This article first appeared in the Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, June 19, 2001. It is republished unedited in its original form.

SEOUL – Spc. Steve Sepulveda was maneuvering a small boat in the middle of the Han River Thursday [June 14, 2001] when his cell phone rang.

It was his wife, Gracie, calling from New Mexico.

As Sepulveda was answering the phone, chinooks were dropping 6-ton pontoon pieces in the river, and boats with growling engines were using them to build a floatable bridge.

Sepulveda would have to call back.

“She understood,” Sepulveda said. “She knows how the military is.”

Sepulveda and others from the 50th Engineer Company at Camp LaGuardia, South Korea, were building a floatable bridge across the wide river with the help of a South Korean reserve battalion.

Both the U.S. and South Korean units use the same type of equipment, and the exercise seamlessly meshed together, said Maj. Michael Chang, the training and operations officer for the 2nd Engineer Battalion.

“I think it forged a real strong bond,” Chang said.

Finding suitable space for training is difficult, Chang said, and it was good to practice on Seoul’s main river. The 50th Engineer Company is only one of five active Army units that specializes in building assault float bridges, he said.

Sgt. Shawn Gibson was in charge of moving some of the pontoons from trucks to a slip in the water.

“It was a good experience to see how the (South Koreans) build compared to how we build,” he said.

After the bridge was completed, a few new officers got their initiation to the company when their soldiers tossed them in the river. It’s supposed to only happen to soldiers who run boats, but others almost became victims.

“Sir, I’m not a 12 Charlie (engineer combat bridge crewman)!” pleaded 2nd Lt. Erica Iverson moments before she would have been dragged into the Han’s murky brown waters.

“I made a mental note to keep my mouth shut,” said Iverson, a maintenance support platoon leader, who went ahead and jumped in on her own.