“The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves”
Recently, 10 soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea were involved in serious and apparently alcohol-related incidents. One incident was a 5-person knife fight. Two other incidents involved wee-hours fights with civilian Korean police.
Those are bad news. So the offenders are getting “hammered” for getting hammered and stupid, right?
Well, yes. But so is every other soldier in the 2nd ID.
The CG has announced the following corrective measures in response to these incidents. He’s imposing them ostensibly to “ensure readiness”.
- Suspension of alcohol consumption.
- Termination of all three- and four-day weekend passes.
- A complete review of the pass policy.
- A review of all soldiers who have had past misconduct.
- Training on responsible conduct.
- Leadership seminars that will focus on discipline and its relationship to readiness.
It’s your command, General. Yes, political impact and relations with your host nation are realities you have to consider. And yes, it’s completely within your authority to do exactly what you did.
But from what I’ve seen in the past, indiscriminate mass punishments of innocent and guilty alike often are counterproductive. And I’ve always thought that treating troops like adults rather than children was generally a better approach.
The knuckleheads who get drunk and seriously stupid indeed need to be nailed to the wall. But I frankly don’t see a need to punish the other 99+% who weren’t total idiots.
(sigh) I’d hoped we’d moved past this kind of 18th Century leadership in our armed forces. I guess I was wrong.
Category: Military issues
I spent some time at Camp Casey and there is not a lot to do there except go into Tongduchon and get drunk. The CG is going to have a lot of unhappy soldiers cursing him under their breath.
I served over there from 92-93, and ditto, we drenk like Russians just from the boredom! Crap treatment like this is till running rampant in our military, and the moronic top echelons still wonder why the suicide rate continues to stay high
I’m at AIT at Fort Gordon right now and TRADOC feels like that and worse. I can’t begin to explain the feeling that I’m in kindergarten again, being treated like a stupid child vs the 25 year old college grad I am. It sucks. Embrace the suck.
Happens all of the time in Okinawa. I believe that they may still be under a no off base liberty policy.
God I am so glad I ETS in August….
Generals “serve at the pleasure of the President”. Muslims aren’t supposed to drink. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
@5, BTDT. That article reminds me of the things that gave me a huge case of short timer’s syndrome” when I ETS’ed Active Duty back in 94. I’m NG now, and the glimpses of active duty that mob training as well as de-mobing on AD make me happy with staying Guard, being in a squared away unit helps as well!
Once upon a time leadership was essential to being selected for GOFO rank. Those days seem to be gone forever. Now political correctness seems to be the key selection quality.
@#3, VA25U: You’re in AIT, which is par for the course. Unless you’ve actually been in for a while and are currently retraining, it’s questionable if ‘the suck’ really applies to your situation, and even then it’d still be a stretch.
I was at Casey 01-02, and yes drinking is pretty much the only thing to do there. After 9/11 and we couldn’t leave post however… Yeah morale was pretty low. No booze at the club and no drinkie girl?! Might as well deploy the poor bastards and let them take their aggression out on the foes of liberty.
So this CG doesn’t know how to keep them busy enough to avoid this kind of thing?
I think the problem is younger liberal Koreans agitating against anything American, leading to protests that can turn ugly. We had off post dress codes and curfews in the early 80’s, but when Joe’s ran a muck, the Koreans chalked it up to the price to pay for continued defense from the North. Of course many still remembered the war back then. I recall times where we were restricted to the base for extended periods, also had rotations to hot sites w/o any booze.
A few years back we pulled out of the Western Corridor, mostly to bases in the south. Personally, I think it’s time to rethink our presence there entirely, even with the threat from DPRK.
Welcome to the ROK, where the easiest way to make your E-5 is to come as an E-6!
