Soldiers dressed as 2nd Military Police Company members from different eras march at the unit's deactivation ceremony at Camp Casey, South Korea, on Friday. (Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes)
CAMP CASEY, South Korea — The 2nd Military Police Company inactivated here Friday, ending 88 years of tradition including service in both world wars and the Korean War.
Company commander Capt. Alan Pearson, 27, of Fremont, Calif., who paraded with his soldiers before 2nd Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. George A. Higgins and other dignitaries for the last time, said the unit inactivated as part of the Army’s transformation process.
All MP companies attached to Army divisions are inactivating, he said.
Fifty-five of the unit’s soldiers will join the 1st MP Platoon, part of 2nd ID’s new 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team. Others will join the 8th MP Brigade — the only other U.S. military police unit remaining on the peninsula, Pearson said.
The unit’s soldiers escorted more than 2,000 convoys last year and enforced the law on Area I bases.
The job put soldiers in harm’s way dealing with intoxicated people at times, he said.
“You have to remember you are soldiers first and help those guys and get them back to a place they need to be,” he said.
Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Moeggenberg, 38, of Traverse City, Mich., said he was sad to see the end of his old unit but excited about the new military police role in the Army, which includes more combat-related work rather than the traditional law enforcement and traffic work.
In Iraq, military police are doing infantry-type work, such as clearing buildings, he said. “We are in the fight with the units now,” he said.
It is up to lawmakers to decide if female military police will participate in combat, Moeggenberg said, but added that, “there are two female MPs in this unit (the 2nd MPs) who can kick my butt.”
Area I commander Col. Jeff Christiansen, a former 2nd MP, recalled the unit’s service in the Korean War, when “MPs stood ankle deep in mud controlling traffic and providing careful watch over enemy prisoners of war.”
A ceremony program stated that the unit, originally known as the 2nd Train and Military Police Company, was formed in 1917 and served with 2nd ID in France during World War I. Reorganized as a platoon, it landed at Omaha Beach in June 1944 during World War II and fought in several battles, including the Battle of the Bulge. In 1950 it deployed to South Korea and earned a Presidential Unit Citation after the Battle of Pusan. Unit soldiers also participated in attacks on Bloody Ridge, Heartbreak Ridge, Old Baldy, Pork Chop Hill and T-Bone Hill.
Its last tour in South Korea began in 1971.
Taegu-based Department of the Army resource manager Rick Campbell, a former 2nd MP commander, traveled north for the ceremony and to see the changes at Camp Casey since his 1982-to-’83 tour. The lawn where the inactivation ceremony was held used to be covered in Quonset huts used by the MPs, he said.
“Where Primo’s Restaurant is there was a Quonset hut that I used to live in,” said Campbell. He said he was sad to see his old unit go but that he understood the need for the Army to transform.
Soldiers dressed as 2nd Military Police Company members from different eras march at the unit's deactivation ceremony at Camp Casey, South Korea, on Friday. (Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes)
Second Military Police Company commander Capt. Alan Pearson, right, participates in his unit’s inactivation ceremony with other soldiers Friday. (Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes)
