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OVERVIEWOVERVIEW

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TABLETABLE OFOFCONTENTSCONTENTS

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OVERVIEW In 2005 Fort Lee won out in the Base Realign-ment and Closure deci-sions. Over the past fi ve years, the area has physi-cally been altered since then — including new hotels and apartment complexes outside the post’s fence. Inside the post, the Army base has nearly doubled in size with massive new build-ings sprouting up since the decision. Shortly after the decision was an-nounced, it was estimated that the population of Fort Lee would increase by 119 percent and the annual economic impact of the post would double — to $1.6 billion. As a result of the Base Realignment and Closure Act of 2005, Fort Lee is already in the pro-cess of gaining the Ordnance Center and Schools from Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Mary-land; the Munitions, Elec-tronics and Maintenance Center from Redstone Arsenal in Alabama; the Defense Contract Man-agement Agency from Alexandria; the Transpor-tation School from Fort

Eustis in Newport News; and the Air Force Trans-portation Training Center and Air Force Culinary Training Center from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. The permanent party personnel at Fort Lee will increase by approxi-mately 4,000 when the BRAC growth completes late next year. But the

Army base is also growing in the number of civil-ians, military students and families. Already the post has grown by approximately 20,304 people since 2005 when the BRAC decision was fi rst announced. Currently, there are about a 40,900

people at Fort Lee and the fi nal population next year is expected to be about 45,000 people. Some of the construc-tion highlights that have been completed include:the Army Logistics Uni-versity, Sustainment Cen-ter of Excellence head-quarters building — now known as Miffl in Hall, the Soldier Support Center,

Tactical Support Equip-ment Department, one of the Army’s largest dining facilities and barracks for incoming soldiers. Construction is still taking place across post, includ-ing the new Ordnance Campus and where the Transportation Center

and School will soon relo-cate to. Construction of a new 1,000-room military hotel is expected to start anytime now.

In the past year a lot of new buildings have opened on post, and more are set to open be-tween now and Septem-ber 2011. In some cases buildings are even fi nding

new uses in the prepa-ration for the fi nal growth spurt at Fort Lee through the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure decision. “This is a major milestone for us,” Fort Lee Garrison Com-mander, Col. Michael Morrow said. “Twenty different organizations from across post, in 10 different buildings will be moving here.”Among the new build-ings that have opened on post are the Army

Logistics University. At the university soldiers

are trained to become leaders of their fi eld in ordnance, transportation and quartermaster skills.The building was com-pleted in 22 months at a total cost of about $136 million. The education building is the largest building on post and con-

New Army barracks are under construction at a rapid rate to accomodate numerous AIT students who will train at Fort Lee.


tains 348,511 square feet of space, 92 classrooms and has the ability to train 40,000 students each year.The building also incorpo-rated green technology and practices. About 83 percent of the construc-tion waste was recycled and the building was designed to meet Lead-ership in Environmental Design, silver standards. The green building rating system is designed to promote design and con-struction practices that reduce negative environ-mental impacts. By July 2011, it will be supporting the full capac-ity of 2,300 soldiers.The university also saw the addition of the Non-

Commissioned Offi cers Academy from elsewhere on Fort Lee. The building which used to house the NCO Acad-emy is being renovated to house the Army Transpor-tation Center Schools and the Air Force and Navy

headquarters adminis-trative offi ce area. The building will provide ad-ministrative space for 50 Army personnel and also use space for Command and Control functions for both Air Force and Navy culinary students and the

Air Force Transportation Management Schools. The post is literally being transformed as it doubles the amount of building square footage by Sep-tember 2011. The logistics university opened July of last year along with four other ma-jor BRAC-related projects. The fi ve major projects that opened in 2009 included the Sustainment Center of Excellence — now known as Miffl in Hall, Army Logistics University, the Dining Facility on the Ordnance Campus, Tacti-cal Support Equipment Department and the Soldier Support Center — additionally several new barracks buildings

