The United States and South Korea held their largest-ever combined live-fire exercise on Thursday at a training site just miles from the demilitarized zone as tensions remain high with nuclear-armed North Korea.
Thursday’s drill, the first of its kind in six years, took place at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, 15 miles south of the inter-Korean border.
The exercise demonstrated the “realization of ‘peace through strength’ with overwhelming cutting-edge military capabilities,” the South’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.
It also commemorated the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and the 75th anniversary of the founding of the South Korean military, the ministry said.
Some 2,500 troops and more than 600 assets, including F-35A stealth fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and K2 tanks, took part before a crowd of soldiers and invited civilians watching from a viewing stand.
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