USFK -United States Forces Korea

Here's why there are American Forces in South Korea.

I still don't understand this fully, but, whatever.

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United States Forces Korea

The initial contact between Americans and Koreans was hostile - a clash in 1866 over Chosun rejection of U.S. overtures for trade relations that resulted in a dozen Korean casualties and left the U.S. merchant ship General Sherman sunk in the Daedong River, its entire 23-man crew dead. Relations did improve so that the historic links between the two nations have developed into a close and friendly alliance of economic, social and cultural, as well as military interests.

With the capitulation of Japan in World War II, U.S. troops entered Korea to accept the surrender of Japanese forces in the zone south of the 38th parallel, which crosses the peninsula's midsection. The Soviet Union, having belatedly joined the war in the Pacific, had already sent forces into Korea and took the Japanese surrender north of the 38th parallel. Although the allies had agreed at Cairo in 1943 that Korea would be "free and independent," In due course the border at the 38th parallel was soon sealed and contact between the southern and northern zones ended.

Elections supervised by the United Nations led to establishment of the Republic of Korea in the south. The Soviets appointed Kim Il-Sung leader in the north, without bothering to submit their choice to any mandate of the Korean people. Moscow pulled its occupation forces out in 1948, thereby forcing the United States to take similar actions. U.S. forces were withdrawn by mid-1949, leaving only an advisory group called KMAG to help train the fledgling ROK defensive force.

On June 25, 1950, North Korea launched an all out attack intended to unify the peninsula. Only then, when U.S. troops were committed as the bulwark of a United Nations' authorized defense of the ROK, did Korea really come to be impressed upon the consciousness of the American public. For more than three years U.S. forces fought valiantly - in all the dimensions of the battle - the length and breadth of the Korean peninsula. More than five million Americans served in Korea during the conflict. When the guns were silenced by an Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, U.S. casualties exceeded 140,000, including more than 33,000 killed in action. The armistice that brought a cease fire and defined the terms of the tenuous peace that followed remains in existence to this day. It is the longest truce in modern military history. U.S. forces continue to serve on the forward edge of freedom, sharing the rigors of maintaining the deterrent to another North Korean attack with ROK forces.

The longtime U.S. security commitment to the ROK has both legal and moral sanctions. U.S. legal obligations are those under UN Security Council Resolutions of 1950, by which the United States leads the United Nations Command, and the ROK/US Mutual Security Agreement of 1954, which commits both nations to assist each other in case of outside attack. The United States is also a partner in the operations of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command, an integrated headquarters that was established by the two governments in 1978, and is responsible for planning the defense of the ROK and, if necessary, directing the ROK/US combat forces to defeat the enemy aggression. U.S. Forces Korea is the joint headquarters through which American combat forces would be sent to the CFC's fighting components-the Ground, Air, Naval and Combined Marine Forces Component Commands. Major USFK elements include Eighth US Army, US Air Forces Korea (Seventh Air Force) and US Naval Forces Korea.

For more info -> http://www.goodneighbor.or.kr/content.php?mode=view&c_idx=c0006&c_type=06&str_block=eng