Miffl in Hall


OVERVIEWopened on the Ordnance Campus. The Tactical Support Equipment Department has become one of the busiest buildings on post. Training in the building is nearly constant with sol-diers training in two shifts.Construction on the Tacti-cal Support Equipment Department began two years ago in November 2007. In that time the more than 270,000 square foot building has risen out of the ground enclos-ing about 6 1/2 acres of learning space. There are 25 classrooms where 32 soldiers can learn from state of the art equip-ment. In the larger part of the building there are 22 instructional bays, where soldiers can gain hands on experience in repair-ing support equipment ranging from genera-tors, to smoke machines, to water pumps and air conditioners. In total, the building cost about $50 million to build and con-tains about $13 million in equipment. The dining facility on the Ordnance Campus works to feed those soldiers three meals, each and every day. Cur-rently there are about 600 soldiers on the campus,

but when the base is fully built out, the dining facility will still be able to handle the number of soldiers. The facility, which can feed more than 3,500 soldiers in 90 minutes, is among the largest in the Army and features some of the latest technology.

The Soldier Support Center houses the Hu-man Resources Director-ate, Army Community Service, Defense Military Pay offi ce, Transportation, housing, vehicle registra-tion, medical and dental activity and post reten-tion offi ce.The building was dedi-cated in the memory of Dwight Alan Faughn. It is the fi rst place soldiers re-port to when arriving on

Fort Lee for the fi rst time and the place they visit before being transferred to any other post. Last year’s round of BRAC-related openings and the fi rst major BRAC project to open was the SCOE Headquarters building. Then Gov. Timothy M. Kaine came to Fort Lee for

the opening of the SCOE.The structure represents a $49-million investment and was recently rededi-cated as Miffl in Hall.In the coming year though, even more projects are set to open including a new dining facility for the Air Force and Navy personnel that will be training on post, dorms for those airmen and sailors, the Army’s Transportation Center

and School is still under-way. Three more barracks buildings are still under construction on the ord-nance campus and more buildings are underway for students to learn the intricacies of repairing and maintaining the Army’s equipment includ-ing tracked vehicles, air conditioners and weap-ons. The contract has been awarded, the ground is being cleared, and a brand-new 1,000-room military hotel is set to rise seven stories above the ground. The Korte Co. of St. Louis, Mo., and Highland, Ill., was awarded the con-tract in June to build the long-planned Army Lodg-ing facility on a 26-acre parcel between Mahone Avenue and A Avenue just behind the Military Entrance Processing Sta-tion. The site has been vacant for a number of years after it was cleared of a sprawling complex of wooden World War II-era “temporary” buildings that originally housed a hospital.Fort Lee and offi cials of the Army’s Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command (FMWRC) have said the

Aerial view of the completed SCOE


roughly $120 million lodging facility is needed to help house the in-creased number of stu-dents who will be coming to the base because of its expanded training role under the Base Realignment and Closure process. The existing decades-old Army Lodging facility here has about 560 rooms, many of which are unusable on any given day because of mainte-nance problems. Construction of the new lodging facility originally was ex-pected to start before the end of last year but was delayed after controversy

erupted when the project was formally unveiled last August. Some business owners and community leaders complained that they

were not given timely information about the plan and had been led to believe that the Army

was looking to the private sector to help lodge its expanded transient popu-lation. Others were taken aback by the size of the project and worried that

it would hurt the local economy. A group of business people formed an al-

liance, known as the Hospitality Coalition, and sought to persuade the Army to delay the project and perform a more de-tailed study of its poten-

tial economic impact. The coalition eventually grew to include some 180 members.Offi cials at Fort Lee and FMWRC con-tended that the hotel, which has been on the drawing board since 2003, is essential to the post’s mission to train sol-diers.