I am going to take the devil’s advocate position here. When shit like this goes down in combat zones (guys grouping up, raising hell, creating bad juju) there are always cries of “What the hell is up with the leadership?” And I always see bitching and joking about the safety briefs before weekends and long weekends, no one takes them seriously and then this happens and there’s bitching about how it’s not fair that everyone is being punished. This CG is taking steps and I think the 4th, 5th, and 6th bullet points go to both sides of what I stated above. You can’t have it both ways. Failed leadership and then bitching when a leader does something to correct it and also bitching about safety briefings then bitching about being hammered for not paying attention to them. It’s one or the other, gentlemen.
LL: items 4 through 6 apply to unit leadership, and is something good units and leaders do in the background routinely. No problem with those whatsoever. But they shouldn’t have to be emphasized as “special points” for “readiness” purposes. It that’s the case, the 2ID IMO has bigger problems that a few drunken knuckleheads.
Item 3 is something senior leadership within 2ID should do behind the scenes. No problem with that, but no need to announce it publicly, either.
Items 1 and 2 are IMO a combination of political grandstanding and treating grown men/women like children. I’ve got a real problem with those two. It’s punishing the whole unit for the sins of 0.1% – literally 1 out of 1,000.
And, finally: none of these are actually “readiness” issues. They’re leadership issues – plain and simple. I’ve also got a problem with trying to sell them as something they’re not.
#12, I was there at about the same time (Kunsan AB, 8TFW ‘Wolfpack’ 84-85) and there were still some restrictions on us then.
The question I wanted to pose is this – and please keep in mind that I am but a Wing Wiper of Very Little Brain – all things considered, doesn’t it make sense that the CG wants his guys focused really tight on their jobs instead of getting rowdy downtown? I know that ten men out of an entire infantry division isn’t much, but this infantry division is the one that Kimmie gets up and sees standing in his way every morning. Guys getting stupid – I know they work hard and they play hard – in the ville does nothing but alienate the people they’re there to defend, and make the bad guys think, “Hey, maybe they ARE the rum-sodden pushovers we keep saying they are.”
I know and understand that you can NOT tell a couple thousand young infantrymen to be warrior monks, but it seems to me that discipline here has got to be firm, fast, and effective. And if that means reminding these troops about the unique responsibilities they have in a way that makes an impression, then so be it. The CG is making a tough call, and the tough calls sometimes hurt the innocent as well as get the attention of the offenders.
My .02, YMMV.
Best regards always,
Mike
Blanket policies and zero tolerance policies are cover for weak and ineffective leaders.
The Roman Army’s policy toward its troops required that between bouts of fighting with the locals, every centurion in a century (100 men) and every cohort (6 centuries) was required to work on something. This included building the garrison and other projects, stocking food supplies, repairing and making weapons, training, etc. They were busy all the time and they all had skills other than those related to combat and warfare.
It’s not to say they didn’t spend time and money whoring and gambling and drinking. I’ve got two coins from the Aurelian imperium sitting on my desk, one copper and one silver. They’re probably some centurion’s pay for a month.
The US Army could take a lesson from the Roman army about keeping the troops busy by getting rid of civilian contractors and putting the troops to work.
When we got to Bosnia, we had the same result pushed on us. Why? Because our predecessors got a bunch of article 15s and so we were punished for their conduct. We weren’t even in theater while they were doing dumb things and we got punished for it.
And banning alcohol in 2ID? That is an impossible. Is the CG going to send MPs into every Soldier’s house and confiscate all the alcohol? It “might” be possible to keep it out of the barracks, but not out of housing.
This is another product of “Well, it was done to my unit when I was younger, so I can do that and it’ll work!” It Might have worked for a company as a temporary fix, but thinking it’ll work for a division is disconcerting.
Our “elected” leadership leads by “emotional reaction” and “do something, just to say we did something” so we shouldn’t be surprised when Generals are doing it.
Drunken soldiers fighting? Bwahahahahahahah. We had unsanctioned bouts all of the time. But I don’t like that knife stuff.
