Posted on Nov 16, 2017
Ed Hoffer spent 30 years on active duty in the Army, retiring as a full Colonel. For 17 of these years, Korea (both North and South) was part of his scope of responsibilities. He commanded the 6th Battalion 37th Field Artillery in the Republic of Korea. He was twice awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for superior meritorious service.  Ed Hoffer’s father was a longtime Rotarian and past president of the Rotary club in Camarillo, CA.
 

 
Throughout all of his military assignments Ed Hoffer was involved either directly or indirectly in operational and strategic planning for the defense of South Korea. As 20 years have passed, much of the information he shared is no longer classified, though the public does not know much of it.
 
Ed Hoffer served with Griff. Before starting his presentation, he offered high praise for his colleague and friend as an outstanding role model.
 
Today, while S. Korea’s GDP ranking has achieved #14, while N. Korea is # 110. When Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea almost 6 years ago, many North Koreans thought that their lives were going to improve. He offered the hope of generational change in the world’s longest-running communist dynasty. But he turned out to be every bit as brutal as his father and grandfather before him. He has tried to seal the country off more than ever, stepping up security along the border with China and stepping up the punishments for those who dare to try to cross it. And at home, freedom of speech, and of thought, is still a mirage.
 
How did N. Korea achieve nuclear status? It was through Abdul Qadeer Khan (age 81), a Pakistani nuclear physicist and a metallurgical engineer, who founded the uranium enrichment program for Pakistan's atomic bomb project. It is estimated that he has been paid $ 75 million for his services.
 
Today, N. Korea has invested in making superb counterfeit $ and Euros. The counterfeits are nearly flawless, featuring the same high-tech color-shifting ink as genuine American bills and printed on paper with the same precise composition of fibers. Only when subjected to sophisticated forensic analysis can the bills be confirmed as imitations.  
 
N. Korea has purchased and developed weapons systems installed just a few miles from the border with S. Korea, which is held hostage. It has some 13,000 rocket-launchers on the border that are difficult to target.
 
Since the Korean War in 1953 ceased, South Korea, has transformed itself from one of the poorest countries in Asia into a stable democracy with an advanced high-technology economy in the trillion-dollar class. It is highly urbanized and racially homogeneous, and ranks in #22 in the Prosperity Index.
 
The best choice for America and the world is to handle North Korea though China, which shares a border of some 900 miles, with a significant number of ethnic Koreans living on the Chinese side of the border.
 
     Weblink: North Korea threatens nuclear war: