Tag: Camp Humphreys

This is a pretty cool experience for all the Soldiers that got to participate in this:

Around 500 U.S. and South Korean troops were treated recently to a meal of Korean food specially prepared by a celebrity chef at their dining facility.

Chef Baek Jong-won, who owns several restaurants and cafes in South Korea, and three other Korean entertainers cooked at the Provider Grill dining facility on June 28 for Baek’s TV show, “Backpacker.” Service members waited in line outside the DFAC for more than an hour to sample the marquee chow.

Each episode of “Backpacker” centers on a theme, such as feeding hundreds of soldiers at a South Korean military base using a limited supply of ingredients or cooking meals for Buddhist monks at a temple.

Baek’s crew and supporting cast are usually kept in the dark about the location and ingredients they’ll be cooking until the day of filming. However, Camp Humphreys’ security requirements meant Baek knew his destination for the day.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It seems like an easy fix to use South Korean made parts to fix these elevators until the US sourced parts arrive:

Repairs to a dozen elevators out of order at Camp Humphreys, some in housing areas, are delayed by a three-to-five-month parts backlog, according to a post on the base Facebook page Tuesday.

The 351 elevators at Humphreys must conform to U.S. safety codes, which differ from South Korean codes, so repairs to the malfunctioning 12 may not include locally sourced parts, garrison commander Army Col. Seth Graves told Stars and Stripes by email Wednesday.

The Army Corps of Engineers is considering a waiver for local codes to obtain the necessary parts from a South Korean supplier, Graves said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This isn’t the first and likely not the last large corruption case to happen at Camp Humphreys:

More than two dozen South Koreans, including several employed by the U.S. military, were indicted on charges of employment fraud following a two-year investigation, South Korean police said Monday.

Twenty-six people, including 10 current and former U.S. Forces Korea employees, pocketed roughly $138,700 in exchange for preferential treatment of Korean job candidates between April 2018 and December 2020, the Daegu Metropolitan Police statement said. 

USFK is the military command in charge of roughly 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula.

Two defendants, including an official with the USFK Labor Service Corps, were arrested according to police. The labor official and others are suspected of receiving between $23,800 and $31,700 from five job seekers in exchange for favorable reviews during their interviews.

The defendants allegedly created fake certifications required for employment. Police confiscated around $126,800 from the defendants prior to their arrest.

The investigation was launched after the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division obtained information about the bribes and relayed it to South Korean authorities. An Eighth Army spokesman declined to comment on whether the suspects were privy to sensitive military information.

“These arrests involved persons and activities that may be related to the Korean Service Corps and are currently the subject of a criminal investigation,” Army Lt. Col. Neil Penttila said in a statement Tuesday. “We will withhold further comment until the completion of that investigation.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It took nine years to complete the construction of the command center. Just think South Korea has built entire neighborhoods faster than this command center:

The construction of a new command center for the combined forces of South Korea and the United States has been completed in a major American military base south of Seoul, a U.S. Army website showed Tuesday. 

South Korean and U.S. officials commemorated the completion of Command Center Humphreys in Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on Thursday last week, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

The new center is designed to support the operations of the allies’ Combined Forces Command (CFC) and the U.S. Forces Korea. Its construction was a key part of the allies’ plan to relocate the U.S. garrison in Seoul’s central district of Yongsan to Camp Humphreys, according to the USACE.

“This project was a nine-year construction effort, and we finally get to see the successful completion of it,” Robert Zhang, a U.S. official involved in the project, was quoted by the USACE as saying.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Justice in this case happened quickly:

A woman accused in the September killing of a U.S. soldier’s 3-year-old son was convicted Friday by a South Korean court and sentenced to 18 years in prison. 

Jamaica Eblacas, 30, was found guilty of killing the boy, Noa Calhoun, the son of Army Pvt. James and Kourtney Calhoun, by a three-judge panel at the Pyeongtaek Branch of the Suwon District Court.

Neither James nor Kourtney Calhoun appeared in court on Friday.

Eblacas admitted during a November court appearance to killing the child. She was charged with murder in conjunction with child abuse, which carries a minimum of three years in prison and a maximum penalty of death under South Korean law. Prosecutors had recommended a 30-year sentence.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

In the Stars & Stripes they have an article posted about how the Camp Humphreys garrison commander’s wife is a Korean adoptee who has returned to Korea for the first time since she was a baby:

Tara Graves celebrates her birthday Saturday in South Korea, her first since she was born here more than 45 years ago.

Graves, 46, a personal fitness trainer and the wife of Camp Humphreys commander Col. Seth Graves, is among tens of thousands of South Koreans adopted to families around the world in the decades following the 1950-53 Korean War.

In 2020, the Army sent the Graves family from Brussels to South Korea, where Seth took command of the largest U.S. military base overseas. 

The new assignment hit home for Tara Graves: She had not been in South Korea since she was adopted at 6 months old, she told Stars and Stripes in December.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The article gives no specifics on what happened so it is impossible to determine if this was a preventable accident or not:

A 2nd Infantry Division soldier has died after suffering a “medical incident” during combat water survival training, the command announced Thursday. 

Spc. Brandon Martinez, 25, of Mesa, Ariz., died Saturday at Brian D. Allgood Army Community Hospital, 10 days after the June 9 incident at Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Vandal Training Center, a statement said. He was a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialist assigned to 4th CBRN Company, 23rd CBRN Battalion who joined 2nd ID’s sustainment brigade on July 13.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is a unique event that occurred recently over at Camp Humphreys:

Dozens of special warfare airmen weathered heavy wind and rain for their 10th annual 24-hour Challenge Run last week at the largest U.S. military base on the Korean Peninsula.

The event, hosted Thursday by the 604th Air Support Operations Squadron out of Camp Humphreys, honored the 12 members of the Air Force’s Tactical Air Control Party who have died in combat or during training since 1989. (…….)

Airmen rotated in shifts throughout the 24-hour period so that at least one of them carried the Tactical Air Control Party guidon. In addition to running, several airmen marched while carrying 35 pounds of gear. One marched 50 miles during the event, the longest distance from a single person carrying additional weight, while another airman ran for 52 miles without gear.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

For the first time USFK has had to deal with a cluster infection from the coronavirus:

Coronavirus clusters at the U.S. Army’s largest installation in South Korea and at its former headquarters in Seoul are forcing personnel to “shelter in place” throughout the long holiday weekend.

The order, announced at 6 a.m. Saturday on U.S. Forces Korea’s official Facebook page, went into effect immediately for those stationed at Camp Humphreys — headquarters for USFK, Eighth Army and the 2nd Infantry Division — and Yongsan Garrison, 55 miles to the north. It expires at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

“USFK defines ‘shelter in place’ as remaining at your residence – including other occupants or residents – except for life, health, safety and essential services to include food and medicine purchases,” the announcement said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but USFK has had 19 new infections since Thursday and they try to conduct contact tracing to identify other potentially infected people. Having people shelter in place is help stop any spread while the contact tracers do their work.