15 years after Camp Howze’s departure, Bongilcheon No. 4 Village in ruins

Residents of Bongilcheon No. 4 Village, Jori Township, Paju, survey the spot where the US military base Camp Howze used to be stationed. (Park Kyung-man, North Gyeonggi correspondent)

Residents offered services for US soldiers for meager wages

Fifteen years after the departure of the US military base at Camp Howze, the nearby camp town remains frozen in the past like a broken clock.

Visiting on Sept. 17 with residents of Bongilcheon No. 4 village from the township of Jori in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, I saw that the vacated buildings of the base in the village’s back hills were still in good condition – but the village itself has faced a rapid decline amid delays in an urban redevelopment project. Previously a quiet farming community of some 50 families on the banks of Gongneung Stream, Bongilcheon No. 4 underwent a full-scale transformation with the sudden arrival of foreign armies when the Korean War broke out in 1950. Hundreds of people came from all over South Korea in search of employment, including sex workers; they set up tents in front of the US base or rented rooms as they went to work selling services to US soldiers.

The village’s oldest resident at 95, Lee Jae-choon explained, “Now that the US military base is gone, everybody’s scattered, and it’s only the people with no place to go who have settled down and made it their second home.”

“It’s been a sad time. I thought I’d get to go home soon after the base moved,” he said with a grim smile.

The oldest child of nine, Lee crossed the 38th Parallel alone on July 21, 1946, leaving his wife, son, parents, and eight younger brothers and sisters behind in his home county of Pyoksong in North Korea’s Hwanghae Province. As the oldest son, he had been sent South by his father, a farmer and Chosun Democratic Party member, after a conflict over land distribution with a relative who was a member of the Communist Party. He briefly reunited with his family in his home village after Seoul was recaptured on Sept. 28, 1950, but had to leave a day later when combat broke out on nearby Mt. Songak. Since then, he has since endured a harsh 70 years away from home.

After facing several brushes with death in Ongjin and on Yeonpyeong Island, Lee opted to survive by becoming a member of the “UN police,” who played an assisting role to US forces. After a week of training, he was assigned to the Uijeongbu Police Station, where he watched over the armory at Dongducheon and guarded soldiers, police, and female workers “entertaining” the troops. His duties also included transporting refugees to the Geumchon camp from Jangdan in Paju.

Residents of Bongilcheon No. 4 Village, Jori Township, Paju, survey the spot where the US military base Camp Howze used to be stationed. (Park Kyung-man, North Gyeonggi correspondent)

After about five years, the UN police were disbanded, and in 1956 – at the age of 32 – Lee became a “houseboy” performing laundry and cleaning services for soldiers at the US base in Paju. As payment, he received seven cartons of cigarettes a month. A total of 560 US enlisted men and noncommissioned officers were stationed at Camp Howze at the time.

“It’s dark now, but the village was thriving back then,” he recalled. “There were 160 employees living in tents on the hill in front of the US base, and over 70 [sex workers].”

“One time, a US soldier killed one of the prostitutes next door to the house where I was living. The police couldn’t do anything about it back then – it was a lawless environment.”

Like Lee’s life, the history of Camp Howze has been an eventful one. After starting out during wartime in 1953 as a US Marines command base and headquarters, it was used in 1955 as a base for the US 24th Infantry Division and in 1959 as a headquarters for the US 1st Cavalry Division reserves and the 24th Infantry. The name “Camp Howze” was assigned in 1960 by the US 1st Infantry headquarters after its inaugural commander. Stationed there from 1965 to 1971, the US 2nd Infantry Division command was relocated to Dongducheon, and after being used as a headquarters for the 2nd Infantry’s 3rd Brigade and the 44th Engineer Battalion, it was returned to the South Korean military in 2004.

While the return of six US bases in the Paju area was completed in 2007, five of them have remained in neglect for the past 12 years, with only Camp Greaves in use for a DMZ Experience Center in Gyeonggi Province.

By Park Kyung-man, North Gyeonggi Province

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