First time heard about this military + Taekwondo, lol

The 16th Taekwondo World Championship of International Military Sports concluded on the 11th in Germany. The Chinese team won the first place in terms of gold medals and other medals it won, and its women's team notched up the top again this time, thus achieving its 5th consecutive women's team championship.

　　The championship was held in Warendorf, Germany and military delegations from 23 countries with a total of 203 players participated in the competitions. The Chinese military delegation, consisting of athletes from the comprehensive military sports training base, obtained five gold, two silver and four bronze medals.

Isn't taekwondo a sport martial art for the most part? I would think they would choose a more practical self defense for more military applications.

Taekwondo is primarily a sport martial art and such has huge gaps in it from a self defence aspect.

For military use there are more suited martial arts like Ju Jitsu for example, which incorporates locks, chokes, grapples, throws, pressure points, strangles as well as strikes.

There was a topic like this on the armyranger.com forums. Somthin like 8 out of the 10 Rangers said martial arts was useless to them and the other 2 said it wouldnt hurt to know but they would never use it.

The Marines have statrted a militery martial arts program. It brings together all sorts of disciplines like the ones mentioned earlier. And there is even a bit of street syle in there for giggles.

Every military has its own hand to hand combat program.. not just because for the hand to hand combat training, but to keep people in shape without boring them to death.
I prefer Krav Maga and yes, I agree that Tae Kwon Do has turned too much into a sport to the point where it almost ceases to be a real martial art.

Yea Krav Maga is good, allot of American police forces train in it including some FBI guys. Krav Maga and Ju Jitsu would probally be the 2 best martial arts for actual combat.