(Yonhap Feature) S. Korean, U.S. marines team up against N.K. threats amid boiling

(ATTN: photos available)
By Sam Kim
RODRIGUEZ RANGE, South Korea, March 11 (Yonhap) -- Shooting laser rifles,
hundreds of U.S. and South Korean marines teamed up this week to storm into a
miniature city set up inside a wind-swept valley and flush out fellow soldiers
role-playing as North Korean special forces.
The training, part of the 12-day Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise that kicked
off Monday, is taking place at Rodriguez Live-fire Training Complex in
Yeongpyeong, less than 30 kilometers south of the heavily armed border between
South and North Korea.
Twenty-five thousand American troops, tens of thousands of South Korean soldiers,
a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a submarine with a similar engine and Aegis
destroyers have all played their part in the exercise this year.
A smattering of South Korean protesters rallied outside the remote U.S.-run
range, charging that the political leaders of the allies are allowing tension to
rise and threaten peace on the divided peninsula.
North Korea declared Monday that it has put its 1.2 million forces in a fully
combat-ready mode, labelling the joint U.S.-South Korea exercise "a war
preparation."
The communist state also said it will go ahead with the launch of a satellite,
which neighbors believe is an excuse to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile
that could threaten Alaska. Pyongyang vowed to retaliate against any foreign
attempt to intercept its rocket.
The annual exercise is "routine training ... not tied in any way to any political
or real world event," Gen. Walter Sharp, the highest-ranking American commander
in South Korea, said Monday as he apparently tried to soothe the North Korean
fears.
About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed here as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War
that ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. Some 12,000 of them have taken
part in the exercise, while approximately 13,100 troops came from overseas to
join them.
Capt. Eric Olson, a member of the U.S. 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit training at
Rodriguez Range, said his marines have been deployed from California via Japan to
"enhance the inter-operability" with their South Korean counterparts.
About half of his unit, including himself, are Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, he
said, capable of mentoring South Korean soldiers on how actual conflicts unfold.
After seizing a three-story office building in which a team of 45 U.S. and South
Korean marines roared up and across to take out 15 hidden enemies, a young South
Korean officer asked his American counterpart, "What is our good point? What is
the bad point?"
"You moved well and together," First Lieutenant Nathan Jones said during the
group evaluation in front of the building, also pointing out that the South
Koreans have moved "too fast up the stairs."
"You have to first cover the stairs because if you just run up the stairs, no one
covering you, the first sergeant will shoot you," the native of New Mexico said,
prompting a roar of laughter.
More than 100 South Korean marines -- serving near the western sea border that
North Korea refuses to recognize -- took part in the drill, while nearly twice as
many of their U.S. counterparts joined them.
The Key Resolve drill aims to test and improve the abilities of the allies to
rapidly reinforce frontline troops should North Korea provoke a full-fledged
conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
It merged in 2001 with the Foal Eagle exercise, which focuses on the combined
capabilities to combat rear infiltration by North Korean special forces.
According to the latest South Korean defense white paper released last month,
North Korea has increased its special forces by 50 percent to 180,000.
Taking cues from U.S. wars in the Middle East, the light infantry forces are
designed to pour into South Korean cities, hitting their enemies from behind and
fomenting chaos, the white paper says.
"We now have a lot more assets and experience to help us move up to the target
and to ... lessen the amount of U.S. casualties," Staff Sergeant David Hernandez
from California said, confident that North Korean tactics would fail.
He and his fellow soldiers showed their M-4 rifles -- M-16s made smaller to suit
urban warfare -- rigged with the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement Systems
(MILES).
The MILES, used in training, forces a beeping sound if a soldier has been hit
with laser shot by an opponent, offering more realistic training and helping to
improve precision in tight-knit battle zones.
South Korean 1st Lt. Park Kyung-suh said it was a fresh experience for his unit
to train on urban terrain.
"It's a rare experience because we mostly exercise on the coast," he said,
pointing to surrounding structures mocked-up to resemble a fire station, a
mansion, a motel, a school, etc.
A senior officer involved in the exercise said South Korean marines are
considering adopting more combat plans where ability to fight in cities is the
key to winning.
The officer, who declined to be named because the information is a matter of
internal discussion, noted the largest cities of the two Koreas are concentrated
near the coast, and said that "landing on shore is now only the beginning of
warfare for marines."
Jones, the U.S. marine, agreed, saying, "This is where we're going to be
fighting. (War experts) forecast that more than half of the conflicts in the
future will probably be in cities."
Urban or not, the anti-American activists outside the training base, about 50
kilometers north of Seoul, demanded the drill be immediately canceled.
"Rather than trying to resolve tension, South Korea and the U.S. are exercising a
war with the ultimate intention of occupying Pyongyang," a woman who attended the
rally said on the phone. She refused to give her name because, she said, she was
worried of penalties by the conservative government.
About a dozen training sites across South Korea will be venues for protests by
her organization, Jinbo Corea, she added.
The relations between the Koreas turned sour after President Lee Myung-bak took
office in Seoul early last year with a pledge to tie cross-border rapprochement
to progress in North Korean denuclearization.
Pyongyang has reacted bitterly, calling the CEO-turned-politician "human scum"
and accusing him of aligning with U.S. hardliners trying to topple its regime.
The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise is based on a joint war plan that
guarantees the deployment of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops based in Japan,
Guam and other Pacific regions.
Kim Yeon-chul, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Korea University, said the
communist nation has considerably weakened economically over the years and finds
it difficult to "counter-exercise" against joint U.S.-South Korea drills.
"Imagine a war exercise being held not far from your shore by your enemies -- one
with the world's strongest armory -- and you're too feeble to show the same level
of prowess," he said. "It's no wonder the North Koreans are wringing their hands
over it."
The U.S. canceled its joint Team Spirit exercise with South Korea in the early
1990s to nudge North Korea toward concessions in international efforts to curb
its nuclear aspirations.
Key Resolve was launched in 1994. It is set to continue until 2011, a year before
South Korea completes reclaiming the wartime operational control of its troops,
which was given to the U.S. at the outset of the Korean War.
South Korea has 655,000 active service members.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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