It’s Texas 60 miles from North Korea: the US military’s largest overseas base

Rock stars get to see more of the world than most of us, but when members of the quintessential 2000s’ rock band Hoobastank jetted into the US military base of Camp Humphreys in South Korea, they were struck by the familiarity.

“It’s like we’re in a different part of the world, and then, all of a sudden, we’re back in the States,” Robb said of the sprawling US base, home to 41,000 people, south of the capital Seoul.

Humphreys’ main street on the Fourth wouldn’t seem out of place in hundreds of small American cities. Kids splashed in a sidewalk fountain. Mobile food trucks served up barbecue, American and Korean. Schools and scouts held fundraisers. Military spouses sold sweets from their home-based businesses.

The difference here is that these scenes played out under the protection of Patriot missile defense launchers, just 60 miles from North Korea, and just a few minutes’ flight time for the arsenal of rocket launchers and artillery guns that point south and are commanded by Kim Jong Un, one of the world’s most isolated autocrats.

Camp Humphreys’ importance has only grown as North Korea has expanded its military threat in recent years, building a nuclear missile program in defiance of United Nations resolutions banning it, and releasing a steady stream of bellicose rhetoric against South Korea and its American ally.

North and South Korea agreed an armistice deal to end fighting in 1953, but no peace treaty was ever signed, so they’re still technically at war. Meanwhile, South Korea and the United States have a decades-old mutual defense treaty which means both must come to the aid of the other if they are ever attacked.

As tensions have steadily increased along the demilitarized zone over the past several years, so too has Camp Humphreys grown.

Garrison commander Col. Ryan Workman calls the base the “center of gravity of the military alliance” between South Korea and the United States.

But as the largest US base in South Korea, its presence also sends a message of deterrence across Northeast Asia.

Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, the commander of US troops in South Korea, Army Gen. Paul LaCamera, said US adversaries China and Russia must be “mindful” of the tens of thousands of US troops on the peninsula in any conflict scenario.

LaCamera called South Korea the “linchpin of security in Northeast Asia and a treaty ally we must defend.”

A bull’s eye on the peninsula

Some say in the event of a renewed war on the Korean Peninsula, Camp Humphreys would be North Korea’s biggest target.

Humphreys is the headquarters of US Forces Korea, the US Eighth Army and the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.

It also hosts the US-South Korea Combined Forces Command and the United Nations Command, which was created to fight the Korean War and lives on as an international guarantor of South Korean security.

The installation has the US Army’s most-active airfield in the Pacific, humming with helicopter units and intelligence aircraft.

A drive around its miles of roads reveals hundreds of military vehicles and logistical equipment, all ensuring US units are ready – as the base’s motto says – to “fight tonight.”

“We do have a real mission here in Korea. And that is really to defend both of our homelands and maintain peace and security in the region,” says Col. Workman.

“It is a huge target … a big bull’s eye,” he said.

Hertling, a former commander of the US Army Europe, said that ever-looming threat means everyone – from generals to high school juniors – must always be in a state of readiness. Military members must be ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, the troops to the fight, the families to safer areas to the south.

Everyone keeps a “go bag” – vital documents, medicines, essential clothes – in their quarters, and they drill on evacuation protocols, he says. If they have a car on base, they are required to keep a minimum amount of fuel in it to ensure a hasty retreat.

“Just like soldiers practice going to the front lines, family members will have rehearsals of what to do in case there is a threat that seems significant and that they have to get off the peninsula,” Hertling said.

Holding down the homefront

If any of those possible dangers and readiness drills are on Tyrese “Re” Cook’s mind on a June afternoon, she shows none of it.

She has her hands full, probably not that much different from thousands of parents around Cincinnati, Ohio, the Cook family’s hometown.

Her husband, Sgt. Terry Cook, works in IT support, keeping computers ready for the office and battlefield.

Together, they have five children – all girls – two sets of twins age 6 months and 5 years, as well as a 2-year-old in the middle.

Re juggles making meals, getting the older twins to school and back, changing diapers on the younger twins and making her own YouTube videos to introduce life in South Korea to the world.

They’ve only been at Humphreys a couple of months, but it already feels like home, Re said as she sat down to chat for a few minutes.

“I feel this is a base full of opportunity … it’s a mini-America,” Cook said.

On July 4, Hoobastank played their holiday gig at an outdoor stage just off the base’s main street, which looks more like an export of a Dallas suburb than any town in South Korea.

A Texas Road House restaurant welcomes diners across the plaza from a bowling alley with dozens of lanes, video gaming stations that look like something from a sci-fi movie, and a line of massage chairs with a waiting list on a sultry holiday afternoon.

