This article first appeared in the Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Oct. 2, 2001. It is republished unedited in its original form.

CHORWON VALLEY, South Korea — Through a haze of swirling dust, Pfc. Jason Upole swung the armored rocket launcher off the road and into the rutted clearing.

Upol’s camouflaged, boxlike launcher, Alpha Three-Two, is part of Alpha Battery, 38th Field Artillery Regiment. It serves with the 6th Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, part of the 2nd Infantry Division. The unit was in the field for most of last week for live-fire training.

“It’s a lot of fun to drive it,” said Upole, 20, of Oakland, Md. “Because it’s the most lethal artillery piece they’ve got. It’s got a lot of power. The rockets do a lot of damage. It takes out a lot of the area.”

The launcher’s chief is Staff Sgt. Nathan Barton, 27, a lean, hazel-eyed man with short blond hair. Barton was raised on a horse farm in rural Paris, Ky.

Sgt. Ray Manasco, 24, six-feet-six, 200 pounds, from Benton, Ill., is the gunner. He was an all-state jumper there in 1995. Manasco sat before a small rectangular computer console that displays orange digital characters.

Once at the firing point, the crews take painstaking care to ensure their rockets are in the position called for by the launch data given to them by the fire direction center.

“OK, on the nose,” Barton tells the driver. “Right there’s fine. OK.”

They check and recheck their settings and other data several times before the actual firing.

At 11:20 they close the shutterlike slats across the windows on the front of the launcher to shield the glass from flying rocks and other objects thrown up by the blast. At night it also shields their eyes from the intense light.

At 11:40, the panel alarm sounds a beep, letting them know they’re about to receive digital traffic – in this case, a fire mission.

“Let’s go!” yells Barton.

They slam closed the steel doors on the pressurized cab.

“What comes out of these rockets is extremely dangerous,” Barton said later. “And it’s very loud, and the launcher is basically engulfed in a fireball. So the launchers have to be pressurized.”

Upole revs the engine, bringing it to high idle to give a fresh charge to the launcher’s 10 batteries.

As gunner, it’s up to Manasco to flip the toggle switch that fires the rocket. He also has to read out crucial grid coordinates and other firing information to correctly aim the rockets.

“The special challenge is being accurate,” Manasco said. “When you’re given a fire mission, you want to enter in all the information. My chief always told me, ‘Speed will come. You want accurate first.’”

Manasco hits the “Arm” switch.

“Talk to me actual data,” Barton says quickly.

Manasco reads out some numbers, the azimuth and elevation, a further safety check to be sure they’ll be putting their rocket on the right path.

“Safe,” Barton says.

They watch the console for the next key command.

The two words come up in orange letters: “Fire Rockets.”

“Shoot it!” says Barton, as Manasco hits the “Fire” switch.

From the back comes a quick, muffled boom that rocks them several inches to the right and back again.

A pall of whitish smoke gushes up form the rear of the launchers as the rocket crashes free of it Schamber and in a flash of metallic yellow flame, slants skyward, reaching Mach 2 in four seconds.

The rocket rushes about nine miles downrange to an impact area where battalion observers are trying to spot it coming in.

For those inside, the noise is muffled. But for those outside and near a launcher, the roar is so vast and concussive that only the loudest and most violent of thunderstorms can come close to matching it .

Barton keys the black radio handset. “Two-Three, shot, Over.”

The fire direction center radios the acknowledgement: “Shot, Out.”

They open the doors.

A hazy, brownish cloud lingers about the firing point, and a breeze brings the sharp smell of rocket exhaust, similar to a household cleansing agent, into the cab.

Alpha Three-Two, like the crews of other launchers, fired several rockets that day.

Later, their live-fire practice ended, they and other crews stood on a dirt road, the sun beating down on them.

Many broke out fat cigars.

Just days before, Alpha Three-Two was chosen as a distinguished launcher for scoring high when its skills were tested.

“Everything is important to do in a mission like we have over here,” Barton said. “Your country sent you over here, and we gotta be ready to fight at any time. We gotta be ready to go right now if we get the call.”

CHORWON VALLEY, South Korea — Sonic booms ripped through this normally peaceful valley for much of last week as a U.S. Army artillery battalion practiced tearing the enemy to shreds with “steel rain.”

The unit is the 6th Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, part of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.

Based at Camp Stanley, it’s known as an MLRS unit, for Multiple Launch rocket System. Soldiers operate from flat-topped, slant-faced, tanklike mobile rocket launchers.

A single rocket can shower armor-piercing bomblets over an area the size of a football field. One battery of nine launchers can fire 108 rockets at once.

If war broke out in Korea, the battalion’s main mission would be to hit North Korea’s artillery forces so hard, so fast, they’d be out of the battle almost before it began. It’s called the “counterfire mission.”

“We are the guys who are going to take down the enemy’s artillery,” said Army Lt. Col. Luther Shealy, the battalion’s commanding officer. “we’re the guys that can really go out and touch somebody.”

“North Korea is the third-largest army in the world, and a significant portion of that army is artillery,” Shealy said. “So our mission … is to counterfire, to take away the enemy’s ability to use their artillery against us.”

To practice those skills, the battalion brought its launchers to Rocket Valley, about six miles from the North Korean border and about 24 miles north of Seoul.

The battalion set itself up along a dusty tract of ground below the broad green mountains. On one compound was its headquarters, which included the crucial battalion fire direction center.

Spread across another larger compound were its administrative, supply and maintenance elements.

Camouflaged netting was draped over their tents and vehicles. Night and day, depending on assigned shifts, solders slept on cots and in sleeping bags.

The battalion has four MLRS batteries, each with nine launchers. Each launcher can load up to 12 rockets at a time.

MLRS batteries did such damage to Iraqi forces in the Gulf War that Iraqi troops referred to the rocket strikes as “steel rain.” The term since has become a popular nickname within the Army’s MLRS community.

The armed rockets carry hundreds of bomblets that explode on contact. If they strike an armored vehicle, they can penetrate four inches of steel. If they explode in the open, they function like hand grenades, spewing steel shards into soldiers, vehicles or other objects.

One version of the rocket, the M26, carries 644 bomblets and can travel up to about 18 miles. The M26A1 carries 518 bomblets and travels up to 26 miles.

The rocket releases about 1,800 feet above ground.

“So if it hit a tank or truck or anything,” Shealy said, “it’s going to penetrate up to four inches of steel, and if it hits the ground – if there are enemy soldiers in the area – they’re going to get the effects of anti-personnel fragmentation. That’s why the Iraqis said ‘steel rain,’ because anything that’s in that football field-area is going to be killed or disabled.”