South Korea: The US Army’s Largest (and perhaps only) Self-Sustaining Prison Camp

I know this one is going to ruffle some feathers.  Being stationed in South Korea is literally like being in a prison camp for the Army.  I mean, it seems like all the bad apples in the branch go to South Korea because you can’t get deployed to a combat zone there, being the Korean tour is considered a forward-deployed duty station, largely due to being in close proximity to North Korea.  I was there for a year during my time in the Army and the sad thing was I chose it for my next duty station when I re-enlisted.  If I knew what I was going to get myself into, I would’ve gone “FUCK THAT!” and stayed in the states.  South Korea is easily, for the first time since the battle of Anzio in World War II, the US Army Largest Self-Sustaining Prison Camp in the world! The chain of command there is a joke, for instance, the rules are all TRADOC based and almost everyone there that is an E-6 and below is treated like an E-1 Private!  The command’s reason for that is because there are so many Privates fresh out of AIT stationed in Korea, they don’t know how the Regular Army is run so the command tries to rewrite Army Regulations into their favor so they can take full advantage of them.  Everyone that is E-4 and below has to be with a battle buddy to hold their hand when traveling off base, which for some idiots they do need that, but for promotable ones that have proved themselves to be non-troublesome and squared away stay off their back for God’s sake.  I mean, the sad part of South Korea is that most of the troublemakers stationed there are the senior enlisted and officers!  Yes, the supposed “leaders” at the posts in the country.  I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard higher-ranked individuals getting reprimanded for various idiocies, like staying out after curfew, getting caught in a red-light district, and simply messing around with some stupid Privates.  However, it all somehow manages to come down that is was the lower ranking Soldier’s fault in the whole mess, so as a result, these sorry excuses for leaders make some idiotic rules that would’ve gotten them reported to the IG office if they try to implement them in a stateside base.  The command climate was so toxic in South Korea that it made me extremely suicidal, so much so in my entire life!  And the sad part of this, there was no services insight to help me out from this.  The camp where I was stationed only had a Chaplin available once a month, and my unit didn’t have any MFLC services available.  Also, if you have an IG complaint about our command, you had to go to another base a half-hour away to see the IG office.  Pathetic.  It’s as though the command in South Korea is willing to go out of its way to not give you any rights whatsoever.  I mean, I understand when you’re in the Military there are some rights you have to wave off, but this isn’t the Military of thirty years ago where you had no rights at all.  I have never felt so much to kill himself at any time in my life as I was stationed in South Korea.  The sad thing is I actually like the country itself, the people are amazing, and I love the culture.  It, of all things, was the fucking Army and its toxic cloud of stupid ignorance that made my time there the worst possible.  Especially the shitastic disgrace of the unit I was part of, the 6^th Ordnance Battalion.  All that the command has done there was haze, harass, and get away with any kind of IG complaint possible to its Soldiers.  Everyone there from the Battalion Command on down was pitiful, corrupt, and downright garbage.  It’s sad because it’s an Ordnance Battalion, I love the Ordnance Corps, so much so I am a lifetime member of its Association.  It was also in South Korea where I lost a friend of mine from Basic Training, which is another long story that I said in previous writings and will touch on that again in another blog, but not here, I have other issues to deal with.  It was there I lost my promotable status to a piece of shit company commander that had no business commanding a fucking custodial profession.  Yes, I’m talking to you, CPT JK, you sorry excuse of a person.  If I ever see your fucking pollock ass trying to cross my path I will beat you down to the ground till you’re nothing more than a red stain on the concrete from which where you were standing.  I would say the same to the SFC who cared more about his NCOER than his own troops, but I’ll just give him a number one gesture if I ever see him again.  The nerve this man said I could use him for a job reference when I got out of the Army.  Do you really think after what you did to me in South Korea that I would even think of using you as a job reference if you couldn’t defend against that toxic piece of shit company commander because he was your senior rater?  Fuck you, fuck that company commander, and fuck that pathetic shady battalion commander as well.  You all make me fucking sick. 😡


Disclaimer:The views expressed in this article [or, book, blog post, essay, op-ed] are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the [insert your agency, institution, organization], Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

The Angry Private! 
US Army Ordnance Corps 2009-2017
OEF 2010-2011