Going Above and Beyond: Soldier Recognized for Water Outage Assistance at Camp Humphreys

CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea – When an unexpected water outage hit the installation over the Chuseok holiday weekend, Sept. 25–26, 2026, the crisis becam… CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea – When an unexpected water outage hit the installation over the Chuseok holiday weekend, Sept. 25–26, 2026, the crisis became an immediate test of operational readiness. For Master Sgt. Tyler Smith and a team of Soldiers working alongside Department of Public Works personnel, restoring flow meant working around the clock to put the community’s needs first while reinforcing the installation's resilience and mission-ready posture. As a contracting support noncommissioned officer with the 906th Contracting Battalion, Master Sgt. Tyler Smith is accustomed to negotiating with vendors, managing pricing, and placing orders through formal contract mechanisms.

But nothing quite prepared him for the holiday weekend, when the utility failure shut down critical operations across the installation, leaving Soldiers and families without running water. "The initial reaction is the expected time frame of how long it's going to take to be repaired," Smith said. "The hours kept passing, and then have to start making phone calls to vendors, and there is not much traction because, like I said, they're on holiday." With vendors unresponsive due to the holiday, Smith and his team quickly realized waiting wasn't an option. Securing the massive order of 100 portable