Last year, Fort Lee Garrison Commander Col. Michael G. Morrow told a local business group that military guidelines

Artist rendition of the hotel on the grounds of Ft. Lee

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OVERVIEWrequire the the base to house 80 percent of its students on post. Even with the construction of the lodging facility, Fort Lee will fall short of that goal. “Up to now we’ve had a signifi cant defi cit in that capability,” Mor-row said. “That’s why we’re doing things like the Army Lodging facility. We’re try-ing to get that capability on post in terms of what the Army requires us to have.” Morrow said that even af-ter the hotel is built, about 20 percent of Fort Lee’s temporary duty and other transient person-nel will still need off-post lodging, which previous Army estimates have in-dicated will translate into an average of more than 700 rooms daily. In addition, the Army argued that the regional economy would benefi t from the roughly $120 million to be spent on construction and the hir-

ing of about 275 perma-nent employees for the hotel, as well as increased travel to the area by peo-ple who are not eligible to stay in Army lodging.The hotel will pay about

$6.4 million in annual wages and will buy about $2.1 million in goods and services, much of it locally, offi cials have said.Ultimately, Morrow signed a “Finding of No Sig-nifi cant Impact,” or FONSI, certifying that the Army’s environmental assess-ment showed that the facility’s effects “are not

signifi cant and will not adversely affect the qual-ity of the environment.”In a statement announc-ing the signing of the FONSI, the Army said it had taken the economic

questions into account. “Although concern was raised over the economic impacts of constructing the lodging facility, the (environmental assess-ment) determined that the economic impacts were not signifi cant,” it said.In addition, two subcom-mittees of the U.S. House

of Representatives and Senate also gave their OK to the plan, which got the fi nal go-ahead in May from the Offi ce of the Secretary of Defense.FMWRC, which operates

Army Lodging facilities on bases around the world, had awarded Korte a contract last year to de-sign the hotel but could not put the construction contract up for bids until the FONSI was signed and the Defense Department gave its formal OK.

Tom Stiles/SkyShots Photography

This aerial photo of Fort Lee was taken Oct. 9. 2009.


ORDNANCE The Army Ordnance School is moving to Fort Lee as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure decision. Since that time work has pro-gressed at a steady pace on the campus, which has changed the landscape of the Tri-Cities area. The majority of the Ordnance campus has taken shape on land between Temple Avenue and State Route 36 across from the main post. Since 2005 trees have fallen, and buildings —

some as big as six acres — have sprouted up on the land. The total cost of the proj-

ect is over $700 million, including about $45 mil-lion in infrastructure — the most visible piece is

a bridge which connects the ordnance campus to the main post. Several other bridges ex-ist on the campus to allow vehicular traffi c to fl ow on to the Ordnance Campus and for soldiers to walk between their barracks, and the main part of the campus where the din-ing facility and learning structures are. The campus includes buildings dedicated to tracked vehicle repairs, equipment repairs for every major piece of Soldiers in front of the Ordnance School


ORDNANCE

equipment the Army has and learning some of the basics of explosive ord-nance disposal. As the campus contin-ues to grow it is becom-ing one of the centers of attention for construc-tion. The sheer size of the school is amazing and it will be home to more than 4,500 instructors and students daily by Septem-ber of next year.

DINING

Throughout the entire Army there is no dining facility larger than the one located at Fort Lee on the Ordnance Campus. The Army’s largest dining facility offi cially opened on Fort Lee last year.The Sgt. Maj. Roy L. Mor-row Dining Facility, which

can feed more than 3,500 soldiers in 90 minutes, is among the largest in the Army and features some of the latest technology.The facility has many unique features as well including being the only such facility in the Army that is two levels. The total square footage of the building is 68,713 square feet. “It’s often said that an Army moves on its stom-ach,” said Col. Ed Gully, senior Base Realignment and Closure engineer at the opening of the build-ing in October of last year. “With Fort Lee’s mission, here, the Army trains on its stomach.” Gully said that the loca-tion of the dining facility on the campus is also convenient for soldiers —

