First use of Korean cargo system marks milestone
The biennial exercise, organized by the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, began Monday and runs through Thursday. It involves more than 2,400 South Korean soldiers and 2,000 U.S. soldiers, along with naval vessels, aircraft and other equipment, the command said.
“Sustainment is essential to victory in war,” Maj. Gen. Park Jin-won, the CFC’s assistant chief of staff for logistics, said in a statement. “Through this year’s ROK-U.S. Combined Joint Sustainment Training, we maximized our full-domain sustainment capabilities across land, sea and air.”
The drills include the Dragon Lift medical evacuation exercise, which practices transporting injured personnel in a simulated mass casualty scenario. Medical personnel from both militaries performed emergency triage and treatment before transporting patients by helicopter, train and C-130 aircraft, according to the CFC.
The allies also practiced unloading equipment and supplies from ships when port facilities are unavailable. The drill marked the first use of South Korea’s joint logistics-over-the-shore system to receive U.S. cargo, testing interoperability between the two militaries.
“In a crisis we cannot assume the ports will be there when we need them,” Maj. Gen. Frederick Crist, deputy director for logistics at Combined Forces Command, said in a statement. “The logistics exercise demonstrates that the allies can move combat power across an open beach, and offloading American ships through a Korean system for the first time shows what interoperability looks like in practice.”
The CFC said the training also strengthened protection measures for logistics hubs against evolving battlefield threats such as hostile drone attacks.
The exercise unfolds as North Korea, under leader Kim Jong Un, continues to strengthen its military posture and expand its nuclear forces. Pyongyang has declared South Korea a “hostile state” and has long condemned U.S.-South Korea joint military drills as rehearsals for invasion, citing the alliance as justification for its nuclear weapons program.