It has been almost 60 years since the birth of the Republic of Korea Army(ROKA) which was a leading force of Korea’s modern history. At the time of its birth, the ROKA went through a lot of trial and error in the process of being trained in dependent way under the influence of the Korea Military Advisory Group during period of ruling by the US Military Government. However, the ROKA is also being given historical evaluation that it played a decisive role in winning victory during the Korean War.
Through reflection on the military system and the training and education system at the birth of the ROKA, the important implications will be given in terms of clarification of the identity of the ROKA and establishment of futuristic direction for military training and education. This approach is important considering that the ROKA is in active process of escalating itself to stronger world-class army. At this critical juncture, the effort to reflect on the development of the ROKA’s training and education programs that were implemented during the earlier days of the birth of the ROKA and to learn from shortcomings of the past program is considered very meaningful. In this context, the following approaches are taken through this study.
First, a study on the birth process of the ROKA’s training and education programs during times of birth of the ROKA and analysis of features of these programs are conducted.
Second, a study on the pattern of the ROKA’s training and education programs and analysis of features of each pattern are conducted.
Third, a case study on the application of these training and education programs to actual filed operation are conducted and implication of this study, is formulated.
Through this study, micro and macro reviews on specific situation which influenced the ROKA’s education and training programs at the time of the ROKA’s birth while also conducting analysis of previous cases within filed operation troops, literature studies, and the review on testimonies of related persons. The characteristics of the ROKA’s training and education programs that were implemented during cataclysmic days of birth of the ROKA after the liberation from Japan in 1945 are as follows.
First, those programs are showing foreign-dependent characteristics.
Second, those programs look like those of the US Forces on the surface but in reality, those were modeled after those of Japanese Army.
Third, due to internal and external factors, the ROKA was not able to concentrate on education and training programs at that time.
Fourth, there has been differentiation and development of those programs based on pattern such as training education, salaried education, and troop training. The reason why the ROKA was not able to concentrate on training and education is that there was failure in setting clear goals of training and education due to vague identity of the ROKA at the time of its birth. The necessity to put down the action of leftists and to prevent the North Korean People’s Army(NKPA) from invading the ROK limited the ROKA’s ability to implement systematic training and education. Also insufficient support in terms of educational supplements such as educational contents and references worked as obstacle in effective implementation of training and education.
The historical lessons about training and education during the Building Period of the ROKA are suggesting how important the clear establishment of goals, aggressive development and support of a variety of educational supportive means and strong mentality are.
Therefore, there has to be effort to apply the above implications to actual field of education in terms of establishment of training and education development planning in the future.