Air Force Staff Sgt. Jason Cochran browses a mobile field exchange set up for the Freedom Shield exercise at Osan Air Base, South Korea, on March 6, 2025. (Eric Mendiola/Stars and Stripes)
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — U.S. troops arriving here for the annual Freedom Shield exercise have access to snacks, beverages and cold-weather gear, thanks to a mobile field exchange set up for the first time in a decade.
The Army and Air Force Exchange Service erected the mobile field exchange, or MFE, on this base south of Seoul as part of the large-scale defense training involving thousands of American and South Korean troops.
“One of our responsibilities is to ensure that the necessities of our airmen, soldiers and Marines supporting this exercise are met,” Air Force Col. Jeff Elliot, commander of Osan’s 51st Mission Support Group, told Stars and Stripes on Thursday. “And with that, we partnered with AAFES to make sure that we could get that quality of life.”
The MFE, which backs up the AAFES motto “We go where you go,” offers a selection of items typically found in a convenience store. It was set up weeks in advance near the tents where incoming service members are staying during Freedom Shield, which began Monday and runs through March 21.
Roughly 19,000 South Korean troops are expected to participate in the exercise on land, air and sea, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. U.S. Forces Korea, which oversees 28,500 American service members on the peninsula, does not disclose its troop participation numbers.
Osan, home to the 51st Fighter Wing, requested the MFE to support the hundreds of service members taking part in Freedom Shield at the base.
A mobile field exchange offers a selection of items typically found in a convenience store. (Eric Mendiola/Stars and Stripes)
A mobile field exchange offers a selection of items typically found in a convenience store. (Eric Mendiola/Stars and Stripes)
Mobile exchanges have long been a wartime staple, and date to at least the post-World War II period in Japan, where troops received goods delivered by Army helicopter, according to AAFES.com.
They were common during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and a mobile exchange was erected at the Pentagon and World Trade Center following the attacks there on Sept. 11, 2001. They have also been employed to disaster zones, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Hurricane Helene last year.
Service members who find themselves in a conflict zone in the future will be familiar with an MFE if they’re taking part in Freedom Shield at Osan this year, George McNamara, AAFES general manager at Osan and Camp Humphreys, said Thursday at the mobile exchange.
