US military drills evacuation of civilians from S. Korea.

via CNN

Seoul (CNN)It's a bitterly cold, bleak day on a military base in South Korea.
People are milling around calmly, clutching hot coffees, making small talk. Kids are chasing each other around an air hangar.
It's hard to believe they are practicing a high-stakes emergency evacuation that simulates what would happen if North Korea invaded.
"In real life, everyone would be wearing masks, rushing through places," says mom of two Nicholle Martinez. "There would be chaos everywhere. It would be scarier."

Story here.

Martinez understates the chaos that would occur in the opening salvo of a war between North and South Korea.  The number of artillery shells that would be raining on Seoul would boggle the mind (what's left unsaid is the fact that N.Korean Special Ops will be swarming all over the place killing anything that moves).  The idea that the US military could actually pull off an evacuation of civilians in the middle of that fight is stupid on a stick.  The 2nd ID would be fighting for its very existence.  They wouldn't have time to evacuate the wife and kids.

Whoever decided to make Korea anything but a hardship deployment was smoking crack....common sense took a day off in Army planning the day that families were allowed to go there.

Of course the same can be said of Okinawa and perhaps Guam.  The only location that is "family safe" in the Pacific is the Northern Territory in Australia...if you don't take the local wildlife into account that is.

When will we know that the US military is getting serious about warfighting?  It'll be when you see Korea, Okinawa and Guam revert to hardship postings and not places you take your family.  But the military is more into a proper command climate (can anyone get me a definition of that phrase!) and being family friendly....even if it means that when the unthinkable happens your forces are more concerned about evacuating their loved ones than they are of fighting the enemy swarming over the hill.