United States Forces Korea (USFK) has an image problem. And, ultimately, the American and Korean governments are to blame. Military personnel are caught in the middle between two governments that resemble more a married couple feuding over the bills than two allies. Both governments can do more to assist the average service member and the average Korean to live less contentiously. 

For a minority of Korean citizens, the presence of American military forces on the southern half of the Korean peninsula (officially recognized worldwide as the Republic of Korea), proves that their otherwise sovereign nation has been colonized by murderous thugs wearing black boots and camouflaged uniforms. But, for most Korean citizens, most expatriates, and 37,000 American military personnel, they are just ugly, uneducated, ill-mannered kids, impressed into a duty, which they only barely understand, deployed toe-to-toe with the impoverished, missile-toting, anthrax-slinging empire of North Korea. Its as if Solomon Grundy and Superboy were dividing the workday between them.

After reading comments from numerous message boards and chat rooms, as well as editorials and news articles (pusanweb.com, korea.insights.co.kr, surfkorea.com, koreaherald.com, koreatimes.com) these past weeks, it's clear, that a minority of Korean citizens, predominately young adults, believe, that the American military presence is detrimental to law and order, insults the Korean Republic,and, quite possibly, is the major obstacle to peace and political unification on the Korean peninsula. 

It is forgotten, that there are only 37,000 of these kids deployed in the most vulnerable spot on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Most will die in the first days of conflict, along with tens of thousands of their Korean brothers-in-arms and civilians. Most are too scared to admit, but they would rather be in any other warzone in the world. They volunteered for money, to get way from home, or to avoid some other punishment, but not to die in Korea. They all have plans, and Korea is not a part of those dreams. They are as much victims as the Koreans and Americans, who have died in safer parts of the country, they are forced to guard. But, the average Korean citizen perceives American military and diplomatic installations, especially the larger ones in urban areas, like the Yongsan Garrison (Seoul), as fetid islands of 'American-ness' in a purer ocean of 'Korean-ness'. Perhaps all those crumbling stonewalls wrapped in rusty, barbed wire and flimsy, corroded gates around those military reservations give the impression of exclusivity. No doubt, the sewers, electricity lines, and telephone connections terminate abruptly at the main gate. Again, all those Korean men in faded, worn American uniforms and women in suits and skirts must really be Americans disguised as Korean nationals.

American military reservations are as much a part of Korea as high-rise apartments and room salons (dallenjujum). The barracks, sewers, and roads are made from the same materials as the buildings, sewers, and roads outside the main gate. The same electricity, water, and telephone signals flow in and out of both Korean and American military buildings. And, the same Korean-trained Korean nationals, men and women, have manned, installed, maintained, repaired, and inspected these same massive investments of infrastructure for decades. American military personnel rotate in and out on a yearly schedule, but the same Koreans and equipment remain. 

The Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) requires, that only Korean contractors build, repair, and inspect Korean-made equipment. Teams of Korean and American inspectors jointly supervise all projects. Korean firefighters and office workers, mechanics and restaurant staff all form a city with the reservation, receiving overtime and holiday breaks, both American or Korean. Actually, Americans and Koreans interact more on military reservations than anywhere else in the world.

This interaction is governed by SOFA regulations, installation regulations, informal office and restaurant rules, custom, and personal idiosyncrasies. Its an international bureaucracy of two groups of citizens, divided by language and custom. No matter that American regulations and supervisors supposedly have the final word, but, because of the Americans' inexperience and dependence, Korean employees informally control their respective workplaces. Its a junior partner taking advantage of her partner's dependence. It is Korea and the world in miniature

Only in the private institutes (hagwons) do foreign national, including American, instructors of English associate on a daily basis as much as they do on the military reservations. But here also Koreans, students and staff, control the way English is communicated. Through textbooks, curricula, and exclusion of foreign workers from important supervisory positions, private institutes package English into a safe commodity, denuded of culture and character. Most students avoid controversial discussions, in favor of  slang usage and insipid personal questions. Institute staff rarely speak (or can) English, and Korean instructors of English are too overworked to seek improvement beyond the level needed to maintain their jobs. As in the case of the military installations, the foreign world is bracketed into a safe zone by bureaucratic regulations, customs, and language. Ultimately, the root of this defensive sanitization of the outside world lies in a dysfunctional economy, nominally one of the most productive in Asia, yet rotted in its industrial and financial core.

