More US Bases Closing Down

Another US Army installation closed down last week in Uijongbu. Camp LaGuardia is located near the center of Uijongbu and it is a good thing that the decision to close the camp was made. When the camp was first built after the Korean War it sat in a small village surrounded by rice paddies. Now the rice paddies have been replaced by high rise buildings and bumper to bumper traffic. All the traffic and pedestrians make it a dangerous location for military traffic.

With the closing of the camp, the city of Uijongbu plans on building a much needed new expressway through the land and also to make a city park there. I hope they do build the park and do not give in to developers who want to make more high rises. The park will really be a bonus for the people who live in the central area of Uijongbu.

In Pusan plans are also being made to shut down Camp Hialeah, which sits in the middle of Pusan. Camp Hialeah needs to be shut down just like Camp LaGuardia did. The surrounding city has expanded so much around the camp that it is just not feasible to have the camp at its present location.

By the end of this year all of 2ID will be consolidated on three camps, Camp Casey/Camp Hovey in Dongducheon and Camp Red Cloud and Camp Stanley in Uijongbu. This is actually a quite a big change considering soldiers used to be spread out on about 20 different camps before the consolidation decision was made. It is a good choice to close the camps due to the changing attitudes and demographics of the surrounding Korean population. The ultimate goal is to have all USFK soldiers consolidated around Osan and Pyongtaek. There is a lot of politics involved in that decision compared to the 2ID base consolidation that could delay the time when that moves actually occurs.

The residents in the surrounding communities especially Dongducheon are not to eager to see the soldiers go due to the economic impact. There have been plenty of past protests from USFK labor unions and more coming up this week. It will be interesting to see how this plays out but the decision to move the bases down south will ultimately have to be made by the Korean government once they sort out the political implications.