Army Seeks Home Posts For 6 New Brigades

[Ryan Ruck]

Army Seeks Home Posts For 6 New Brigades

Army leaders are studying 17 posts to determine which would make the best homes for six new brigade combat teams over the next six years.

Their ultimate decision will determine where tens of thousands of soldiers and family members will call home and will bring significant growth to the communities of the selected posts.

The assessment is part of a plan the service announced at the beginning of the year to grow the active and Reserve force by 74,000 soldiers. About 35,000 of those soldiers will be assigned to fill out six new brigade combat teams as they are stood up.

The service's senior leadership have tasked Army Environmental Command to collect public comments from anyone living on or near these installations about the possibility of adding a minimum of 1,000 soldiers — or even a couple of the new brigades, which usually contain about 4,000 soldiers each, said Bob DiMichele, a spokesman for Environmental Command.

The bases under consideration are Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Hunter-Liggett, Calif.; Fort Irwin, Calif.; Fort Knox, Ky.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; Fort Polk, La.; Fort Riley, Kan.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; White Sands Missile Range, N.M.; Yakima Training Center, Wash.; and Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz.

The study of those posts is intended to give the senior leadership a "big picture" of which installations have the adequate training infrastructure and housing to support large influxes of soldiers and family members. It will also help show how these possible troop increases will affect the area's education, transportation and environmental resources, DiMichele said.

A public notice announcing the availability of the "Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement" for the study was posted on the Federal Register and in USA Today on August 24. The draft document can be viewed at http://aec.army.mil/usaec/publicaffa...s/arforgen.pdf.

The public comment period will be open for 45 days, DeMichele said. After that, the comments will be compiled into a report, which should be ready by the end of the calendar year, he said.

The report will be made available for public review and comment for another 30 days. Following another round of revisions, the report will then be presented to the senior leadership.

The entire process selecting the installations and housing these new brigades is scheduled to be completed by 2013, DeMichele said.

All written comments and suggestions should be sent to Public Affairs Office, U.S. Army Environmental Command, Building E4460, 5179 Hoadley Road, Attention: IMAE–PA, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010–5401. Participants can also e-mail comments to PublicComments@aec.apgea.army.mil

I guess all those BRAC closures weren't such a good idea…

But, I'm glad to see additions to our forces!

[Brian Baldwin]

Place them all in California with a HUGE sign high above the horizon that can be read for miles that says "We still remember Kent State"