The curfew has been around in the ROK for ever. It didn't just start with 9/11. The ROK was under martial law until, if memory serves me, 1982. During martial law, all citizens and everyone else had to be off the streets by curfew. When martial law was lifted a curfew remained in effect for American forces. There were a few attempts over succeeding years to extend curfew and even do away with it but the result was simply people getting more drunk until the wee hours of the morning and with that scenario usually comes more alcohol related trouble. Curfew has been regularly looked at , changed etc... but when 9/11 happened it was tightened up with good reason. Now I am hearing it is basically back to the norm when compared with the history of the curfew, I am out of country now so correct me if I am wrong but is it currently 2 am on friday and saturday and 12 midnight every other day ( during non-excersize time frames). If so, this is about the same as it has been for the majority of many years. The pissing and moaning about the need for curfew seems to be growing in frequency these days compared with past decades. Don't know why. Cheers!

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Look back at that first question....how many do you see? I think the point that is being made is that you DON'T see it, but it is definitely going on; its just like a mo-fo, because if a person in a leadership position was found to be something suspect, putting him on blast would filter down to people under his/her command. It leads to a domino effect, you know, shit rolling downhill as it does. To expose it would lead to a break in the chain, which cannot be afforded by any cost.

There are a few lines to be read between, instead of just flaming the topic of which older guy or high ranking gets caught doing what before and after when, and who gets the curfew. When you do take a look between the lines, you will see that there are a few aspect of the military that must remain constant:

- Leaders must maintain the APPEARANCE of a professional military image.
(BTL sez: ...by any means necessary...)
- Rules that are broken by military members who are in a high position of influence are dealt with equally as dictated by the UCMJ
(BTL sez: ...but if is the mission is affected by that person getting slammed, then some rules get bent...)

Theres more though, but you all see where it goes. Any crying about the curfew falls on deaf ears as : the soft WHINE is still a WHINE. Sh** like that doesn't change.

I would add one more observation from my personal experience about the correlation between rank and alcohol related trouble in the ROK. The majority of alcohol related incidents that I am personally aware of that involved officers, involved higher ranking officers. There have been junior officer incidents but generally speaking i believe the junior officers are more often than not scared shitless about their careers and prone to walk the line where as senior officers often get this psyche about them that they are somehow untouchable for what they perceive as 'minor alcohol related fopahs'. Then they get drunk, do something completely stupid and are wisked away to another location leaving only the rumors of misbehavior behind them. Sometimes the incident is publicly buried and sometimes it can not be depending on the severity of the drunk stupidity. The thing is, even if the incident is swept away, the officer will definitely feel the effects of it upon the dwindling away of what is left of their career. So the previous poster is right, that the officer corp definitely has its problems but they prefer to hide it from the chain of command when possible due to various reasons. Sometimes these things do not effect the career at all if the officer has friends in high places and is being groomed for staff positions. I remember one air force pilot who landed his jet barely short of the runway, it resulted in minimal damage, and upon exiting his jet, he was tagged by the recovering troops as under the influence. They could smell the alcohol on him and his behavior was that of someone who had been drinking. The incident never saw the light of day and this guy rose to one of the highest military offices in the land.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

This should have been done a long time ago. Korea is the only place in the world where grown ups have a curfew. How many people had a curfew when they were growing up or in college? Probably less than 10%. Curfew shouldn't be done away with according to rank, JUST DONE AWAY WITH! People all over the world do stupid things at all hours of the day, not just after 0100. If you don't agree, you need to get out of Korea, and go somewhere that doesn't treat you like an 8 yr. old. If force protection was the reason for the curfew, don't you think it would be applied everywhere else? Think also of all the admin time saved by not having to process curfew violations. Then the Town patrol would actually be charged with helping you out instead of busting you. I know some of you will just be resistant to change, but change to what is right is always the correct answer.

I had 4 tours in Korea, and there was a curfew on all 4. Back in the first 3, we had Bed Check every night. If you were not in your bed for Bed Check, and did not have a valid pass for over night, you had to be ready to face Art 15 the next day.

The last tour, all we had to do, was be off the streets. If we wanted to play cards, of shoot the crap, and down some drinks together, we just went to someone's off post hooch, and kept the noise to a decent level, and enjoyed the night. Area 1 always had there own requirements. On my second tour, everyone in Area 1 still had to be in uniform off post, while the rest of Korea could wear civilian cloths.


What does the Curfew involve now?

What they told me is that they'll still let you on post, but you're getting fried the next day. However I am not military that's just what they told me during in processing (Dependent). What you say sounds much, much more strict.

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We had a lot of infiltrators back then, so it made sense.

I see you are a Car Person also. Take a look at this to see what us Old Timer Car Guys do in our spare time.

http://members.tccoa.com/392bird/

It has been a 5 year project so far.

By the way, my last tour I was also at CRC.