poster looks, and general Chuck Norris-grade bad-assedness. If you met the standard, you were tagged for PMJ Guard duty. As I said, the US Army no longer guards PMJ, but the ROK Army continues that general approach to assigning personnel to the guard force there--I never saw so many Koreans who were bigger than me!
The north Korean guard force at Pan Mun Jom is made up entirely of scrawny little guys who would all be picked last for a game of dodge ball or red rover. (Like this.)
Or badminton.
I suppose the commies might be keeping all the strapping, fit guys hidden away someplace, but it doesn't seem likely, given the way they like to play childish games like "Our flag is bigger than yours."
Somewhere is a box full of photos from my second-to-last tour in Korea, with me standing on the commie side of the negotiating room in Pan Mun Jom, with what looks like some 12 year old kid wearing his big brother's uniform peering in the window behind me. If I can find it, it'll make a great "Photo of the Author" someday...
***
ADDED: US News has a special report on "The North Korean Crisis". it's not bad, although some of the articles are shallow; the one about north Korea's military makes it look like a military giant, what with how many more tanks and planes they have; as I said before, we're talking about an air force with Mig19s as front line interceptors, and AN2 Colts for the heavy lifting. All those T55s and T62s, well, they have some use, but...
- Despite tensions, NKorea readies for festivities :: Associated Press. The commies have always been about the bread and circuses.
- Here’s How Lousy Life Is in North Korea - Rick Newman (usnews.com)
- North Korea's war threats leave some in the South trembling - but tourists still stare across the border - Chris Hughes' diary - Chris Hughes - Mirror Online. You can get jaded living next to someone who rattles his saber every times he gets a little cranky...
The headline refers to "Shock" video and photos; I'm afraid that I'm familiar enough with the tales recounted here that I find them sad, tragic, but not "shocking."
North Korea is covered with
With a rifle butt or a club. The lucky ones are simply shot with a minimum or torture.
Children starving in the streets while people pass by? Old news, I'm afraid:the US News article Ilink about quote the World Food Program as saying that one third of north Korean children are "stunted, due to malnutrition."
We were hearing stories of cannibalism in the mid-90s. Hard to say with any certainty whether, and how many, of these stories were true, but the evidence did suggest that there at least two or three separate instances.
Anecdotal evidence at that time also indicated that the north Korean populace was malnourished enough that girls were not having their first period until age 18.
That's got to do bad things to population growth; a chart at World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer, based on data from the World Bank, shows north Korea's population growing from just over 10 million in 1960 to just under 25 million in 2011. In the same time frame, the population of the Republic of Korea (AKA "South Korea") rose from about 25 million to 50 million. So, on paper, north Korea's population has more than doubles, while that of South Korea has almost almost exactly doubled; however, the trend line for north Korea is much shallower, almost flattening out starting in 2000, whereas South Korea's trend line continues at a steeper rate all along. (South Korea actually suffered greater destruction during the Korean War, and north Korea started the war with almost all of the industrial development on the peninsula, as well as most of the natural resources.)
Another piece of anecdotal evidence: the "Truce Village" at Pan Mun Jom is guarded on both sides of the border; the US turned the security role there over to the ROK Army years ago, although we do have personnel assigned to the UN Command there.
When I first went to Korea in 1982, if you were an infantryman or an MP who was over 6 feet tall you were automatically vetted for a high state of fitness, recruiting poster looks, and general Chuck Norris-grade bad-assedness. If you met the standard, you were tagged for PMJ Guard duty. As I said, the US Army no longer guards PMJ, but the ROK Army continues that general approach to assigning personnel to the guard force there--I never saw so many Koreans who were bigger than me!
The north Korean guard force at Pan Mun Jom is made up entirely of scrawny little guys who would all be picked last for a game of dodge ball or red rover. (Like this.)
Or badminton.
I suppose the commies might be keeping all the strapping, fit guys hidden away someplace, but it doesn't seem likely, given the way they like to play childish games like "Our flag is bigger than yours."
Somewhere is a box full of photos from my second-to-last tour in Korea, with me standing on the commie side of the negotiating room in Pan Mun Jom, with what looks like some 12 year old kid wearing his big brother's uniform peering in the window behind me. If I can find it, it'll make a great "Photo of the Author" someday...
