The last building I will be blogging about is my barracks building when I was stationed at Camp Casey in South Korea. Camp Casey is about 40 miles north of Seoul and 20 minutes away from the DMZ. Camp Casey was built in 1952 and many of the buildings are still very old. The Army doesn’t want to renovate much of the post because they are slowing phasing it out as Soldiers move to the newer base near Seoul. My barracks building was fairly centrally located within the base and it is where I stayed for the nine-months I was there.

This building is important to me for many reasons. First, it is the only building I have lived at for an extended period of time in another country. Even though I was stationed thousands of miles away from home and very close to a nation that wanted me dead, when I was in my barracks I could feel safe and at home. I was able to watch American programming for free and the high-speed internet enabled me to seamlessly play games with friends back in the states. Sometimes it didn’t even feel like I was in another country. The second reason it was important to me was because it brought my unit together. In the states, the married Soldiers did not live in barracks and instead lived in on-post housing or off base. At Camp Casey, we all lived in the same barracks together. This enabled us to connect with one another in a way that was never possible in the states. These are some of the reasons that my barracks building at Camp Casey, South Korea has been a positive influence in my life.