This is what I call good civilian-military relationship building in my book. The South Koreans are lucky as they get to battle it out against the 8th Army Special Troops Battalion-Korea as they held the 10th Annual Airsoft Games last 4th of June 2011 on the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. Luckily, the North Koreans didn't get alarmed or warned of "drastic diplomatic and military implications"  if such "exercises" push through.

Involved were over 200 American and South Korean military members, students, the Angels Korean Airsoft Team, Tango Security Force, Boy Scout Troop 82 Korea and the Special Troops Battalion-Korea. And they were fully equipped with camouflage, gear where they went to battle it out against each other in the mountains.

As reported by the Army.mil, there were demonstrations of Taekwondo from Tango Security Force (with literal headbanging as shown in the breaking of bricks demo in the photo below), K9s from the 142nd Military Police Company Working Dog Unit, and sharing of Korean and American barbeque amongst the participants.

What is signifcant here is the support of the surrounding community to this event, aimed at creating more understanding between the US Army and the locals. This is actually a rare thing outside of the US, with some efforts of military organisations in different countries trying to involve the local airsoft community in civil relations as sometimes military camps, especially maintained by foreign armies tend to generate tensions between them and the locals.

One of our operators, Krieger, has in fact met some of the Korean airsoft gamers, and we'll try get some photos from them. Hopefully, we might want to try and join in this event, time and budget permitting.

It would be great to hear stories from the airsoft teams and communities about joint activities with their militaries. As airsoft is getting to be more in use for military training at various armed forces, we always get excited if we get the opportunity to  play in wargames with them, for their training benefit, and have a better relationship with them, especially that they have the facilities that we always covert for airsoft games. Playing OPFOR against active military units in training simulations is one of the best experiences in airsoft gaming.

I am always wondering why it rarely happens in other countries, since the military would probably save on costs on equipping the OPFOR as airsoft players can come along and bring their own gear. It can also be a good fundraising exercise as to get the privilege of playing OPFOR in milsim games involving military units, airsoft players would willingly pay the participation fee.