I have to reach out and apologize to the SOCOM community for my earlier post. Upon closer examination of the first photo and this one (at the Army Times site), in particular their captions, I realized that the guy in the tan JSLIST suit is the SOCOM operator and the two guys in woodland camo are Korean special forces. The K2 assault rifles should have been my first clue.
The SOCOM operator has green vinyl overboots and rubber gloves, all legit chemical protective gear. He's wearing the standard JSLIST suit, not wearing the special SOCOM JSLIST suit, without the parka. They wanted a little more freedom in their head movement, but maybe they're saving those for the real deal. But you see the gap between the parka and the mask where the parka has "puckered" open? I never liked the idea of getting rid of the hoods and relying on tightening the parka around the M40 mask's rim. Just not secure enough for me, but the Marine Corps didn't ask me when they were the program managers for the JSLIST.
But the Koreans... wow. The guy in the center is wearing "fishtail" protective boots, which the US Army declared obsolete at least a decade ago. They are incredibly hard to wear and run across rough terrain. Based on the mixed top and bottom of the Korean operators, I'm not sure they are using protective suits at all - may be just standard combat uniform, definitely leather gloves though. The ROK is much closer to real chemical warfare agents than you or I will ever be, and I just expected a higher standard from them. Ah well.
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