[Weekender] Competent warriors, vital military ambassadors since start of alliance

Every year, on the morning of June 25, the Korean War Veterans Memorial is greeted by a slew of government officials, military personnel and war veterans who gather to pay tribute to the fallen warriors of the Korean War that cost the lives of 130,000 Korean and 36,000 U.S. soldiers. 

But the 66th Anniversary this June had new additions to those honored -- fallen Korean soldiers who had served under the Korea Army Augmented to the 8th U.S. Army, or “KATUSA.” 

The names of 7,052 unknown heroes were called out both in Korean and English during the event. 

William Weber, a chairman of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation, hailed KATUSA as “brothers in arms” who sacrificed their lives for freedom. 

Former Republic of Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Commander Walter Sharp noted that the role played by KATUSA was “critical” to combat capability and cultural understanding. 

And the history of KATUSA proves that this statement is anything but an exaggeration. 

Since the 1950-1953 Korean War, the military group has made significant contributions to protecting South Korea and promoting bilateral ties between the two nations. 

The KATUSA program was launched in August 1950 through a verbal agreement between Korea’s first President Syngman Rhee and Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who led the United Nations forces during the war. 

Since the agreement was never documented, the state of KATUSA was designated by other military references such as the 8th Army’s Army in Korea Regulation 600-2. The document stipulated the unit’s mission statement, chain of command and specific policies for the enlisted personnel. 

According to the document, the original purpose of KATUSA was to overcome troop shortages during the initial phase of the war. Since it took so much time to bring in forces from the U.S., most of the U.S. augmentees were dispatched from Japan, and they were short on manpower and equipment. 

A total of 8,637 KATUSA soldiers were sent to Japan for training during the war. They were assigned to the U.S. 7th division, which was stationed in Japan and mobilized to Incheon afterward. Some 25,000 were deployed in combat missions, and about 11,000 were killed or went missing in action.

“We received a 20-day training in Japan and it was mostly about basic battle skills and landing operations. Sometimes we helped the U.S. soldiers to tell the differences between the two Koreas’ soldiers and the Chinese ones,” Yu Yong-bong, an 84-year-old KATUSA veteran who served during the war, told The Korea Herald.

These first KATUSA soldiers played roles in various turning points of the Korean War. This included the Battle of Incheon, an amphibious landing that turned the tide of the war in favor of the U.N. forces, and the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, one of the deadliest battles between the U.N. forces and Chinese troops. 

Following the war, KATUSA’s role was readjusted to follow the armistice condition to act as “military ambassadors” enshrined in the unit’s code of conduct. 

They help U.S. soldiers new to the peninsula understand Korean customs and the language.

Their job involves translating communication between local residents and the U.S. Army. KATUSA personnel are proficient in English because the recruiting process requires a candidate to achieve minimum passing scores on standardized English tests such as the TOEIC. 

They are also assigned military roles just like U.S. Army soldiers. Their military occupational specialties range from combat soldiers to office workers. About 30 percent of those under KATUSA are said to be engaged in office duties. 

“We are like working-level translators for combined units. High-ranking generals have their own interpreting officers and most meetings were translated by them. So we help them with communication for their day-to-day jobs or as an outreach program,” said Han Ji-hoon, a 26-year-old KATUSA who worked at a Yongsan garrison in Seoul. 

Currently, about 3,000 KATUSA soldiers are serving alongside 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea. They are dispatched throughout most of the 8th Army departments, filling in positions of the U.S. Army enlisted soldiers and junior noncommissioned officers.

The KATUSA program is a unique system employed by the U.S. Army. The Korean military holds the responsibility for personnel management of KATUSA, but they are treated pretty much the same as the U.S enlisted soldiers in the office since the U.S. bans any discriminatory treatment of Korean augmentees. 

On the other hand, there has also been criticism that the Korean Army is losing some of its intelligent soldiers to the U.S. through the KATUSA program. According to 2015 statistics from the Ministry of the Defense, about 20 percent of KATUSA soldiers are from Korea’s top universities. 

But military expert Yang Uk, who serves as a senior research fellow at the Korea Security and Defense Forum, noted that the highly-educated service members are all the more valuable to performing complex and challenging combined operations between the Korean Army and U.S. Forces Korea 

“The language is still the biggest barrier to the combined operation. I understand there were such concerns, but the purpose of the KATUSA program ultimately comes down to what the USFK forces want here. So the program should be understood and developed in the context of the ROK-U.S. alliance,” said Yang. 

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)