***
ADDED: US News has a special report on "The North Korean Crisis". it's not bad, although some of the articles are shallow; the one about north Korea's military makes it look like a military giant, what with how many more tanks and planes they have; as I said before, we're talking about an air force with Mig19s as front line interceptors, and AN2 Colts for the heavy lifting. All those T55s and T62s, well, they have some use, but...
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Korea
Been thinking about this post for a while. Bill Quick asked me for my input on Daily Pundit, and I thought I'd expand on it here. Understand that, while I spent my Army career as a US Army SIGINT geek, I retired almost 13 years ago, so at this point what I am offering is based on current Open Source data as much as (or even more than) stuff I knew back then.
Some links:
North Korea’s Tipping Point of No Return | SOFREP
Author makes a convincing argument that Little Kim may have reached the point of no return: north Korea has closed the KaeSongDong Industrial Area, which is their only legitimate source of revenue. (As opposed to dealing drugs and counterfeiting. They used to make coin from the rake-off from pachinko parlors in Japan--lots of ex-pat norks in Japan, and one of the few areas of commerce the Japanese allowed them was running pachinko parlors--but the Yakuza moved in.)
From the same web site: The North Korean Threat
Concur with their assessment that north Korean missiles, with any warhead, are no real threat to the Continental US, and of scant threat to Alaska and Hawaii. Japan, Guam, the Philippines, maybe -- not so sanguine about their ability to not have the thing go "ka-boom!" shortly after lift off, not to mention hit their target.
OTOH,who's to say that they will attempt an attack via conventional means? Why not a nuke in a shipping container? Or a weaponized "weather satellite"? (h/t Bill Quick's Emergency-Preps.com board.)
Or...
Korean Special Forces: North vs South | SOFREP
+
This Is What Air War Over North Korea Would Look Like - Popular Mechanics (h/t Insty.)
+
Can North Korea Flatten Seoul? - North Korea’s Weapons Capabilties - Popular Mechanics
Pretty much every artillery piece that north Korea ever owned is still in service, ranging from direct-fire anti-tank pieces that Hitlers Panzers laughed at up to 170mm and beyond, plus Scuds and Katyuskas and I can't remember what else without a Wiki-wander that isn't really necessary at this point. (Still.) Leaving aside the much-vaunted Taepo Dongs, etc., they can easily bombard as far south as the Han River -- meaning Seoul -- although it may be true that, as the author of that last link points out, their ability to "flatten" Seoul is hyperbole.
On the other hand, the Seoul area of the Republic of Korea is, if anything, even more urbanized than Los Angeles and vicinity. Miles and miles of multiple (12? 20? More?) story apartment blocks, row on row, as far north as Tongducheon. From the air -- why didn't I have a camera during my last tour? -- they look, aptly enough, like dominoes waiting to be tipped over. (I was told that at least one ROK Army officer said they were sited and built deliberately as part of the Obstacle Plan. Don't know.)
Now, one of the reasons that military doctrine tends to discourage operations in urban areas is that, the more destruction you cause in your attack, the easier it is for the defender.
And I know for a certainty that every bridge, dam, and levee was designed and built with it's demolition in mind.
And every hilltop north of the Han River has at least an air defense observation post on it, unless it has a counter-battery radar site. (Most of these sites are not fully occupied under ordinary circumstances, but revetments and bunkers are in place. Great for training, until the owning ROK unit shows up for their training. They were usually pretty cool about sharing, but I spent one years as Platoon Sergeant of a Heavy Radio Direction Finding Platoon trying to figure out where to put my teams during exercises.)
The same is not exactly true up north: north Koreans cannot dream of anything like the development the Republic of Korea has undergone, it does not have anything like the population, or infrastructure. Only select families are allowed to live in any of the cities. There are few paved roads, let alone superhighways.
And the hilltop sites are fully occupied, all the time; each one has one or more heavy Anti-Aircraft Machine Guns, and often anti-aircraft artillery cannon, radar, missiles...
In a way the AAMGs are more worrisome than the heavier (and logically more deadly) cannon or missiles, because they rely on the Mark One Eyeball for guidance and an itchy-for-the-glory-of-the-Eternal Leader Kim Il Sung trigger finger. Field telephones and radios suffice for communications and fire control (although by the time I retired we suspected that some form of cellular telephones were in use by commanders.)
