Camp Ramadi

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Overview

Camp Ramadi was a large coalition base on the outskirts of Ramadi, the provincial capital of Al Anbar Province, roughly 70 miles west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River. Coalition forces took possession of the site, then known as Camp Junction City, in 2003 shortly after the ground offensive.

In September 2003 the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, deployed from Fort Riley and took over combat operations in the Ramadi and Habbaniyah area from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Base Camp Junction City housed the brigade headquarters along with the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry; 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery; 1st Engineer Battalion; D Troop, 4th Cavalry; the 331st Signal Company; and C Battery, 4-3 Air Defense Artillery. A regional public safety academy for Iraqi police was later built on about 25 acres inside the camp's security wall.

From 2004 onward Marine Corps and Army units rotated through the base during some of the heaviest fighting of the war in Anbar. Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment held a memorial at the camp in April 2005, and a Navy Seabee battalion, NMCB 4, operated from the camp in 2007. Camp Blue Diamond, the 1st Marine Division headquarters in a former palace compound in Ramadi, was a separate installation.

On 20 January 2009 the commander of Camp Ramadi and of the Washington Army National Guard's 81st Brigade Combat Team signed a memorandum of agreement with the Iraqi Army turning the camp over to the Iraqi government. Camp Ali, a segment of Camp Ramadi already occupied by the Iraqi Army's First Quick Reaction Force Brigade, was the site of the signing. The agreement defined the areas coalition forces would continue to use through 2011, and the camp was then described as one of the last coalition-only bases in the Ramadi area.

During 2009-2011 the camp hosted Army advise-and-assist brigades, including the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, the 4th Advise and Assist Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, and the 2nd Advise and Assist Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, which trained and partnered with Iraqi security forces under Operation New Dawn.

Timeline

Units stationed at Camp Ramadi

Units documented in public sources as based at or operating from Camp Ramadi. This list is not complete; units rotated frequently and many smaller elements were never reported. Veterans can add their unit on the message board below.

Notable events and facts

• The camp was known as Camp Junction City before being called Camp Ramadi; Operation Junction City was the only combat parachute operation of the Vietnam War.
• An Iraqi regional public safety academy for police training occupied about 25 acres inside the security wall of Camp Junction City.
• In July 2005 reports alleged that troops and civilians at Camp Junction City had been exposed to contaminated water supplied by Halliburton; a military medical unit later found nothing out of the ordinary.
• The January 2009 turnover agreement was signed at Camp Ali, the Iraqi Army segment of Camp Ramadi, by the Iraqi First Quick Reaction Force Brigade commander and the 81st BCT commander.
• In September 2011 an EOD team destroyed more than 900 pounds of seized weapons and munitions at a range outside Camp Ramadi.

Photographs

Message board: Camp Ramadi

Served here? Share a memory, name your unit, or send a correction. Posts are reviewed before they appear. The full community board is on the Message Board page.

Sources

1. U.S. military signs over Camp Ramadi (National Guard Bureau, January 2009). https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/573870/us-military-signs-over-camp-ramadi/
2. Ramadiyah / Ar Ramadi (GlobalSecurity.org). https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/ramadiyah.htm
3. Wikimedia Commons search results for Camp Ramadi (file descriptions). https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22Camp+Ramadi%22&ns6=1