sorry for the sloppy post, we are in Crimea this week and internet access hasn’t been great. I’ll post some fun updates about our wanderings here soon, hopefully tomorrow. But anyway, let’s talk about the guy who was arrested.
Allegedly a certain Staff Sgt. Gordon Black left his duty station in South Korea on leave and took an unauthorized detour to Vladivostok, Russia, to visit a woman. While he was there, a woman (as of right now it is not clear if it was the same woman or a different one) accused Black of stealing from her and he has been detained.
A military man going to a foreign country without permission is a dumb thing to do, especially since a staff sergeant in South Korea is likely to have a security clearance.
Now as for the allegations that these are trumped up charges by Russia – probably not. It might be a false or exaggerated accusation by the woman because he got into a personal dispute with her or maybe she was trying to scam/blackmail him. There aren’t sufficient details to even guess properly, but it is unlikely to be a hamfisted conspiracy by the authorities. If this is an unfair accusation, I hope it gets cleared up in his favor. Unfortunately, that is unlikely now, as apparently police found sufficient evidence of a crime to detain him. His situation is likely to only go downhill from here.
This isn’t even the dumbest thing I have heard of. The award for dumbest “soldier gets himself arrested” story I am aware of goes to my former brigade command sergeant major. Yes you read that correctly, the most senior NCO in the entire brigade.
He left Kuwait to attend a conference at Shaw Air Force Base back in the USA and got busted soliciting an undercover female cop for prostitution. As if this wasn’t already dumb enough, he posted bail, flew back to Kuwait, AND ACTED LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. He got arrested (again) by military police in the mess hall. Here’s his mug shot, in case you think I am making this up:
I mention that case as a first hand example to illustrate that soldiers do dumb things all the time without Putin mind controlling them.
Ian Kummer
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