So, while the Suppression of Enemy Air defenses (SEAD) mission will be critical, and hairy indeed. ("Yes, Colonel, my EH60s can jam the enemy air defense nets. No, they cannot keep up with your Apaches. And we have no armament. And G2 won't chop us to that mission. No, Eighth Army G2 won't either. No, Combined Field Army J2 won't, either. Maybe you should call the White House.")
While attending the Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Course (ANCOC) at the US Army Military Intelligence Center and School at Ft Huachuca, we were assigned to write a ""staff study" on a hypothetical Low Intensity Conflict in our area of concern. I posited a scenario in which, after a massive bombardment, the north launched an assault across the Demilitarized Zone with it's conventional forces, including mechanized brigades, with the primary intention of infiltrating it's special operations forces, who would the, allegedly, wreak havoc in the Republic of Korea's rear, possibly attempting to cross theSea of Japan East Sea (originally known in Europe as the Korean Sea, BTW) to see what mischief they could get up to there.
No doubt the conventional forces would continue to die gloriously for the revolution, unaware that they were mere pawns in the great game of life. Or thrones, if you like.
The intent, of course, would essentially be to blackmail the ROK and it's allies into acquiescing with whatever it is that the lunatics in Pyongyang thought it was they stood to gain.
Thing is... 1996 Gangneung submarine infiltration incident.
The guy they captured? Caught on a farm, he broke in to steal food, wasn't worried about being seen, since he was out in the boonies, never ever occurred to him by his own admission that a mere farmer would have a telephone. Or that the police could arrive so quickly.
Two of the commandos were seen on a ROK Army base, playing video games in the exchange. (Bit of an uproar about that in the Ministry of Defense...)
Commie infiltrators are routinely tripped up by their very obvious dialect and accent; in fact, defectors to the south have a hard time doing more than getting by, because they are so poorly prepared to live in a high-tech, industrial more-or-less democratic society.
So, I dunno. Is north Korea a threat to the Continental US? Again, I doubt it. If their long-range missiles can make it off the launch pad, they might have the range to hit Alaska or Hawaii, but there's an awful lot of "nothing" in those areas; ditto for Guam or the Philippines.
OTOH, like I said above, they may try something in a shipping container or the like.
And, hell, simply disrupting the economies of the Republic of Korea, Japan, and both Chinas will be devastating to a sensitive world economy.
What do they have to gain? Hell, I don't know, their people would be better off festooning lampposts with their bodies and surrendering. The trouble with that theory is that the north Korean people have been so isolated for so long; Kim Il Sung (and Kim Jong Il and Kim Jang Un) is their religion and their reason for being. As former Washington Post and NPR Tokyto correspondant T.R. Reid described in The Man Who Would Be God; North Korea's Kim Il Sung - The Washington Post | HighBeam Research, on a tour intended to bring in hard western cash in 1992, he interviewed a few north Koreans.
Bottom line, war is nasty, and a war on the Korean Peninsula would be as bloody a civil war as has been fought in a century or more. The leaders of north Korea are not sane, and may very well be insane enough to start WWIII just to prove a point. As for the people, well, Reid again:
What better reason for a sawed-off runt of a hereditary dictator to start a conflagration?
Some links:
North Korea’s Tipping Point of No Return | SOFREP
Author makes a convincing argument that Little Kim may have reached the point of no return: north Korea has closed the KaeSongDong Industrial Area, which is their only legitimate source of revenue. (As opposed to dealing drugs and counterfeiting. They used to make coin from the rake-off from pachinko parlors in Japan--lots of ex-pat norks in Japan, and one of the few areas of commerce the Japanese allowed them was running pachinko parlors--but the Yakuza moved in.)
From the same web site: The North Korean Threat
Concur with their assessment that north Korean missiles, with any warhead, are no real threat to the Continental US, and of scant threat to Alaska and Hawaii. Japan, Guam, the Philippines, maybe -- not so sanguine about their ability to not have the thing go "ka-boom!" shortly after lift off, not to mention hit their target.
OTOH,who's to say that they will attempt an attack via conventional means? Why not a nuke in a shipping container? Or a weaponized "weather satellite"? (h/t Bill Quick's Emergency-Preps.com board.)
Or...
Korean Special Forces: North vs South | SOFREP
+
This Is What Air War Over North Korea Would Look Like - Popular Mechanics (h/t Insty.)