it’s located between the facilities where they will learn and the barracks where they sleep. Each day, the soldiers report to the facility to have three meals — breakfast, lunch and dinner. At the opening Fort Lee Garrison Commander Col. Michael Morrow said compared to the facilities he ate in when he fi rst joined the Army more than 20 years ago, the choices and amenities are outstanding.“We provide them with a wealth of choices here,” Morrow said. “Everything to keep them nourished and we also provide some more fun foods too like hot dogs and hamburgers and french fries.” Several hours after the ribbon cutting ceremony, soldiers moved through

the lines making their se-lections that varied from steak and onions to two hot dogs. Soldiers have described both the facility and the food that it offers as com-fortable. “When they leave here, soldiers leave nourished, re-energized and ulti-mately ready to protect and defend this great nation,” Gully said.Morrow said at the time that the occasion was especially important because it’s the fi rst — of many — ribbon cuttings on the ordnance campus. “We’re going to continue with many more things like this,” Morrow said. Morrow said that the dining facility represents the garrison or post’s continuing commitment to supporting soldiers

Route 36 fl yover bridge between Fort Lee and the Ordnance Campus The 322-foot bridge cost $4.5 million. It includes

two traffi c lanes and an eight foot wide pedestrian crossing.

Grand opening for the new dining facility on the ordnance campus of Fort Lee

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through sustainment, preparation, resetting and transformation. Morrow explained that through sustainment, soldiers are strengthened; construc-tion going on across post is in preparation for more soldiers that are coming by the end of 2011; when a deployed unit returns home, their equipment is reset and brought back to a ready status; and that through transformation the Army continues to evolve, including infra-structure for soldiers. Morrow said that like everything else around it, the dining facility was nothing more than a patch of dirt two years ago.“From 2005 to 2011, we will have doubled the size of Fort Lee and doubled the square footage of buildings,” Morrow said.

MUNITIONS

The men and women that handle the risky job of disposing of explosive de-vices for the Army will be training on Fort Lee and A.P. Hill starting in 2011.“It takes a special kind of man or woman to be-come an EOD (Explosives Ordinance Disposal) tech-nician,” said Col. Howard Merritt, commander of the 59th Ordnance Brigade that trains EOD soldiers. “This is one of the few jobs in the Army that a soldier must volunteer for. These soldiers put their lives on the line every time they render safe an improvised explosive device.” Over the next year, construction will begin at A.P. Hill on state-of-the-art facilities that will be used to train more than 2,000

Lt. Col. Sydney Smith, commander of the 244th Quartermas-ter Battalion, serves up stuffi ng during a Thanksgiving meal at the Sgt. Maj. Roy L. Morrow Dining Facility at Fort Lee.

MMUNITTIOONNS


ORDNANCEEOD soldiers annually. Lt. Col. Greg Hicks, training department director, said that the demand for EOD soldiers has doubled in recent years to meet the demands due to the con-fl icts for Iraq and Afghani-stan theaters of operation.Five EOD courses will move to Virginia from their current locations: the EOD Senior Leader and EOD Phase 1 course will move to Fort Lee. The two-week senior leader course trains experienced noncommissioned of-fi cers in EOD tactics and techniques. The eight-week EOD Phase 1 course trains soldiers in basic EOD skills and prepares them for more advanced training. That course, currently at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida will remain at its present home. Two days of the Phase 1 course will focus on demolition train-ing and will be conducted at Fort A.P. Hill. Fort A.P. Hill will also be the home of the eight-week Ad-vanced Leader Course, the one-week Tactical Post Blast course and the two-week Global Antiterrorism and Operational Readi-ness course. The job of EOD soldiers last year gained a bit of

interest after “The Hurt Locker” a crtically-ac-claimed fi lm was released. The fi lm focuses on the exploits of an Army bomb squad in Iraq. Hicks said that there was already interest in the volunteer EOD job, but that the fi lm has helped to increase awareness of the job — if not in an overly drama-tized way.

