The Secretary of the Army recently got a hands on experience with the great soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea:
Army Secretary Eric Fanning loads a rocket onto a Kiowa Warrior helicopter ahead of a demonstration flight Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016, at Rodriguez Live Fire Range in South Korea. Fanning was making his first tour of the Pacific since he was sworn in on May 18.
The Army’s new civilian leader has taken a real hands-on approach during his first tour of the Pacific, even firing a rocket from a Kiowa helicopter during a demonstration flight near the border with North Korea.
But it’s the real military drills held regularly by the U.S. and its allies that impressed him the most.
Army Secretary Eric Fanning kicked off his visit to the region in Hawaii where multinational naval exercises were being held and wrapped it up in South Korea where the U.S. and its ally are preparing for annual war games later this month.
“Those integrated exercises are one of the ways we’re enhancing our capabilities as we draw down the Army,” Fanning told Stars and Stripes in an interview Wednesday.
Fanning said his trip, which also included stops in Guam, Malaysia, Japan and Alaska, highlighted the challenges facing the Army as it deals with budget constraints, aging equipment and a massive troop drawdown.
“We’re asking a lot of our soldiers, and the requirements are going up, and you see more of that here certainly on this peninsula,” he said after meeting with soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division that mans the front lines near the heavily militarized border with North Korea.
“Part of that is the rotational concept that we’re using, which allows us to have a bigger footprint even as we draw down the Army,” he said. [Stars & Stripes]
Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning was in Korea and told the ROK media that along with the deployment of the THAAD battery the US is also looking to upgrade its remaining Patriot PAC-2 batteries to the more advanced PAC-3 configuration:
The United States will focus on upgrading the Patriot PAC-2 missile systems in South Korea to the more advanced PAC-3 anti-missile shield to better protect the Seoul metropolitan areas by 2018, the U.S. Army’s senior civilian official said Tuesday.
“Right now, we are focusing on upgrading the Patriot system that we have here in Korea,” United States Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning told Yonhap News Agency in a group interview held in the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul.
He didn’t specifically confirm local reports that Seoul and Washington are planning to replace the PAC-2 system currently in the country with the more lethal PAC-3 system by the end of 2018, although he hinted that such a move is likely.
“I have seen the potential for the upgrades,” the 47-year-old official said during the interview while he visited the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at the air base, adding that the change to a PAC-3 from PAC-2 will allow forces in the country to better cope with evolving nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. [Yonhap]
Here is what he had to say about the health effects of the THAAD radar:
Asked about local concerns of health risks that might be caused by the powerful radar used in the anti-missile defense system, he pointed out that examination of electromagnetic waves from the operational THAAD battery in Guam showed clearly it poses no problems. The U.S. allowed a group of Korean reporters to visit the U.S. territory and check the level of electromagnetic waves emanating from the AN/TPY-2 radar.
Despite the test results, residents in Seongju, 296 kilometers south of Seoul, have asked the deployment plan to be scrapped, saying that they cannot trust the results. Seoul had tapped the rural town as the site for South Korea’s first THAAD battery last month, with the interceptor system to be operational by 2017.
Visiting U.S. Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning (C) poses with U.S. soldiers in front of Patriot PAC-3 advanced missiles during a visit to the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade of the U.S. Forces Korea’s (USFK) Eighth Army in Osan, south of Seoul, on Aug. 2, 2016. The brigade in charge of intercepting North Korean missiles is expected to run the THAAD missile defense system to be deployed in the country’s southeastern town of Seongju as well. THAAD stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. (Yonhap)
