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Germany has the second-largest number of occupying US troops, with 33,948 troops stationed at 119 bases. Thirdly, South Korea has 26,414 troops at 73 bases—one of which is Camp Humphreys, the U.S.’s largest military base built in 1919.
Ramstein Air Base (IATA: RMS, ICAO: ETAR) is a United States Air Force base located in Rhineland-Palatinate, a state in southwestern Germany. It serves as the headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA) and NATO Allied Air Command (AIRCOM).
The above map depicts the United States’ control of almost 800 military bases around the world, spattered across at least 80 countries. Japan has the highest number of American military bases in the world at 120, followed by Germany with 119, and then South Korea with 73.
Aug 22, 2017 · According to the Department of Defense, the US still controls or operates 179 bases in Germany, hundreds more all over Europe, and 109 in Japan.
- Annalisa Merelli
- Washington, D.C.
- Kabul, Afghanistan
- Lily Pads
- Border/Transit Countries
- U.S. Landing Points/Philadelphia & Dulles
- U.S. Safe Havens
- Final Stop: U.S. Communities
A Race Against the Clock
Elizabeth Rood As the deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan approached in the summer of 2021, urgency increased for bringing to safety thousands of Afghan citizens who were at risk because of their work for or on behalf of the U.S. diplomatic and military mission over the past 20 years. The Biden administration faced a backlog of more than 17,000 Special Immigrant Visa applications, each representing lives to be saved. On July 19, as districts across Afghanistan were fal...
The Apocalyptic Airport Scene
James P. DeHart In Kabul, our challenge was getting the people we wanted into the airport. The scenes at the gates were apocalyptic. Getting to the front of the crowd, close enough to grab the attention of our Marines, took a full day of shoving through a mosh pit of roaming Taliban while gunfire rang overhead. The lucky few who made it arrived sunburned, bleeding, often in tears. Random young men who got inside were often tossed right back out. Our Marines hadn’t signed up for this sort of c...
MED Docs Offer Support Through Chaos
Bob Y. Shim In the dawn hours, I arrived in Kabul on a C-17 with a Department of Defense medical team. My first impression was how quiet and serene everything seemed. This illusion was shattered by the flood of scenes I witnessed during an initial tour of the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) perimeter with Ambassador Ross Wilson—thousands of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-deep in the sewage canal outside Abbey Gate, waiting for the slightest opening to enter; the road out...
And Then, We Went Back to Work
Jayne Howell I’ve served in Afghanistan twice. First, in the heady, optimism-filled days of 2004 when we moved easily around Kabul in thin-skinned vehicles, our body armor growing dusty as we were welcomed into Afghan homes and weddings as liberators and partners. I toured tiled mosques and reopened museums. I got to know Afghan families over fragrant platters of qabuli palauand cups of green tea with sugared almonds. I attended Sufi concerts in antique rose gardens, learned to bargain for ru...
The Evacuation Is On DOHA, QATAR
Mark Padgett “We have a C-17 inbound in 30 minutes with approximately 400 Afghan nationals that rushed the plane in Kabul. Intentions unknown. Hijacking possible.” My jaw dropped. It was around 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 15 when an Air Force officer had tapped my shoulder, asking, “Are you State?” and said I had a phone call from Brigadier General Gerald Donohue, the 379th Wing Commander at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The night had begun innocuously enough when our economic officer, Nikhil Lakhanpal,...
In Limbo in Abu Dhabi EMIRATI HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE CENTER, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Cynthia Segura “And how many bags do you have?” I asked the patriarch of a family of nine. The translator conveyed the answer: “One.” I handed him the luggage tag and wished them a safe trip. Silently I hoped that their one suitcase contained nine jackets for their arrival in Philadelphia. Like so many of the families fleeing Afghanistan, they barely escaped with the clothes on their back. These were the lucky ones, traveling to a new life in the United States. In October I had the opportunit...
Attention to Mental Health Aftereffects KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT
Karen Travers In late August and early September, I watched along with the rest of the world as the U.S. performed the monumental task of the Afghanistan evacuation. I would have gone to Afghanistan if asked, but mental health care is better provided on the tail end of any crisis, when the adrenaline has stopped flowing and people have a chance to sit and reflect on what they have just experienced. The second week of September I traveled to Embassy Kuwait to help manage the potential mental h...
Little Afghan Refugee TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN
Azam Abidov A little Afghan refugee Sleeps in the very crowded plane She knows nothing about where they are heading It does not matter: Her mother is with her. She is not afraid anymore of the AKs or war That made her heart hard Very hard. Still there is a tiny place in it For love and light. The little Afghan angel Sleeps in the very crowded Military plane. The only thing she sees in her dream is— Air.
