Camp Humphrey Army Post

  

Our apartment is very close to Camp Humphrey Army Post.

When you drive through the front gates it's like you are back in the States. The post is really big! It covers an area of 3,538 acres, and is the largest U.S. Army garrison in Asia. There's a lot of building going on, because of many post closures around the region and they are moving everyone and everything here.    

This year there should be 28,500 U.S. troops will be moved here to Camp Humphreys. This is the reason why it will be the largest U.S. Army garrison in Asia. The area around Camp Humphreys is mostly agricultural and consists mainly of rice fields. There are some rolling hills in and around it, but they are less than 150 feet high. The hills are usually covered with beautiful thick green vegetation. Seoul is about 55 miles’ northeast from us.

They are building a beautiful new nondenominational chapel. At least two chapels have been torn down.

When we have meetings on the post, we will be meeting in another chapel.

The commissary is like a medium size American grocery store. I had to get a ration card before I could go into the commissary. It helps cut down on the black market. We can buy just about anything we can buy it the US.  Next to the commissary is a movie theater. 

The Post Exchange is like a department store. In the same building there is a food court.

Places like Taco Bell, Anthony Pizza, Subway, and Baskins Robins. They have booths where you can find all kinds of items to buy.

 

The post is very self-contained. It’s almost like being in a small American city. 

There is a large elementary school, and a large high school. 

There is a big gym and an outdoor pool with two water slides.

There is a small runway, however you mostly see very large helicopter with two long propellers called Hues.

The Ansong River flows three miles northwest of the airfield. About 12 miles west of Camp Humphreys, and we drive over it every time we so to Osan.

On the post there are family residences, training facilities, vehicle maintenance facilities and a railway vehicle post that is equipped with a railhead depot are in their final stages of completion. The railhead depot will be used to load armored vehicles on or off trains in the event of an emergency contingency plan.   

Engineers and construction workers are everywhere working on various building projects. Some of the roads are still unpaved, so you end up driving over the rough dirt roads.

It is important for the USA to have a strong presence here because of North Korea. Several times a year they have two weeks of training, to keep our troops prepared in case of invasion. This makes North Korea upset every time, and they threaten to drop scary bombs on us. These empty threats have taken place for years.  We got here just as they were taking place. It also happens to be when military are coming in and going to their next duty station. This movement by the troops ended up causing us to postpone our figuring out what work we would be do here. However, it giving us time to get use to the time change, and figure out our goals. After meeting with the Camp Humphreys Branch President, we felt better about what we might be doing here.

The chapels are different here because of the shortage of land. They build up rather than out and the larger chapels have elevators. We don’t have an elevator here at Camp Humphreys. The basement was just remodeled and the sisters are hoping they continue to let us have RS there. We have heard rumors they may let the primary have it.

A sister talked the other day that is one of my hero’s. She has an eight-month old nursing baby boy, a two-year-old son, and a five-year-old daughter. She is enlisted, and works at the medical clinic. I am guess she’s a nurse, or a doctor paying off educational debt. Her husband was just stationed back to the US a month ago for a year. She’s a young women’s leader too. We meet men and women stationed away from their families (unaccompanied) all the time!

We talked to the Branch President, we have two main goals. 1)To restart a Family Home Evening Group for single and unattended military personal.

2) At the first of the year start classes on “Becoming a Self-Reliant and Resilient Family”. This is an amazing program that the general authorities have been developing for six years.  The purpose of this study guide is to help families developed self-reliance and resilience to help them indoor the trials common to military life and to anchor them in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This program is so new the study guide will not be available for another month. We received our copy at the MTC where we went through training.

The other day one of missionaries asked if we could get him on the base. He lived there for four years, about nine years ago. When they moved here 13 years ago his father was made branch president. At that time, they had 12 members in their branch. Over the next four years it grew to 35 members. Since that time, the branch has grown considerably.

We will also be working with the Osan branch for those stationed at the Osan Air Force Base. Which I will tell about in my next addition.