The living conditions on military reservations reflect the economic health of the surrounding national and local economies. Actually, the conditions are worse, especially by the standards of American military installations stateside and elsewhere. This is a direct consequence of the economic policies of the successive Korean governments. Just as Koreans are forced to withstand substandard sewers, roads, contaminated water and air, and antiquated and over-burdened electrical and telecommunications systems, American military personnel likewise suffer through a year of substandard housing, plumbing, and phone systems.

The interaction between Korean nationals and American military personnel is also a reflection of the current political relationship between the American and Korean governments. The reactive and episodic nature of the Clinton Administration's foreign policy, combined with President Clinton's and Secretary of State Albright's respective and competing quests for a legacy, tossed with the domestic American fixation on money and personality, places American military personnel in a foreign country with an antiquated mission and little or no domestic support. American military personnel feel abandoned by their superiors to fight a war in a country most Americans have never heard of.

For most of a decade, American forces have shuttled from mission to mission, exercise to home, overseas assignment to stateside, at a dizzying pace. Most personnel know only that North Korea is the enemy, but the Clinton Administration has never been able to form and articulate a coherent Asia policy, that the average kid from some farming district or ghetto can understand. Instead, soldiers, sailors, and airmen, these inexperienced, youthful kids forced into the role of diplomats and professionals in a strange country, are forced to handle the living stresses on their own. Meanwhile, their superiors know little and care even less about the customs and sentiments of the country, to where they temporarily are assigned. Too many scared kids, too many useless officers, too little support from the government.

USFK is like any other multinational corporation operating in a hostile environment, e.g. McDonald's in France. Only, soldiers have to worry about a civilian population, which they are supposedly defending, that might attack it, instead of the enemy. The official announcement of the re-assignment of Lt. General Petrosky to Europe is a good, first step, but USFK needs an executive, who is more competent at public relations. USFK needs to articulate a mission, to communicate to the average Korean man and woman (especially,the X-Gener's), that does not rely on memories of the Korean War. USFK needs to stress its role as a progressive force in Korean politics and economics. It needs to assist local communities more. And, finally, it needs to reduce the number of installations and command staff, including the scale-down and closure of the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.

American SOFA negotiators should not budge on the issue of legal jurisdiction. Relinquishing legal rights would seriously undermine morale in the ranks, and might compromise the retention of skilled military personnel, especially those individuals most needed in Korea and in other government venues. Asia has always been the lost child of American foreign policy, and the current lack of qualified experts has contributed to the present incompetence. Furthermore, compromising American service members' legal rights will not bring the dead, whether American or Korean, back to life. Concrete reforms will let them rest in dignity.

For its part, the Korean government needs to initiate one of the most massive public works projects ever seen. It needs to improve its waste disposal system, reclaim rivers and coastal areas from pollution, improve its electricity and telecommunications networks, augment its transportation system, and rezone and rebuild its major urban areas, reducing its reliance on its agricultural sector. However, reforms within the industrial and banking sectors will soak up funding for the short term, and may necessitate international loans.

What hinders these reforms is not one side or the other, but how the American and Korean governments interact. The Korean government manipulates the Americans, to gain financial support without any accompanying advice. The American government seeks the best deal it can get. Koreans need to interact with the outside world, not in a defensive mode, rather dictating why Korea should matter. Korea has to communicate to the world, why anyone should take it seriously, but not braggardly and foolishly. There is no hope for a sovereign, financially-secure Korea outside the Japan-US alliance. And a reunified Korea will be even more dependent on the world for generous loans.

USFK is not only the agent of American policy, which means it is also a agent of Korean policy (as far as Korea is an ally of the US), but America's frontline salesperson. USFK was an integral part of the South Korean economic miracle; it can be a part of the next phase of development and eventual North-South unification. But it has been ill-served and undermined by both the American and Korean governments. It needs a new mission.  One that soldiers, sailors, and airmen can do. One that a kid can do.

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