OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --
Nearly 100 chaplains from the Republic of Korea Air Force and Osan converged at the base Officer’s Club for readiness training on July 11, 2017.
Throughout the event, the 51st Fighter Wing Chaplain’s Corp worked with their ROKAF counterparts to ensure all chaplains on peninsula are capable of providing their services, making sure all personnel assigned to South Korea are ready to “Fight Tonight.”
“During this training opportunity, we taught Crisis Counseling, Moral Injury and Mass Casualty Response,” said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Christopher Thompson, 51 FW chapel operations superintendent. “This training material is used to show what the chaplain’s mission is in a real world situation and reinforce the capabilities of the Chaplain Corp to serve.”
This bilateral training solidified the efforts of the U.S. Air Force and ROKAF chaplains to ensure that no matter the situation, both corps are capable of supporting the warfighter.
“This is the first time in seven years that both services were able to get together and train on war specific scenarios,” said ROKAF Col. Sung IL Kim, chief of chaplains. “We are happy to have this opportunity to work with U.S. Air Force chaplains and hope to continue these cooperative efforts to ensure our chaplains receive this valuable training.”
U.S. Air Force chaplains across the Pacific Air Force major command are working diligently to train side-by-side with host nation chaplains to strengthen the support given across the region, but one training session is not enough.
“We’re planning to have additional training events with the ROKAF chaplain corps,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Granger, 51st FW command chaplain. “The ROKAF chaplains had a lot of questions and were very engaged. This event exceeded expectations, and I was very impressed on how smoothly the training went.”
“With the U.S. Air Force and ROKAF chaplain corps working together,” Granger continued. “We will be able to serve the entire peninsula at the highest capability at any point, at any time, and we will ensure the peninsula is ready to ‘Fight Tonight.’”