SEOUL, April 28 (Korea Bizwire) — Some 20 South Korean and U.S. elite troops conducted a “friendship” parachute jump Friday in a training session to mark the 70th anniversary of the bilateral alliance and hone their special operations skills, Seoul’s Army said.
The troops from the South’s Special Warfare Command and the U.S.’ Special Operations Command-Korea (SOCKOR) performed the high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) jump at a training site in Hanam, just southeast of Seoul.
Having jumped from a UH-60 helicopter, a soldier was seen holding a banner saying, “We go together.”
Others carried the national flags of South Korea and the United States, and the flags of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, the Special Warfare Command and SOCKOR.
“Through the combined high-altitude infiltration training, we were able to reaffirm the friendship between South Korean and U.S. troops,” a South Korean participant was quoted as saying.
The HALO jump session came as Seoul and Washington have been reinforcing the allies’ combined training programs to sharpen their deterrence against evolving North Korean nuclear and missile threats.
(Yonhap)