ROK Drop

Avatar of GI KoreaBy on December 11th, 2012 at 3:28 am

Is Alcohol Totally To Blame For US Servicemember Misconduct In Korea & Japan?

» by in: US Military


Here is an article in the Stars & Stripes about alcohol use by servicemembers stationed in Asia:









You can read the rest at the link, but I have addressed this issue here on the ROK Drop for years.  For example below is an excerpt of what I wrote all the way back in 2007 when USFK was going through one of the cycles where every little incident became national news thus a similar crackdown on USFK servicemembers began just like what is happening in USFJ now:

The truth is there is no one reason to blame for these incidents. GI incidents are a product of simple statistics, the environment in Korea, and leadership. Statistics show that the trouble makers are immature young, male, junior enlisted soldiers. Guess what USFK is primarily filled with, young, male, junior enlisted soldiers so this shouldn’t be no surprise. Trouble from this group has always happened regardless of if the global war on terror is going on or not. In fact the behavior of USFK soldiers overall has increased (see here and here) over the past few years that the war has been going on.  (…………..)

Now compare this with the last seven years of General LaPorte’s and General Bell’s time in command of USFK, which just so happens to coincide with the war on terror, where not one murder has occurred. In fact a USFK servicemember was more recently murdered by a Korean than vice versa. So why is there a perception out there of “Surging GI Crime” in Korea? In the 90′s the internet was not nearly as prevalent as it is today. So when incidents involving GIs happened most Korean never heard about it unless it was a major incident like the Markle case. Compare that to today where every single incident involving GIs hits the Korean media and people can discuss these incidents on the various blogs and chat rooms. This Naeil Shinmun piece for the most part provides a pretty good run down of the perception problem.

This perception problem has caused a command environment where they are trying to prevent all incidents when preventing all incidents is statistically impossible. There is approximately 50,000 USFK servicemembers, contractors, and family members in Korea. Is there a town of 50,000 people in either the US or Korea with no crime? That is what the USFK leaders are trying to create which is statistically impossible. In order to create a crime free environment, that is why a curfew is implemented, the battle buddy policy exist, the loss of driving privileges for most USFK service members, BAC regulations in 2ID, certain areas are put off limits, along with a host of other regulations. From the get go all these regulations cause a negative perception of Korea in soldiers minds once they reach the country.

Now combine all these regulations with the ville culture that promotes alcohol and sex. The ville is one of the first things these new young, male soldier experience when arriving in Korea. The ville is something that you would find in a third world country, which Korea is not, but that is what most soldiers initial experience in Korea is. These soldiers are surrounded with alcohol and juicy girls so is it any wonder that these guys take this ville mentality to the rest of Korea? Than to top it off, the few people within this population that are married are serving in Korea without their families which may moderate their behavior otherwise.

Now the primary supervisors of these young guys just happens to be the E5 sergeant rank which guess what, is filled with these young guys as well. The rank of sergeant does not carry the respect it once had because many of the people today getting promoted to E5 don’t act like an NCO. Many of them act like higher paid E4s. They would rather be buddies with their soldiers instead of leading and supervising them. The soldiers today are more coddled than in the past and this coddling is being reflected in the E5 rank. To many people are not willing to hammer a young soldier for indiscipline compared to the past. Article 15s are a great way to get a soldier’s attention, but unfortunately I don’t think they are used enough.

To make things more challenging is that the NCOs in charge of the E5s, the E6 staff sergeants, get tasked out more than any other rank. If they aren’t pulling staff duty, they are on CQ, if they aren’t on CQ they have bus monitor, if they aren’t doing that they are on a simcenter tasking, and the taskings go on and on. This leaves the platoon sergeants to really do a lot of the E5 mentoring. The platoon sergeant position in Korea is probably one of the hardest working jobs in USFK. A good platoon sergeant can compensate for the unusual USFK environment and mentor these E5s and discipline the younger soldiers. Unfortunately not every platoon sergeant is a good one which leaves these E5s to lead soldiers that they aren’t ready to lead. If the platoon sergeant isn’t up to speed than the first sergeant really has his work cut out for him keeping the unit in line. It is the same story on the officer side, commanders need to empower lieutenants to act like leaders of their soldiers. If a platoon has a poor platoon sergeant, a pro-active platoon leader may be able to compensate for this. I have seen it done before.

