N. Korea Expands Special Forces
For two of the four years I spent in Korea, I lived, not in a tent or a Quonset hut, but in apartments in Seoul, directly adjacent to the Han River, with breathtaking views of the city lights reflecting on the river at night. It was, ironically, the most comfortable and luxurious existence of my life. Yes, there was the occasional annoyance of rising early to come to a PT formation and the other petty despotisms of Army life — Finance screwing my pay up, the hospital losing my medical records, NEO exercises, and command sponsorship. Somewhere in a pile at the bottom of one of the closets were a gas mask and a kevlar helmet (but no weapon, of course). My sentiments about our Army’s contingent in Seoul wasn’t unlike the sentiments expressed more famously here:
As a lawyer, and especially as a defense lawyer, my life was much softer than it had been as a civilian not long before, freezing and hungry in wood-heated hovel in South Dakota, in an area that could only be described as a trailer park with utmost generosity. As a soldier — or rather, as someone who wished he was one in some physical and spiritual way — this was a source of guilt and vulnerability, in the same way that my poverty of the past was a source of confidence and arrogance about all that I’d learned to survive and overcome. I’d become a good shot with a rifle in those earlier years, not in the Army, where I stood little chance of getting back to the arms room and having a weapon issued to me unless the North Koreans chose to attack during normal working hours, and with plenty of advance notice.
The readiness of our military in Korea is a joke. We knew it, and so do the North Koreans. Our vulnerability is at its greatest at places like Hannam Village in Seoul or Camp George in Taegu, where soldiers live in comfortable, vulnerable off-post exclaves of apartments with their wives, husbands, and children. If there is a war, many of those people are going to die on Day One.
??? I wonder how much of that is the reporter’s take and how much is stemming from what he just heard. Why? Because isn’t a significant part of North Korea’s special forces training – infiltrating the South to do all sorts of things – like scout, plant sleepers, coordinate with the sleepers already in country, and so on…?…
That’s not exactly “defensive.” At least I don’t think that fits in the traditional military category of strategic defense.
I’d also point to the history of the special forces: NK was gungho about it back when it, and more importantly the Soviet Union, were strong. Back then, it most certainly wasn’t part of a “defensive” strategy, and the North carried out limited terrorist strikes in a non-defensive manner.
And from what I remember of the 1990s, even during the Great Famine, it kept infiltrating people into the South. There were mini-sub chases and that one grounded sub and so on in the press (and in a way that was not likely to be the South Korean government “faking it” as some of my younger Korean adult students said they believed it was).
So, I can’t set too comfortably with the idea that NK’s reliance on a huge special forces group is “defensive” in nature.
That is defensive, but that isn’t all these people have been trained to do – not by a longshot…
I guess I could have just quoted this next paragraph and said, “Been there, done that, and have been doing that, conflict or no conflict…”
Too bad Martin Sheen’s son, Charlie, thinks that Bush planned 9/11.
Long time reader and fan, first time post.
As a trial counsel living in the very same Hannam Village that Joshua has described, I echo his sentiment that were it really all to hit the fan without some advance notice, we’d be in a real world of hurt- we can’t keep the unauthorized car wash ajushi out of the parking lots here, let alone the kind of NorK special forces described in that article.
I take some comfort, however misguided, in the assurances of my intel brethren that we’d see it all coming long before it all went down. Now, as far as the command actually pulling off NEO as they plan for it…that’s something I take less comfort in.
With my untrained eye, things have been pretty static the past 2.5 years I’ve been here, but KJI’s declining health and the possibility of (violent?) regime change has me wondering and it is something I’d rather my wife and kids learn about on CNN back the States and not firsthand. Here’s to hoping those special forces never need be used.
Always great to hear from a fellow JAG. Are you guys still in the 34th SG building on the second floor? I loved the view of Namsan from there. It was a different kind of beautiful every season.
My last visit to Yongsan was 3 years ago. I saw plenty of new construction and no sign of the big move. Has anything changed? Is LTC Joe M still there there as the Regional Defense Counsel?
We’re in the courthouse building on South Post now, along with TDS and the court reporters. I do have an outstanding view of Namsan in my corner office there, and it’s the first thing folks comment on when they come in for the first time.
LTC M is the RDC here still. I assume you know each other and I’ll have to ask him for some war stories.
The big move is “at least” 5 years away from what I hear. To get a sense for the coming changes, you need to get down to Humphreys to see the construction there. Despite that, the USFK gravy train continues to roll on in Seoul as it has for decades now without any sign of slowing down and I’m sure there’s plenty of “good neighbors” happy to see that continue.