Pohang, South Korea: Dongdae Mountains. Republic of Korea (ROK) Marine Corps, Special Reconnaissance School, Mountain Warfare Training Center. As a US Marine Counterintelligence Agent assigned to the US Marine Corp, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, out of Okinawa, Japan, was assigned a team for specific mountain training and follow-up 7 day exercise at the ROK Mountain Warfare School in the mountains above Pohang. At the end of training, conducted a 7 day exercise for which I was responsible for the team's operational planning, execution, and leadership. This involved movement from the South Korean east coast (beach) at Pohang and hike into the mountains, wild camping and staying hidden for a week, while moving through the mountain environment. We were assigned a final location and time for extraction at a mountain short takeoff and landing airfield where we met a C-130 transport.
Maps and weather forecast were provided by the military support element on the USS Blue Ridge. Weather across the 7 days varied between partly cloudy, to heavy cloud and rain on the last day.
The preparatory training included mountaineering rope work and repelling, Navigation in mountains, and in low visibility.
For this post training exercise event I was responsible for managing my CI Team, planning the mission execution and safe extraction.
Though this physical location was in South Korea, the terrain is very similar to the Glyders in North Wales. Rocky, steep ground and valleys. The sea was often visible from the mountain sides, just as you can see the sea (or Anglesey) from most western locations in Snowdonia.
The only photos from this event are in hard copy form in storage in the US.
This is an actual event, but is also representative of events from 6 years of active duty as first a Marine infantry NCO, and then a Counterintelligence Agent working counterinsurgency operations (1976 - 1982).