+
Can North Korea Flatten Seoul? - North Korea’s Weapons Capabilties - Popular Mechanics
Pretty much every artillery piece that north Korea ever owned is still in service, ranging from direct-fire anti-tank pieces that Hitlers Panzers laughed at up to 170mm and beyond, plus Scuds and Katyuskas and I can't remember what else without a Wiki-wander that isn't really necessary at this point. (Still.) Leaving aside the much-vaunted Taepo Dongs, etc., they can easily bombard as far south as the Han River -- meaning Seoul -- although it may be true that, as the author of that last link points out, their ability to "flatten" Seoul is hyperbole.
On the other hand, the Seoul area of the Republic of Korea is, if anything, even more urbanized than Los Angeles and vicinity. Miles and miles of multiple (12? 20? More?) story apartment blocks, row on row, as far north as Tongducheon. From the air -- why didn't I have a camera during my last tour? -- they look, aptly enough, like dominoes waiting to be tipped over. (I was told that at least one ROK Army officer said they were sited and built deliberately as part of the Obstacle Plan. Don't know.)
Now, one of the reasons that military doctrine tends to discourage operations in urban areas is that, the more destruction you cause in your attack, the easier it is for the defender.
And I know for a certainty that every bridge, dam, and levee was designed and built with it's demolition in mind.
And every hilltop north of the Han River has at least an air defense observation post on it, unless it has a counter-battery radar site. (Most of these sites are not fully occupied under ordinary circumstances, but revetments and bunkers are in place. Great for training, until the owning ROK unit shows up for their training. They were usually pretty cool about sharing, but I spent one years as Platoon Sergeant of a Heavy Radio Direction Finding Platoon trying to figure out where to put my teams during exercises.)
The same is not exactly true up north: north Koreans cannot dream of anything like the development the Republic of Korea has undergone, it does not have anything like the population, or infrastructure. Only select families are allowed to live in any of the cities. There are few paved roads, let alone superhighways.
And the hilltop sites are fully occupied, all the time; each one has one or more heavy Anti-Aircraft Machine Guns, and often anti-aircraft artillery cannon, radar, missiles...
In a way the AAMGs are more worrisome than the heavier (and logically more deadly) cannon or missiles, because they rely on the Mark One Eyeball for guidance and an itchy-for-the-glory-of-the-Eternal Leader Kim Il Sung trigger finger. Field telephones and radios suffice for communications and fire control (although by the time I retired we suspected that some form of cellular telephones were in use by commanders.)
So, while the Suppression of Enemy Air defenses (SEAD) mission will be critical, and hairy indeed. ("Yes, Colonel, my EH60s can jam the enemy air defense nets. No, they cannot keep up with your Apaches. And we have no armament. And G2 won't chop us to that mission. No, Eighth Army G2 won't either. No, Combined Field Army J2 won't, either. Maybe you should call the White House.")
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While attending the Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Course (ANCOC) at the US Army Military Intelligence Center and School at Ft Huachuca, we were assigned to write a ""staff study" on a hypothetical Low Intensity Conflict in our area of concern. I posited a scenario in which, after a massive bombardment, the north launched an assault across the Demilitarized Zone with it's conventional forces, including mechanized brigades, with the primary intention of infiltrating it's special operations forces, who would the, allegedly, wreak havoc in the Republic of Korea's rear, possibly attempting to cross the
No doubt the conventional forces would continue to die gloriously for the revolution, unaware that they were mere pawns in the great game of life. Or thrones, if you like.
The intent, of course, would essentially be to blackmail the ROK and it's allies into acquiescing with whatever it is that the lunatics in Pyongyang thought it was they stood to gain.
Thing is... 1996 Gangneung submarine infiltration incident.
The guy they captured? Caught on a farm, he broke in to steal food, wasn't worried about being seen, since he was out in the boonies, never ever occurred to him by his own admission that a mere farmer would have a telephone. Or that the police could arrive so quickly.
Two of the commandos were seen on a ROK Army base, playing video games in the exchange. (Bit of an uproar about that in the Ministry of Defense...)
Commie infiltrators are routinely tripped up by their very obvious dialect and accent; in fact, defectors to the south have a hard time doing more than getting by, because they are so poorly prepared to live in a high-tech, industrial more-or-less democratic society.
