The American troops are not from the U.S. Forces Korea, but members of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fort Irwin, California and an artillery battalion. They are support troops flown to the Korean Peninsula to take part in the annual Korea-U.S. military exercise called Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI). Part of the exercise on Wednesday was open to the press for the first time since the RSOI was launched in 1994.

As part of 2007 Korea-U.S. military exercises, U.S. troops inspect an M-2 infantry combat vehicle from a Camp Carroll warehouse in Waegwan, North Gyeongsang Province on Wednesday.

The combat vehicles are part of “pre-positioned” stocks of military equipment at Camp Carroll. Stored at the camp are a variety of armored weapons, medical support and maintenance equipment, including 58 tanks, 112 infantry combat vehicles, and 18 Paladin self-propelled howitzers. They are stored here in advance to save time in case of a war. If major equipment is pre-positioned, troops can just be dispatched to the Korean Peninsula by transport planes and put in position on the front. Otherwise, the operation would be enormously slow and costly. Transporting the equipment of just one brigade requires three big ships or 500 flights of a large-sized transport plane, said Brig. Gen. Raymond Mason, commanding general of the 19th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) at Camp Carroll.

Members of the U.S. 6th Cavalry Regiment then load ammunition on inspected tanks and infantry combat vehicles. On an M1A1 tank, 17,900 7.62 mm machine gun bullets, 1,000 12.7 mm machine gun bullets and 40 120 mm shells must be loaded within 15-17 minutes. An M2A2 tank has to be loaded with 2,200 7.62 mm machine gun bullets, 900 25 mm shells and seven TOW anti-armor missiles in 13-15 minutes. Ammunition loading is therefore a key part of the exercise. Tanks and armored vehicles then moved to railroad transport facilities in the camp to be transported to training sites like Uijeongbu and Dongducheon. It took the American mainland troops a total of 96 hours or exactly four days to inspect military equipment in Camp Carroll, load them with ammunition and put them on freight trains.

The exercise, to be concluded on Saturday, is focused on getting acquainted with the process of promptly transporting 690,000 U.S. support troops and a large scale of U.S. military equipment to South Korea through air force bases, ports and railroads, and then transport them to the front. Participating in the exercise are 29,000 U.S. troops with a 6,000-strong pure support unit and the USFK included. "Though North Korea continues to assert that it's a drill for an attack on the North, as you have seen today it’s actually a defensive exercise against a possible attack, " said Kim Young-gyu, a spokesperson for the USFK.

(englishnews@chosun.com )