GIs, spouses see need for plan to improve, expand housing in S. Korea
By Jan Wesner Childs,
Seoul bureau
Andy Dunaway / Stars and Stripes
Candy Glerup puts away dishes at Hannam Village home in Seoul. |
HANNAM VILLAGE — Ask Candy Glerup what advice she’d give to
military families moving to South Korea and she has two words: Be prepared.
Not for the challenges of living in a foreign country, but for the
run-down condition of the military housing.
Glerup lives with her husband, a Navy petty officer, and their two
children in a three-bedroom apartment at Hannam Village near Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.
Smelly brown water bubbles up from a drain in the bathroom when she
does laundry. The window air conditioner in her living room has been inoperable for at
least nine days over the last two weeks. The walls inside and outside the apartment are
stained and marred. The apartment is hot, dark and, to her, depressing.
“When we first walked in, it was like a prison,” Glerup
said of the day in 1999 when her family arrived here. “I said, ‘This is our
punishment for coming to Korea.’
“I was just stunned. I cried for days.”
The problems are nothing new. Many servicemembers, families and even
top leaders around the peninsula say military housing in South Korea — barracks or
single-family homes — is the worst they’ve ever seen.
“It’s pitiful,” said Steve Sullens, command chief
master sergeant for the 7th Air Force at Osan Air Base. “It’s kind of that
simple.”
Andy Dunaway / Stars and Stripes
A bathroom drain overflows with water every time Glerup does the family's wash in the
kitchen. |
Glerup and Sullens were among a group of two spouses and four
servicemembers who traveled to Washington last month to testify before Congress on the
state of military housing here. They went at the invitation of Gen. Thomas Schwartz,
commander of U.S. forces in Korea. Schwartz is trying to convince Congress to fund a
10-year, $1.1 billion improvement plan for military bases in South Korea.
The plan is part of Schwartz’s overall vision for the next
decade: consolidate bases, cut down on costs and improve quality of life. The idea is to
make U.S. operations here more efficient, and to convince troops that Korea is a good
place to live and work.
“To improve the quality of life of our servicemembers here means
you’ve got to build things,” said Col. Bob Durbin, assistant deputy chief of
staff under Schwartz.
It also means letting troops bring their families with them, Durbin
said.
Of the 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea, only about 10 percent
are on accompanied tours and have their families with them. Command sponsorship slots are
limited due to several factors, including lack of housing and other facilities.
| U.S. military’s commitment to peninsula
appears solid YONGSAN GARRISON — A
10-year plan to consolidate and improve bases in South Korea means the United States is
making more permanent plans to stay here, according to Col. Bob Durbin, assistant deputy
chief of staff for U.S. Forces Korea.
Up until now, the philosophy has been “Korea, 50
years, one year at a time,” Durbin said.
Now, the top U.S. commander here, Gen. Thomas
Schwartz, wants to build more housing, improve facilities and move more military families
to South Korea.
The United States set up bases in South Korea after
the Korean War ended in 1953 and left the peninsula tensely divided into two separate
countries. The situation has remained largely unchanged ever since, although relations
between the North and South have improved somewhat over the past few years.
Some observers might think the United States will
leave quickly if the Koreas reconcile, or if relations improve significantly.
Not so, says Durbin.
“We’re going to be here for the foreseeable
future,” he said.
Schwartz’s plan sends a message to North Korea
that the United States is digging in for the long haul, Durbin said.
It also means South Korea could play a role in the
United States’ plan to focus military forces in the Pacific.
“Who knows, we could have more people here,”
Durbin said.
Durbin said moving more families to South Korea does
not mean there will be less emphasis on training or readiness.
Rather, he said, the plan would improve those
operations by cutting down on personnel changes. Because most of the troops stationed here
now are on one-year unaccompanied tours, there is a 90 percent annual turnover rate.
Accompanied troops would stay for at least two years, Durbin said.
— Jan Wesner Childs |
The goal under Schwartz’s plan is to have at least 25 percent of
the troops stationed in Korea be on accompanied tours within the next 10 years. That will
require nearly 6,000 new housing units. The goal is 50 percent accompanied by 2020.
Some improvements, including renovations at Hannam Village and
upgrades to barracks, have already started under an earlier plan.
The implementation of Schwartz’s 10-year goals, though, is not
guaranteed. It’s up to Congress to fund it, and a new commander will take over when
Schwartz leaves Korea next year.
Durbin said final plans are still under way to determine where the
new housing would be built. He said families would live as close as possible to where
their sponsors work.
Hannam Village, where Glerup lives, is home to about 680 families,
ranked O-3 and below. Housing in Seoul is usually considered the best in South Korea.
Families and unaccompanied troops at other U.S. bases in South Korea
live in worse conditions, servicemembers say.
Susan Sinclair remembers when she and her husband, an Army colonel,
arrived at Camp Humphreys south of Seoul two years ago.
“My husband had 22 years in the Army and came here as a
commander and what they gave us to live in was an 800-square-foot Quonset hut,” said
Sinclair, who also testified before Congress.
The first thing she noticed was the big sign on the door that read
“Danger: asbestos.”
It wasn’t unusual to have daily power outages, or three days in
a row with no running water. Sometimes they’d go a week without hot water.
Sinclair and her husband now live at Yongsan, where he is on
Schwartz’s staff. But she said they still put up with brown tap water and inadequate
heating units.
Family members such as Glerup and Sinclair have a choice — they
don’t have to come to Korea.
Enlisted troops aren’t so lucky. Sgt. Dwayne Dozier, the
noncommissioned officer in charge of trial defense services at Camp Casey north of Seoul,
is here on a one-year tour without his family. He lives in 50-year-old barracks that
floods when it rains.
The latrine and showers aren’t heated in the winter, and they
are connected to the building only by a chilly breezeway.
“I’m dealing with it, I’m saying it’s just a
one-year tour,” Dozier said.
He wouldn’t bring his wife and two kids from Texas even if the
Army let him.
“I couldn’t, unless the conditions changed,” Dozier
said.
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