Hmmm… when I was a TF commander, I’d have nailed the offenders to the wall and had the NJP or UCMJ details posted on bulletin boards and read to every sub-unit by their NCOs. After that, any similar offender would have got worse. I got this idea from when I was an NCO in the 80s… everything old is new again, someday.
Sounds a bit like mickey mouse CYA eyewash… makes me glad I retired last year. The war must be over… back to mickey mouse and zero-defects.
On the other hand…. maybe it’s a systemic problem? Maybe this report is just the tip of an iceberg, and the CG sees a wider problem… in which case the last bullet, dealing with leadership, is possibly the decisive effort.
Just a thought on this theory… Maybe Joe, having spent the entirety of his career at this point (the last 12 years have created a different Army from the one we remember pre-9/11) serving in various FOBs and COPs simply needs a reminder of how to act in contact with a civil population that we are not at war with.
I’d have to ask how many total other drunk-ups, fights and knife fights have there been in say the past months and year that we haven’t heard about? If it’s an endemic problem, then the CG may be right. If it’s just a sporatic event, then the CG’s wrong.
Mike, B Woodman: the man apparently took command in the fall 2011; he was there for those other drunk-ups, fights and knife fights. If its a systemic problem, after around 18 months in command he owns it.
The way to fix something like this is to establish the norms right away by hammering the first few miscreants very publicly (as you allude, Mike) – and by putting their chain-of-command on notice that they will either control their soldiers, or they’ll be getting hammered, too. But you also have to give a bad unit culture a reasonable amount time to change; it won’t change overnight.
What’s going on here smacks of a knee-jerk reaction to a spate of incidents that got bad publicity rather than a well-thought-out plan to correct aberrant unit norms and personal behaviors. If that’s the case, I don’t see it working well at all.
Fuck that noise.
@2: Infidel, I wonder if our time overlapped? I was at Casey from 91-92 with 2ID HQ just before they moved down to Camp Red Cloud (CRC.) Yes, there was a lot of drinking, some of it was done by me.
My question is, why is the 2ID even there? I had thought that they deployed the brigades to Iraq and then returned them to the States? Isn’t most of 2ID at Fort Lewis now? We pulled out of most of the DMZ posts when I was there in 92 and I had thought the JSA was handed over to the ROKs in 93 or 94 or so.
I’ve been retired for 7 years so I’m no longer in the loop but I had thought the intention was to remove all US troops North of Seoul and concentrate them all into the Osan/Pyongtaek area and further South. Was this changed? Do we still have camps Liberty Bell and Garry Owen?
Good Training, that is realistic and challenging is the best cure for boredom. Even if extends the garrison workday/ work week hours the men’s morale will be high. Getting rid of civilians and having soldiers paint rocks and fix shitters? bullshit. Any NCO or above who can’t figure out a meaningful military drill or class to keep his men busy needs to be re-trained,
I was at Hovey in 84/85. The company commander would post an OPORDER for the unit thunder runs, i.e. which bar we would go in, who would buy the rounds etc. Then a whistle would blow for all drinks bottoms up and move to the next bar. By the end of the night all NCOs and Officers were “Non mission Capable” I cringe at it now but then…
I’m SO glad I retired.
My question: Where is the senior enlisted leadership who should, perhaps, be discussing rational thought with the CG -and perhaps put things in a different perspective. After all, it’s the senior enlisted’s job to keep an eye out for morale and discipline, and not blindly accept the decisions of senior leaders without carefully weighing all options first.
Where is the advocate for those who haven’t done anything to warrant blanket restrictions?
They are still hammering all the Sailors and Marines in Japan from the rape back in October, although much of the restrictions have been lifted over the past several months, there’s still a curfew in effect.
You mess with host country relations by acting like an idiot, everyone gets punished.
@VA25U
I spent three years at Fort Gordon. I have to say that I actually miss the place.
“No booze allowed? Fuck that … I quit!”
If you are going to treat everyone like children… EVERYONE will behave like children.
