15 Aug means later curfews and easier rules for cars.

Today the USFK Commander, GEN Walter Sharp, and CSM Robert Winzenried, made the announcement about the new USFK policies on driving and curfew.

The best part is that the command’s attitude is that, while they recognize that any one Soldier has the ability to affect the reputation of the command, we shouldn’t keep punishing everyone for the actions of a very few…

In GEN Sharp’s own words…

…we have great service members in our military; the great, great majority of them will always do the right thing. I do not believe we should punish these great service members for the acts a very few. We must also understand the acts a one or two can effect the strength of the ROK-US Alliance. Korean culture believes the acts of each individual reflect on the character of all.

CURFEW POLICY: the curfew restrictions on Friday night, Saturday, Sunday morning and U.S.-observed holidays will change from 0100-0500 to 0300-0500 but if you are on leave, you are exempt from curfew entirely, except the night before you are scheduled to report back to work.

POV POLICY: Basically, now if you are a command sponsored service member, you no longer have to get permission from the 1^st Lt. Col. In your change of command to own a car. Also, ALL service members may take the drivers license test and be licensed with the approval of the first O5 in their chain of command.

My call on the curfew issue? We’ll see absolutely no difference for 30-45 days, because no one wants their unit to have the first guy (or gal) busted at 0245 in the morning…after a while, we’ll see a small spike with a few incidents, but they will be similar to the usual nonsense and at about the 4 month-mark, it will level off to about what it is now.

I am going to have faith that 1^st line NCOs are going to do what they have always done for the most part…keep their service members out of trouble.

As for AFN, we'll have coverage on the radio and we have made 2 spots, which I will post here...