Now you combine all this with the one year tours where you do not have the unit cohesion you would have in a state side unit because of all the constantly rotating personnel. All of this adds up to an environment where soldiers have a negative perception of Korea once they arrive in country, do not like serving in Korea while here, and are happy to leave when PCS time comes. It is amazing that the crime rate is as low as it is. Most importantly before anyone should make claims about “Surging GI Crime” it is important to look at statistics and take a historical perspective to determine if these perceptions are true, which obviously in this case they are not.

Additionally, you can see there is no one simple answer to why incidents happen and similarly these is no one simple answer to address it. A change in policies and regulations, combined with changes in the ville culture, and improvement in unit leadership would go a long way to further reducing incidents, but there is only one way to end all incidents and that would be with the removal of USFK.

You can read the full posting from 5 and half year ago at this link. USFJ is now going through a similar period as USFK did back in the mid-2000′s due to the media publicizing every little incident that happens.  So to stop every little incident from happening the USFJ leadership is copying nearly every policy USFK implemented in the mid-2000′s despite these policies not preventing incidents from happening in USFK.  However, despite USFJ leaderships claims that their new restrictions is aimed at stopping all incidents, they have to know this is a statistical impossibility and this all is likely a big PR move to show the Japanese citizens USFJ is “doing something” just like USFK nearly a decade ago.

Tags: , , , ,
  • Fuddpucker
    5:15 am on December 11th, 2012 1

    God, I used to regularly go to that sleazy Fussa bar row outside of Yokota. Finally it got so bad I just wouldn’t go there my last 6 months of my 2 year tour. Osan was actually ten times better until the late 90′s..or right after 9/11.

  • Tom
    5:50 am on December 11th, 2012 2

    It looks like even Japan doesn’t want you guys. If you guys can’t handle Japan’s welcome on a remote island away from the mainland Japan, on Okinawa, I really don’t know where you guys will be welcomed. :roll:

  • Setnaffa
    6:07 am on December 11th, 2012 3

    Oh yeah, it’s that guy that says he’s Korean that has an Anglo name, knows nothing about the country, and claims to live in Canada… Where white Canadians get all the Korean girls… Who are so vain and selfish they won’t give him the time of day…

    So he hates the USA…

    Yeah. That’s totally plausible…

    I’m thinking his real name is Abdullah ben Drinkin.

  • jslim
    7:09 am on December 11th, 2012 4

    would like to know the incident reports prior to all the politically correct “off-limits” policies were put in effect based on the P/HT article that was run by the US media. i would bet that there were fewer incidents when the young soldiers had a place to go to relieve themselves for a price.

    also there are some heinous events that take place on base each weekend as a person who sees the daily blotter. these are never reported to or thru the media and involve US on US crime most of the time so the command doesnt really give a shit either way

  • keyinjpop
    8:43 am on December 11th, 2012 5

    Just don’t drink or don’t screw around. Why is this idea so hard for soldiers to process?

  • The Joker
    10:14 am on December 11th, 2012 6

    A professional psychologist would say that any young man who isn’t interested in screwing has a dysfunction serious enough that it should be determined if he is fit to serve.

  • Rich V
    2:59 pm on December 11th, 2012 7

    Wow, is that a three star on CP, I am impressed. USFK has Soju to deal with, what is the problamatic local firewater in Japan?

  • Kangaji
    3:12 pm on December 11th, 2012 8

    #7: Japanese like beer but you can also enjoy Shochu, umeshu, vodka and whiskey.

    Of course many people will think of sake first.

  • Rich V
    3:28 pm on December 11th, 2012 9

    #8: Or they can always start off with .Bacardi 151 straight out of the base Class 6 store as a warm up prior to even getting to the front gate. Thats what we used to do, made the TDC girls actually look palatable.

