USFK Personnel Told to Behave

The U.S. Forces Korea were under weekend curfew last Saturday, when personnel were required to attend a four-hour "Stand Down for Standards" training at their camps at the instruction of commander Gen. Walter Sharp.

Sharp ordered the training early this month in efforts to curb a rise in crimes involving U.S. soldiers such as sexual assault and fistfights, chiefly in Itaewon, Seoul after a shorter weekend curfew was put into place last August.

According to the military daily Stars and Stripes, U.S. servicemembers were told neither to mistake an "invitation for a dinner at home as an invitation for sex" nor to "have sex with someone for the first time if they were drunk, because one of them might not remember consenting to sex, and wake up believing they had been raped."

Last August, the USFK moved the weekend and holiday curfew from 1-5 a.m to 3-5 a.m. For six months thereafter, there was a significant rise in crime, and local residents near USFK camps complained frequently, a USFK officer said.