So, I dunno. Is north Korea a threat to the Continental US? Again, I doubt it. If their long-range missiles can make it off the launch pad, they might have the range to hit Alaska or Hawaii, but there's an awful lot of "nothing" in those areas; ditto for Guam or the Philippines.
OTOH, like I said above, they may try something in a shipping container or the like.
And, hell, simply disrupting the economies of the Republic of Korea, Japan, and both Chinas will be devastating to a sensitive world economy.
What do they have to gain? Hell, I don't know, their people would be better off festooning lampposts with their bodies and surrendering. The trouble with that theory is that the north Korean people have been so isolated for so long; Kim Il Sung (and Kim Jong Il and Kim Jang Un) is their religion and their reason for being. As former Washington Post and NPR Tokyto correspondant T.R. Reid described in The Man Who Would Be God; North Korea's Kim Il Sung - The Washington Post | HighBeam Research, on a tour intended to bring in hard western cash in 1992, he interviewed a few north Koreans.
In an interview about the time this article was published, Reid described asking a north Korean farmer about "man walking on the moon" and the farmer asked the interpretor if the "Yangnom" was crazy."We learned in history that only by The Great Leader's Armed Struggle did we defeat the Japanese," says Chun Chang Yon, a 16-year-old junior at Pyongyang No. 1 Junior-Senior High. "America had no effect on the result."
Chun says he did learn in history class about the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, but he sees no connection between that and Japan's defeat in World War II. "We learned that America dropped the atomic bomb, killing so many thousands, because the Americans wanted to show their strength and might to the rest of the world."
This creative approach to history extends to more recent events as well. "Yes, we learned in science class that men had landed on the moon," said Li Chun Ran, a friendly 17-year-old senior at the same school. "The Russian people sent a man to the moon."
Bottom line, war is nasty, and a war on the Korean Peninsula would be as bloody a civil war as has been fought in a century or more. The leaders of north Korea are not sane, and may very well be insane enough to start WWIII just to prove a point. As for the people, well, Reid again:
...But it appears that the people of North Korea genuinely do revere their Great Leader.And, yes, The Great Leader is Kim Il Sung, dead lo! nearly 20 years. His son, Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader is also an ex-tyrant. And Li'l Kim can't seem to get no respect.
You see it in the awe-filled faces of the pilgrims lined up at Mangyongdae, a Mount Vernon-like expanse of grassy parkland surrounding an Abe Lincoln-style thatched hut purported to be Kim's birthplace. You see it in the painstaking care of a train porter as she polishes her Kim Il Sung lapel badge at the end of a long day. You hear it in the proud, reverent voice of the teacher chosen to read the daily scripture passage from The Great Leader's memoirs to the students in a public school.
It is almost as if the people of North Korea would rather believe the myth than face the reality of their brutally difficult daily life.
That must be why the markets have bright color paintings of lush fresh fruits and vegetables on the walls while the actual shelves offer only slim pickings of wormy potatoes and half-rotted onions. That must be why posters depicting happy children greeting the Great Leader in a bosky green park have been erected in the middle of playgrounds that are actually cracked asphalt pavement.
"We are finding that our biggest problem is not the top of the government but the people," says Aage Holm, an American with the United Nations Development Program who has been working here on a U.N. effort to build economic ties between North Korea and the non-socialist world.
"They are so wrapped up in this business about The Great Leader and their own self-reliance that they don't want anything to change.
"We say, 'You have to change. You have to plan for the future.' And they say, 'We like things the way they are, the way the Great Leader does it.' "
What better reason for a sawed-off runt of a hereditary dictator to start a conflagration?
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Some other links:- War-Weary Americans Would Support War with North Korea | Via Meadia
- “Green Détente” on the Korean Peninsula? | Via Meadia In the midst of a famine that would have been of record proportions if the commies had had anything resembling an open society, they cut down just about every tree in the country, thinking they'd free up more farm land. The ROPKs are looking at helping them to plant trees to deal with the subsequent erosion...
- OK, Now We’re Worried | Via Meadia Current ROK president Park, Geun-hye, has given the ROK armed forces permission to shoot without prior political clearance. And without the commies shooting first. (President Park, BTW, is the daughter of Park Chung Hee who ruled the Republic of Korea for 18 years. Her mother was murdered in a north Korean assassination attempt on her father)
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