Camp Carroll
Taegu Storage Area

Camp Carroll is a small camp in central Korea situated approximately one hour North of Taegu in Waegwan, South Korea. Though a small community, Camp Carroll maintained a full service Fitness Center (with indoor and outdoor pools), a small Commissary, PX, Shoppette, Food Court, and All Ranks Club. Military shuttle bus services run to and from Taegu and affords soldiers the opportunity to take advantage of the full size facilities there.

Camp Carroll consisted of 546 acres in the Nak Tong River Valley, approximately one-quarter mile east of the historic Nak Tong River. The terrain was hilly, with surrounding mountains. Camp Carroll lies 20 air miles northeast of the city of Taegu, approximately 40 minutes in travel time. Camp Carroll is situated in Area IV. Weather was similar to that of the Midwestern United States--hot and humid in the summer, cold and windy in the winter.

The total population of Camp Carroll was approximately 2,700. Of that, US military personnel number approximately 1,200, or 44 percent. Other members of the community included Department of Defense civilians, Korean National employees, KATUSAs, and non-command sponsored family members. Personnel assigned to Camp Carroll have the opportunity not only to work with US personnel, but also with Korean military personnel, American civilians, and Korean civilians. The Korean soldiers are part of the Korean Augmentation to the US Army (KATUSA) program, in which selected ROK Army enlisted personnel are assigned to the US Army. KATUSA are fully integrated into their units--working, training, and living with American soldiers.

Construction of Camp Carroll began in 1959. The installation was memorialized on 17 June 1960. Camp Carroll was named in honor of Sergeant First Class Charles F. Carroll of the 72nd Combat Engineer Company, 5th Infantry Regiment, who died in action during the Korean War. SFC Carroll was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism.

On 1 July 1950, a small force of American soldiers known as Task Force Smith landed at Pusan on the southern coast of the Republic of Korea. There they began a dramatic march north to meet an invading army in a land that, at the time, could not be more remote in the minds of the Americans people. In the years that have followed, United States Forces Korea (USFK) soldiers stood in combat and in vigilance with the forces of the Republic of Korea to protect the homes, lives, and freedom of the Korean people.

Camp Carroll was dominated by warehouses and lots. One of it's primary functions was to house millions of dollars in war reserve stocks, to include everything from tanks to tools. Giant garages house repair facilities where wheeled equipment weighing several tons can be disassembled, or a sensitive electronic circuit board can be checked for invisible cracks. Other features included those structures normally found on a military installation, barracks, snack bars, a commissary, a movie theater, post exchange, etc.

US Army-Combat Equipment Battalion-Northeast Asia (CEB-NEA) mission was to oversee the maintenance program to ensure operational readiness of APS-4 materiel for use by the Commanders in Chief (CINCs) during contingencies or exercises. It provided the operating contractor, Eighth US Army (EUSA), US Army Pacific (USARPAC), and US Army Japan (USARJ) with guidelines for development of detailed procedures for the execution of each facet of the supply, inventory, and accountability program, and establishes and maintains oversight of those procedures. The CEB-NEA also supported the Army's Power Projection Strategy. The CEB-NEA was established in October 1998 to manage APS-4 war reserve stocks located throughout the Pacific theater. These stocks were configured into an Armor Brigade Modification Table of Organization and Equipment (MTOE) Set, Operational Project Stocks, and Sustainment Stocks for the purpose of linking peacetime readiness with power projection during hostilities. The Headquarters was located at Camp Carroll Waegwan, South Korea, with major storage sites in South Korea, Japan, and Hawaii.

The US Army Material Support Center-Korea (USAMSC-K) was headquartered at Camp Carroll. USAMSC-K provided general service maintenance and supply support for all US military units in the Republic of Korea. Camp Carroll was the major storage site for war reserves and decrement stocks in Korea. 307th Signal Battalion provided defense communication system (DCS) entry and signal telephone, teletypewriter, and facsimile services. The 307th supports military communications requirements within the Republic of Korea for United States Forces Korea, Combined Field Army, Combined Forces Command, and the Eight United States Army. The 16th Medical Logistics (MEDLOG) Battalion provided all Class VII (Medical) supplies to the Corps. This included spectacle fabrication, bio-medical maintenance and medical supply. 16th MEDLOG operated the largest frozen blood storage facility on the peninsula. Other units included Army War Reserves, Headquarters, 6th Ordnance Battalion.

The US Army TMDE Region Pacific replaced the 2nd Maintenance Company as a result of the reduction of soldiers at Echelon Above Corps (EAC), its mission would be to provide TMDE Support to the Western Pacific Theater of operations. This would include Korea and Japan with Small Arms and Ammunition Gage support for Hawaii. The Region Headquarters was located at CP Carroll Korea (Waegwan). It was a Composite Civilian/Military organization, with an ACL, ICL, PBO/MSSA and Support Office located at CP Carroll, a TDA 286 TSC at CP Coiner, a TDA 287 at Sagami, Japan, MTOE 287 ATSTs at CP Casey and CP Sears, 2 MTOE 287 ATST's at CP Humphreys. The 4 MTOE ATST's were organizational elements of the 95th Maintenance Company under coordinating authority of the region. Region-Pacific became a permanent organization effective 16 September 1999.

19th TAACOM had 4 chemical decontamination units whose mission was very similar to those in the ROK military. They were tasked with decontaminating personnel and equipment in the aftermath of an enemy chemical attack. The 61st Chemical Company was stationed in Pusan, the 62nd Chemical Company was in Wonju and 2 units, the 267th and the 501st Chemical companies, were located in Waegwan. The 4 chemical companies were part of the 19th TAACOM's 23rd Chemical Battalion, headquartered on Camp Carroll near Waegwan, Korea. The 23rd Chemical Battalion was stationed at the facility, but relocated to Fort Lewis in late 2004. The completion of the relocation was announced by Eighth US Army on 17 December 2004.

With the creation of Installation Management Command (IMCOM) and the subordinate Installation Management Command Korea (IMCOM-K) in 2006 and subsequent reorganizations, the US Army Garrison Daegu, headquartered at Camp Henry in Daegu, assumed authority for the Camp Carroll installation and provided base operations services for the people who lived and or worked at Camp Carroll.

In May 2011, US veterans reportedly told KPHO-TV, a CNN affiliate, that they had been involved in the dumping of the defoliant popularly known as "Agent Orange" in areas around Camp Carroll. Veteran Steve House said that he dug a trench in 1978 near Camp Carroll that was later filled with "Fifty-five-gallon drums with bright yellow, some of them bright orange, writing on them...and some of the cans said Province of Vietnam, Compound Orange." Two other veterans supported House's claim. The US military's position was that all stockpiles of Agent Orange were incinerated at sea following the conflict in Vietnam. The US military denied the claims in the face of outrage in South Korea, but pledged to investigate them.

On 16 June 2011, the US-South Korean Joint Investigation Team announced that it had found no traces of Agent Orange during water sampling tests on the wells in the community adjacent to Camp Carroll. No other evidence had been found up to that point to support claims of Agent Orange being disposed of by burial near Camp Carroll. US Forces Korea did admit that that during the late 1970s barrels of other defoliants were buried at Camp Carroll, but were dug up within a few years and removed. Traces of those chemicals remained in the soil.