Acronym for Korean Augmentation To the US
KATUSAs are
technically in Republic Of Korea Army (ROK Army), but detached to US army in Korea.
They live in US Army bases and spend most of their military service time with US soldiers.
They usually have their own military occupational specialty like American soldiers and also translate Korean into English and
vice versa when doing combined field training with ROK Army.
Every man in Korea has to serve in the military for 21 months. Because it is needed
to get high english test score to apply KATUSA, KATUSAs are almost all college students and highly educated.
They get promoted much faster than american soldiers to sergeant which is their final rank before ETS, but paid much less than US army soldiers because ROK government doesn't pay much to their mandatory military service members.
They contribute and encourage to mutual
relationship between ROK army and US army.