The 8th U.S. Army in charge of American ground troops here will remain on the Korean Peninsula even after South Korea takes over the wartime operational control from the United States in April 2012, according to a Korean government official Sunday.
``The 8th U.S. Army has long considered whether to leave (Korea), and it finally decided to remain,'' the official said on condition of anonymity. ``The name of the 8th U.S. Army will also remain unchanged.''
Since the 2nd Infantry Division belonging to the 8th U.S. Army completed its transformation into a unit of employment (UEX) in 2005, the 8th Army has seen rumors of its breakup or movement out of Korea.
The official said that the 8th Army will be reorganized to belong to a new U.S. military command in Korea, tentatively named US KORCOM, and will function as a U.S. Army combat command. He added that the 19th Theater Support Command in Daegu will support the 8th Army Command.
Under the U.S. military transformation plan, the U.S. Army is creating three new echelons _ the unit of action (UA), unit of employment-X (UEX) and unit of employment-Y (UEY) _ to replace the current brigade, division, corps and army. The UEX is a unit sized between a corps and a division.
The 8th U.S. Army Command was created on July 9, 1950 at a middle school in Daegu and assumed the operational control of ground troops on the Korean Peninsula on July 13, 1950. The U.S. Army command, which moved from Daegu to Yongsan in Seoul in 1953, was in Japan from 1954 to 1955, and moved to Yongsan in July 1955.