Thing is, that’s the military’s first response: punish all for the deeds of the one. The institution has no clue what personal responsibility. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been the senior NCO corps has been taken to task because a Sailor got a DUI. What are we supposed to do? Hold their hands as they drink? That’s called fraternization.
Actually had a CSM say the NCOs were responsible for their Soldiers even when they weren’t around them, to the point of punishing them for when the Joe got in trouble for domestic issues or DUIs. Never saw the logic of that and never will.
I would expand Information Warrior’s comment; it isn’t just sailors and marines who are under restrictions. The restrictions apply to ALL of the services. The current policy is no alcohol off post unless in your house, if you drink on post you cannot go off post if your BAC is more than .03. This is an improvement over what was in place immediately following the rape, but the troops and the local business owners are far from happy about the current policies.
@25, MartinJumpr, I was up in Camp Pelham, and during that tour they deactivated 1/4 FA after turning 4P3 Firebase over to the ROK Army. 2/5-17 CAV moved into camp with us and they began to turn GO over to the ROKs as well as part of RC4 (we kept the bowling alley and the ball fields). LibertyBell and Greaves still existed, but I have no clue what their status is now. Word had it when I was there that the unit at Greaves was going to take over Camp Giant after B co 2nd ENGR relocated to Camp Hovey next to Casey. I came there as a wet-behind-the-ears E3 fresh from Fort Lost-in-the-woods Boot Camp& AIT, I remember the “Juicy Girls” , they’d even clean the lint out of a lonely, lusty GI’s wallet!
I’m currently stationed here in Korea and have been here since Aug. 2011. I was also here in 08-09. I do understand where the leadership is coming from with this decision. They have tried other measures and actions to prevent these incidents from happening but it hasnt worked. If they tried doing this in the U.S. it would be another story but I can understand why it is being done here. The Koreans don’t recognize that these are individual actions. They as a whole think that if it is one American doing something then they all are. Basically guilt by proxy. With the retoric the North is putting out, a new President and looming turnover to ROK control you can’t have this happening and if you have to go to the extremes to stop it, then you do what you have to. My problem is with people whining about being punished for others actions. Why weren’t you there for the people doing stupid stuff in the first place. What happened to having a “battle buddy” or “wingman” to look out for each other and keep them from getting in these situations? where was the guidance and leadership from the NCOs? Yes it’s a extreme measure but it shouldn’t have come to this in the first place.
@Ropiset
Well it depends on where exactly in Japan you are. The rules are most relaxed on Honshu where Yokosuka, Yokota, and all the other “mainland” bases are. It’s still pretty rough on Okinawa from what I’ve heard.
While deployed and or stationed overseas, each service member is an ambassador of the United States of America.
When such incidents do occur, each offending ambassador needs to be held to account.
The entire unit should not have to pay, but discipline and punishment needs to be communicated through the ranks and the host country in order to regain trust and confidence between the two nations.
Any questions?
More than likely, there are decades of blotter reports just like this one.
2ID is not Juvenile Detention. It is a combat unit of the United States Army with the mission of killing every Nork it fights. It’s secondary mission is as a force for diplomacy with allies in the region. If, as a division it can not handle itself, then as a division, it will get handled.
We entered the period a while back in which the Army leadership will have to crack down hard on soldiers who replace their discipline with selfishness. Happens after every war, this is no different.
These remedial measures are very, very light. The CG with 8th Army concurrence could just as easily cancelled all transfers out of Korea and pushed those stateside units over to Korea to contain the problems. Field rats, living in tents, and spreading BCD like its an STD are options as well.
Last thing we need with the Norks playing their annual beta-male games is a bunch of joes stabbing each other because the soju wasn’t mixed well.
[…] So, once again, an alcohol related incidents took place involving US troops stationed in South Korea. From reports, they were pretty spectacular. But rather than hammering the hides of the miscreants to the door, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Division troops stationed there has decided to not just react, but way overreact. […]