A Last Heroic Act by Afghan Pilots TERMEZ, UZBEKISTAN
Sandra Jacobs In the chaos of Aug. 15, approximately 500 U.S.-trained Afghan pilots and other personnel fled over the northern border into Termez, Uzbekistan, aboard 46 Afghan military airplanes and helicopters. For the Afghans, this was one last act in service of their partnership with the United States: They left their families behind to prevent the aircraft from falling into Taliban hands. Their arrival kicked off an intensive, monthlong diplomatic process that led to securing non-refoulem...
Saving Afghan Pilots’ Families TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN
Alexis Sullivan It was the most momentous call of my career. Who else could we get out? I knew there was a safe way to get people to Kabul airport, but could they get there in time? So while our primary responsibility in Tashkent remained responding to Americans and other priority groups transiting Uzbekistan, as acting deputy chief of mission I asked our country team who else on our collective radar remained in Kabul for whom we should make a referral in the U.S. national interest. After a d...
Bravery in the Face of Tragedy DULLES EXPO CENTER, VIRGINIA
Mike Junge In one capacity or another as a contracting officer, I was with the USAID/Afghanistan mission for 4 1/2 years (2006-2010). When the call came for volunteers, which just so happened to coincide with my leave in the United States, there was no question that I would step up. I take away many impressions, but first and foremost is the resilience of the Afghan people. Bone-weary and facing an unknown future, and with great stress written on their faces, they were also quick to smile and...
A Dulles Landing and a New Wristband DULLES EXPO CENTER, VIRGINIA
Danielle Spinard I volunteered at the Dulles Expo Center as part of an amazing team helping to “intake” hundreds of Afghan refugees. Of the many, many Afghans we processed, one stands out for me. I remember clearly the exhausted face of a mother traveling alone with her two children. On their arms were stacked different colored wristbands. They held out their arms while we cut the old ones off and then added a new one. The wristbands were a sign of each transition and “check-in” this family h...
Calling All Americans: Welcome the New Arrivals VARIOUS U.S. BASES
Kathleen M. Corey Afghan women with veiled faces trying to keep sand from their eyes during a windstorm at Fort Bliss. Laughing children playing a game of pick-up soccer with Marines at Quantico. Afghan men at Fort Pickett asking if their wives will have to work to make ends meet and, if so, who will take care of the children. Young women at Camp Atterbury worried about how they will support themselves in the United States. These are images I will carry with me for a long time. After eight we...
Building Safe Havens for Allies DULLES, FORT DIX, FORT PICKETT
John Wecker I watched the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August with a broken heart. It unfolded as I was taking the Foreign Service Institute’s two-month job search program, preparing to retire following a 30-year career as a Foreign Service officer and three tours in Afghanistan. When I saw the department’s call for volunteers to respond to the crisis, I, along with 25 colleagues in the retirement course, immediately signed up, choosing to spend the last five weeks of our course time...
Domestic Diplomacy for Resettlement Efforts in Virginia FORT PICKETT, VIRGINIA
Baxter Hunt I was part of a group of 19 State Department and USAID staff working at Fort Pickett, an Army National Guard training facility in southern Virginia that was one of eight military bases around the country housing Afghan evacuees. The first group of Afghans was bused from the Dulles Expo Center to Fort Pickett on Aug. 28, and by the end of September we were hosting 6,000 evacuees. Several of us on the State/USAID team had served in Afghanistan, and all of us were gratified to be abl...
Global Network Helping Locally Employed Staff to Safety
Lana Surface and Michelle Kevern August 2021. Silence. The WhatsApp group of Americans and former locally employed (LE) staff who had worked in the Kabul public affairs section (PAS) in 2019 and 2020 was rarely quiet. Created during the pandemic, it was meant to provide connection during a year of isolation as officers and family member employees from Kabul, and around the world, found themselves back in Washington, D.C., and when many of our LE colleagues were also arriving in the U.S. on th...
Settling Newly Arrived Families MARYLAND
Bill Grant Once a week, I lug overstuffed couches and cabinets that used to grace suburban homes into apartments in Riverdale and Landover, Maryland. My wife and I volunteer with Homes Not Borders, a small nongovernmental organization whose niche is to collect furniture donations and then set up apartments in the Washington, D.C., area for newly arriving Afghans, including Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients. Besides used furniture, Homes Not Borders provides new beds and bedding, outfits...
DACOR Assists New Arrivals
Paul Denig In response to the collapse of the Afghan government and the ensuing exodus from Afghanistan, a member of DACOR, an organization of foreign affairs professionals, suggested to me that DACOR as an organization should try to assist the Afghan new arrivals in their resettlement in the United States. Our executive committee approved the idea unanimously. While not excluding the possibility of assistance to other Afghans, the focus of the assistance was to be our Afghan colleagues, the...
A spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts.
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Sep 1, 2021 · About a fifth of all people evacuated from Kabul were brought to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they await the next leg of their journey, to the United States.