Classic American food staples are available at the base commissary – think H-E-B, Kroger or Safeway – and residents are even treated to authentic Krispy Kreme doughnuts, made on site with the original recipe, which remains a closely guarded secret.

Most of the ingredients for the doughnuts are imported from the States, said Choi Sung Ha, manager of the Army Air Force Exchange (AAFES) Bakery on Camp Humphreys, who is also an Army veteran and naturalized American.

He said, for families stationed at the base, biting into those gooey doughnuts is like biting into a piece of home.

“That’s our intent, and that’s what I’m proud of,” Choi said.

The 300 dozen Krispy Kremes the bakery produces daily are just one of the products hot off its production lines.  Its bakers also produce Wonder Bread – 1,400 loaves a day – brioche buns for Popeye’s chicken sandwiches and sesame seed buns for Burger King Whoppers.

All told, the bakery goes through 5,400 pounds of dough a day, officials said.

Believe it or not, familiar baked goods are a subliminal part of military readiness, according to Air Force Col. Jason Beck, Pacific region commander for AAFES.

If a soldier in the field knows their family back on base is enjoying “a taste of home,” they’re more likely to be more focused on their mission, Beck said.

And troops that know their families are happy are more likely to stay in the military and stay in South Korea, he said.

The Cook’s military-supplied apartment has echoes of home, with three bedrooms, modern American appliances and a large, comfortable couch.

Its electrical sockets take American plugs, which means small appliances brought from the US are easily used without adapters.

“That’s so simple and little” but provides “a piece of comfort of home,” said Re.

Another military spouse, Dymen McCoy, started a home-based business, LeahCole’s Delights, after arriving in South Korea two years ago from North Carolina.

During the July Fourth festival, she sold baked treats from a stand on the base’s main promenade. Business was brisk. By midafternoon, cupcakes were still available, but the brownies were gone, save for a few crumbs she offered as a sample.

“I hit my stride here, when we got to Korea,” McCoy said, explaining that the business is now finding customers across Humphreys’ many commands and those in nearby Osan Air Base.

“We just kinda blew up here bigger than we imagined,” McCoy said, as customers stopped by, with some saying friends had told them about her “must try” products.

100% commitment to South Korea

The military history of Camp Humphreys dates back more than 100 years, when the Japanese colonial occupiers of Korea built Pyeongtaek Airfield on the site. During the Korean War, US forces repaired and expanded it for American use, naming it K-6.

In 1962, K-6 was renamed Camp Humphreys in honor of Army Chief Warrant Officer Benjamin Humphreys, a helicopter pilot who was killed in an accident.

The base took on various functions for more than four decades until 2007, when land was broken for an expanded Humphreys to be known as US Army Garrison Humphreys.

Under a 2004 deal with the South Korean government, the US moved troops from bases in and north of the South Korean capital, including the US Forces Korea headquarters at Yongsan in central Seoul, to Humphreys.

It saw the footprint of Humphreys triple, from 1,210 acres to more than 3,600 acres.

In the 2000s, that expansion saw protests as some South Koreans decried forced evictions of local landowners and the effects on land prices and noise levels the expanded Humphreys would bring.

But the South Korean government stressed the need for the base, especially having Yongsan return to Korean control. In a 2006 statement, then-Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook called it “a matter of boosting national pride.”

After more than 10 years of work, the transformation became official on June 29, 2018, when the new, relocated headquarters of UN Command and US Forces Korea opened at Humphreys.

The expansion had cost $10.8 billion, 90% of which was paid by the South Korean government, Gen. Vincent Brooks, then-commander of USFK, said in a dedication speech that day.

“For that 90%, the US remains with you, 100%!” Brooks told the Koreans in attendance.

Then-South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo told the crowd the UN and US forces at Humphreys would play “a crucial role of contributing to the world’s peace by achieving a balance as the stabilizer of Northeast Asia and peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Since 2018, the base has continued to expand with construction cranes towering over new housing blocks as the US military adds capacity.

At the end of May, two eight-story housing blocks opened for enlisted personnel without families, with room for more than 300 residents in each tower.

The $67 million cost was funded by South Korea, an Army release said.

Eleven projects valued at more than $1 billion are expected to be completed by September 2026 under the Humphreys modernization plan, said Daniel Hancock, deputy to the garrison commander. Those include barracks, vehicle maintenance facilities, a satellite communications facility, an elementary school, and aircraft support facilities.

Plans for the next decade include more aviation hangars, a new airport runway and aircraft parking areas, a consolidated headquarters and new maintenance, laundry and dining facilities, Hancock said.

Camp Humphreys is preparing for a workday population of 45,000 in the next three to five years – almost double the 26,000 people who report for duty each day at the Pentagon in Washington DC.

