U.S. Army Strykers move into position during live-fire training at Nightmare Range in Pocheon, South Korea, on Jan. 4, 2024. (Christopher Green/Stars and Stripes)
POCHEON, South Korea — A Stryker brigade from Fort Carson, Colo., finished a seven-month rotation with live-fire drills in the snowy hills of Nightmare Range, just 22 miles from the border with North Korea.
South Korean tanks and U.S. Strykers — eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles equipped with remotely operated .50-caliber machine guns — rolled downhill Thursday through mud and snowy terrain and into position. From there, they sent rounds downrange to numbered targets and used a smoke screen to practice vehicle recovery.
U.S. soldiers from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division took part in the exercise, the first of the new year in South Korea and their last before returning to the United States. They were joined by a South Korean mechanized infantry battalion.
The combined, weeklong drills began Dec. 29 and concluded Thursday.
A South Korean tank fires a round during training with the U.S. Army at Nightmare Range in Pocheon, South Korea, on Jan. 4, 2024. (Christopher Green/Stars and Stripes)
They were part of an increased pace and number of joint exercises by the allies as North Korea carried out an increased pace of ballistic missile tests accompanied by heated rhetoric in 2023.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un started the new year Monday by threatening to “thoroughly annihilate” the U.S. and South Korea if provoked.
Before the Stryker exercise began, Spc. Ryan Strictland said his unit was welcomed at the rotation’s start by Army commands in country and by the South Korean military.
“For the lower enlisted, this is the first time out of the country,” he said. “We really didn’t know what to expect; we were welcomed with open arms by not only Camp Casey and Camp Humphreys but also the [South Korean] army and our KATUSAs counterparts that are with us in the battalion.”
KATUSAs, or Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army, are South Korean troops assigned to units of the U.S. Eighth Army.
U.S. Army Strykers take part in live-fire training at Nightmare Range in Pocheon, South Korea, on Jan. 4, 2024. (Christopher Green/Stars and Stripes)
During its rotation, Alpha Company executed platoon live fires and air-assault mission recovery exercises. Its final exercise was a “culminating event,” said company commander Capt. Corey Masaracchia.
“It’s a culmination of the last seven months of training,” he said. “We have done small unit tactics from the squad to the company level, and now it’s an integration of [South Korea] army forces as a culminating event.”
The Army’s 3rd Cavalry Regiment from Fort Cavazos, Texas, is scheduled to replace the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team for the winter rotation.
The 3rd Cavalry is a combined-arms unit from the III Armored Corps that can act as a reconnaissance and security force or as a Stryker combat team, according to the Army’s website.
