Tag: Charles Campbell

Here is an article that talks how much former 8th Army Commander LTG Campbell appreciated his time in Korea:

Late former 8th U.S. Army commander Charles Campbell considered it one of his greatest honors that he was given a Korean name meaning defender of Korea while serving with the Asian ally, his family said Friday.

Campbell, who commanded the 8th Army from 2002 to 2006, died Feb. 8 of an illness at age 68.

“General Campbell often commented that one of his greatest honors was when the South Korea-U.S. Alliance Friendship Group gifted him with the name ‘Kim, Han-su,’” his family said in an obituary carried by the Shreveport Times and other local media.

“His Korean name means ‘the great defender and protector of Korean freedom and peace.’ General Campbell reserved a special place in his heart for the people of South Korea and especially General Paik Sun-yup, South Korea’s greatest hero of the Korean War,” the family said.

Paik, the South Korean Army’s first four-star general, provided Campbell “with guidance and counsel that was invaluable to him during his many commands in Korea,” the obituary said.

Campbell’s memorial service is scheduled for Feb. 22 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Shreveport. [Korea Times]

Via a reader tip comes this sad news that the former Eighth Army Commander General Charles Campbell has passed away from an undisclosed illness:

Former Eighth Army and Army Forces Command chief Gen. (retired) Charles C. “Hondo” Campbell died Monday after a lengthy illness, according to The Times, his hometown newspaper in Shreveport, La.

Campbell, 68, was the Army’s last continuously serving officer who had seen action in the Vietnam War, according to an Army statement released at the time of his retirement in 2010.

“When I went to Vietnam, we had more than 500,000 soldiers in Vietnam (alone),” Campbell said in the statement.

There are fewer active-duty soldiers than that in the entire Army today with plans to cut troop strength to 450,000 by the end of 2017.

During his service, Campbell saw the Army’s transition to an all-volunteer force, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the counterinsurgency campaigns that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

He spent his final four years in uniform as chief of Forces Command, overseeing all continental U.S.-based conventional operating forces.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more about General Campbell at the link, but my condolences go out to his family and friends.