“We’ve grown exponentially and continue to grow,” Hancock says.

The newest Americans in Korea

Some of that growth is organic.

Eight of the 68 beds at the Brian. D. Allgood Army Community Hospital – Humphreys’ base medical center – are reserved for labor and delivery. And on average, a baby is born on Camp Humphreys almost every day of the year, hospital officials say.

Not far from the hospital, on a rainy July morning, enlisted soldiers head down a hallway of the clubhouse restaurant at the camp’s 18-hole golf course to a ballroom.

Inside, a TV screen links to a State Department official in Guam, the closest actual American territory to Camp Humphreys.

Ten chairs, in two rows of five, are lined up in the center of the room. In them, 10 men and women united by improbable journeys to Camp Humphreys raise their right hands and recite the American citizenship oath of allegiance at the direction of the official in Guam.

It is an eye-watering moment – US Army service members born in Cuba, India, South Korea, the Philippines, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Mexico, all becoming citizens of the democracy they swore to defend.

When the oath ended, there was not just applause, but a roar from the audience.

Smiles were luminous. For the 10 men and women, it was a present born proudly, a new chapter as Americans.

“For me, this is 12 years in the making,” exclaimed Staff Sgt. Vanessa Ramo, who was born in the Philippines.

“I came (to Hawaii) on a plane with my parents when I was 7 years old. They’ve been working on getting me my permanent residency… We didn’t have enough money to get it done. So, the best way to go about it was to enlist in the Army.”

A friend held Ramo tight, giving her balloons and three roses, one red, one white, one blue.

The moment was both a familiar ritual and a microcosm of Humphreys’ international identity – the base naturalized 188 service members in 2023, according to Hancock, the deputy to the garrison commander.

“It is a great honor and privilege for United States Army Garrison Humphreys to support the naturalization ceremonies,” Hancock said. “Our nation and Army are built upon people from all societies, and we are appreciative to support this long legacy of helping our soldiers and their families from all over the world go from immigrants to citizens.”

In the audience for Ramo was her platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Jacob Han – born in South Korea, naturalized as a US citizen in Philadelphia.

“It just makes me really proud because I’m a Korean-American, meaning, I can serve the country I was born in, but also, the country that gave me a lot of opportunities,” Han said.

“I moved to the US when I was in first grade, and I feel like I got a lot of opportunities that I wouldn’t have gotten if I were in South Korea. So, I think I owe the country some service as well.”

Ramo said to be an American in Korea, stationed at Humphreys, now amplifies her deployment on the peninsula.

“It gets me where I wanted to be in life,” she said. “I have a lot of things I do want to accomplish, and I want the soldiers who think they can’t get citizenship that they can. And they can make a difference in everyone’s life.”

Sgt. Cook’s surprising find

The key role immigration plays in the US military, and Camp Humphreys, is on vivid display on a June afternoon during a change of command ceremony for the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 2nd Infantry Division.

Capt. Emily Sevilla, a Filipino woman, is turning over leadership of the 80- to 100-member unit to Capt. Earlson Suico, also a native of the Philippines.

They are products of what Suico, in remarks at the ceremony, sees as a family.

“Today, I officially adopted a good amount of extended family members in the formation,” he said.

The two captains are also both embodiments of the American dream.

Standing in the ranks as the command changes hands is Sgt. Cook, himself realizing the American dream through the US military, with his wife, Re, and their five daughters.

Cook was a truck driver back in Cincinnati before he joined the Army, earned a college degree, learned IT and began the journey that brought him and his family to Humphreys.

Earlier in the day, the sergeant was part of a different ceremony. He and others were getting their yellow belts in Taekwondo, the Korean martial art, with five key tenets: Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit.

Cook says all those qualities apply to a soldier.

Taekwondo “just teaches discipline, mental toughness and showing off your agility and things like that,” he said after the yellow belt ceremony. He’ll be a black belt, the top level in the art, after passing several more stages.

Getting there is “really perfect for the discipline, which goes hand in hand with the US military,” Cook said.

And Taekwondo helps him understand his South Korean military allies, he said.

Cook is in a combined division, as close as allies get, their units enmeshed with one another.

“They’re in our ranks, so we do immerse with them, within the culture, within our job and what we do in our workplace every day,” he said.

And that relationship, the Korean experience, the Humphreys’ experience, gives him something outsiders might find surprising from a man whose brought his family halfway around the world to this piece of America just 60 miles from North Korea.

“In the two months I’ve been here, what stands out the most is the peace,” Cook said.

“The peace that you have here, here at Camp Humphreys, (it’s) just different from anywhere else in the world.

“There’s just a calm here, and a peace here, that’s really easy to get sucked into.”