  • Bob
    8:45 pm on December 11th, 2012 10

    Drinking is a part of military culture, it has been forever. The only difference now that we actually care to stop it. Which I say let them do their drinking and their stupid shit and when a soldier does something too stupid you punish him.

    I know many old military people, they all say everyone would drank, and when someone did something they got punished and went on about their way.

    Back in the early 90s a friend of mine (PFC at the time) threw up on a SP in Osan. The SP responded by pushing him back. My friend responded by knocking the shit out of the SP. He of course got punished, did his time. Shortly after he reenlisted went green to gold and is now a Colonel.

    In fact he said the only reason he stayed in the Army was cause he enjoyed his time in Korea. He left Korea did 3 years in the states came back however this time he was older, wiser, and married.

  • SmokingFreedomGuy
    11:20 pm on December 11th, 2012 11

    It’s funny because it isn’t like there’s not a process already in place to deal with people who violate laws. The military for some reason has to go the extra 50 steps and the end result has been a community that’s basically the same as the regular civilian one that doesn’t have to put up with the big good idea fairy in the sky.

  • Teadrinker
    11:46 pm on December 11th, 2012 12

    “Is Alcohol Totally To Blame For US Servicemember Misconduct In Korea & Japan?”



    Because you have to be 21 to drink in the US, which means that a considerable number of these soldiers have a low tolerance for alcohol. ;-)

  • William
    7:24 am on December 13th, 2012 13

    Soldiers are SUPPOSED to be at least 21 to consume alcohol, but so many under 21 do so. How do they get caught? Buddy narks on them? Nope. They identify themselves to military police and gate security themselves directly by trying to enter the camp after curfew or get involved in one of those verbal altercations that turned physical in which MP/SP get called in, detect an odor of acohol on their breath, check their ID card and administer breathalyzer. We should make a song about dumb ways to make PVT. The long running joke from teh old days is that the fastest way to make E-4 is to come to Korea as a SGT.

    I think some of the largest contributing factors in this culture are…

    1) Soldiers have time, usually 6 hours after duty day ends and they eat/clean up.

    2) Soldiers can literally walk to such places from their barracks. if it was expensive or inconvenient, there would be an inhearant deterent. It is entirely comfortable for a Soldier on a small camp to walk to the bars and on the large camps ride the Animal bus to the gate. (It really isn’t the animal bus until it is after 2300 and going on its way back)

    3) Soldiers have a large disposable income as Single Soldiers with wife or mother dependant upon them for hundreds or thousands of dollars a month. If a Soldier sticks to Soju, he can get drunk off his azz every day all month for way less than $100.

    4) Young Soldiers want the out of control aspect and many of the establishments provide that. They cannot roll like that in USA unless they go to El Paso and cross the border.

    The largest contributing factor has got to be the ease and speed at which a Soldier can get to these places for zero to little money and time. If it took hours to get somewhere, they likely would not get be in a ville getting plastered, but would likely do that on post or in barracks which some already do, then go out for moar.

  • Dragonfly
    11:49 am on December 13th, 2012 14

    Certainly not like the old days when you could process into your unit as a 17 or 18 year old private in the morning and end up plastered at the EM club across the street right after evening chow. Or better yet, your first night in country at Yongsan. There were business girls working out of the EM club on base. I have no idea how they were able to do that. But that was 1968. We did our share of drinking, but very few people got in any serious trouble. I was at Casey for two years and I never saw anyone get charged with a real crime, other than Article 15 type of stuff. GI Korea is right when he speaks of the lack of leadership and responsibility in the NCO ranks. The SSG’s took care of a lot of the problems at the section level. Those were the guys who made real soldiers out of kids who were playing baseball in high school 6 months before they got to Korea.

  • Anon
    3:05 am on December 15th, 2012 15

    Why blame the E-5′s? My experience was having multiple e-7′s with nothing to do but micromange and baby the E-4 & below taking the SGT’s power base away


RSS feed for comments on this post | TrackBack URI


Bad Behavior has blocked 130013 access attempts in the last 7 days.