Today, more than 25,000 American Servicemembers, Department of Defense employees and contract personnel who work side-by-side with our Korean Allies. This engagement has demonstrated a sincere commitment to the Alliance for more than 60 years through 2011 and will continue through the 21st century and beyond. As a direct result of this strong Republic of Korea and United States Alliance both counties will continue on the path of change and transformation.
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The district’s role and reputation in supporting this transformation process; as well as our ability to provide professional master planning, superior engineer designs and outstanding quality construction; are well known throughout Korea and the Pacific. While Far East District’s reputation to produce quality facilities and infrastructure may be well known our continued collaboration with Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea and our ROK partners, the District “fight tonight” supporting role and capabilities, are not front page news. Throughout the District’s history and through 2011 FED has planned for, prepared for, and responded to national, regional and world-wide requirements for contract construction and technical engineer support during contingency exercises and operations.
District Readiness Program:
Throughout 2011 the FED continued to support USFK achieve its theater mission of maintaining armistice, deterring aggression and remaining ready to fight and win while simultaneously supporting our U.S. Army Corps of Engineers family respond to other world-wide threats. FED’s readiness program is designed to demonstrate USACE’s reliability, responsiveness, and relevance by providing an agile and proactive Contract Construction Agent technical engineer services and Field Force Engineering capability. This capability is built around the ability to deploy within KTO in support of USFK and outside of the KTO in support of the Pacific Ocean Division’s response to regional contingency operations and USACE worldwide events.
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FED is one of the very few district’s capable of providing contingency contract construction and technical engineering support across the full spectrum of war and civil disaster operations.
Emergency/Mission Essential Civilian Readiness:
Emergency Essential Civilians are Department of the Army civilian employees who remain in-country to support U.S. forces in the event of an emergency or hostilities. Mission Essential Civilians are Korean National employees serving USFK forces as part of the Korean Wartime Host Support program. These KN employees remain with organizations that support contingency operations. Both types of employees play an important role in supporting District’s contingency mission in support of USFK. It is USACE and the District’s responsibility to ensure that these great volunteers and patriots receive the best equipment, medical screenings and training as prescribed in appropriate DoD, DA and USFK regulations. FY11 was no exception and we raised the readiness bar higher than ever ensuring we trained to standard.
During individual training, team training and JSC exercises (such as Key Resolve and Ulchi Freedom Guardian) District EE/ME civilians donned their Army Combat Uniforms and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their active-duty and military reserve component counterparts. Even those employees that could not participate in this year’s exercises were required to receive annual individual readiness training. Designating civilian employees as emergency or mission essential emphasized the Total Force nature of the District contingency mission during 2011 and recognized the fact that civilians are critical members of the DoD, DA, USACE and FED team.
Individual Training Readiness: All EE/ME civilians fall under the same rules as their military counterparts. Before deploying or being designated EE/ME, they must meet similar physical qualifications, obtain equipment and receive appropriate training. USFK requires that all EE/ME civilians are processed; receive a theatre specific orientation; and receive training on first aid, soldier field survival and NBC tasks. The training objective is to ensure that all employees have mastered the skills identified as survival tasks.
During the year the District enlisted the support of Korean Service Company to train our ME personnel in their native language. U.S. Army standards. The District Commander was extremely impressed with their training and was able to present each with a District coin for their professional support. Our great District Noncommissioned Officers provide training to the EE personnel in a like manner.