“If you talk to EOD sol-diers, they will tell you that the technical as-pects are not what you would do,” Hicks said. “It’s defi nitely not a training movie.”However, certain aspects were at least somewhat true to life. Merritt ac-

knowledged that EOD soldiers do operate on a small unit level — though not quite as portrayed in the movie. He added that EOD soldiers do think on their feet and in the absence of orders tak-ing a highly academic approach with hands on methods to problem solv-ing, sometimes thinking outside the box.

TACTICAL

Day-in and day-out soldiers are hard at work training inside one of the most massive new build-ings on Fort Lee. Rozier Hall, home of the Tactical Support Equipment De-

partment is bigger than some Wal-Mart stores at 270,000 square feet. That’s a total of 6 1/2 acres of learning space inside, under one roof. Construction on the Tactical Support Equip-ment Department began in November 2007. It of-fi cially opened two years later to much fanfare at a ribbon cutting ceremony highlighting the life of its namesake, Maj. Gen. Jackson Rozier — com-mandant of the Army Ordnance Center and School from 1981 to 1983 and the Provisional Chief of Ordnance from Octo-ber to November 1983. Inside the building there are 25 classrooms in each of which 32 soldiers can learn their job on state-of-the-art equip-ment. The larger part of the building contains 22 instructional bays where soldiers can gain valuable hands on experience in repairing support equip-ment ranging from gener-ators to smoke machines to air conditioners. The total cost on con-struction was $50 million but another nearly $13 million went into equip-ping the building with the tools to train soldiers. The building on Fort

Mast. Sgt. Jeffrey Grimes talks about the instructional spaces in the new Tactical Support Equipment Department

on Fort Lee.

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Lee is the second offi cial Rozier Hall. The fi rst was on Aberdeen Proving Ground. “It’s far better than I ever imagined,” Lt. Gen. Mitchell Steven-son, the former Com-bined Arms Support Command, Com-manding General and current Army G-4, said at the opening of the building in November 2009. Stevenson said that the importance of such a facility is that it serves as the train-ing ground for young soldiers who will soon fi nd themselves in harms way. “When this campus is complete, it will be the third largest

training installation in the Army,” said Stevenson. “The most important rea-son for this event today is what goes on inside this

building. That’s the real reason for the dedica-tion.” The building, while large, also took advantage

of starting anew. At Ab-erdeen Proving Ground a total of eight buildings served the functions that Rozier Hall on Fort Lee

does. Additionally, the buildings in some cases were older, World War II era buildings. The new Rozier Hall on Fort Lee is one of the newest and most advanced in the Army. At the building’s dedi-cation Joyce Rozier, the widow of Jackson Rozier, said that it was wonderful to see the building named after her late husband.“He enjoyed the mili-tary very much,” Joyce Rozier said. “He was a dynamic, vivacious and

enthusiastic man.”A Tactical Equipment Maintenance Facility on Fort Lee.


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The majority of the Army’s Transportation Center and School is in the process of moving to Fort Lee from nearby Fort Eustis. In addition to the Army Transportation Center and School, the Air Force Transportation Management School is moving to Fort Lee. The Army Transporta-tion School has been at Fort Eustis since the 1940s. The post will continue to train soldiers in maritime and railroad duties and the Army

Transportation Museum is staying put, but every-thing else is moving to

Fort Lee. In 2009, the 757th Transportation Battalion,

an Army reserve unit, built a 320 foot rail spur in preparation for the school to make its way to Fort Lee. Sgt. 1st Class David J. McLaughlin with the reserve unit said that because there is no ac-tive duty rail component in the Army, the reserve unit out of Milwaukee, Wis. — the only railroad unit in the country — got the call to come build the track. McLaughlin explained that building the track was part of the

A portion of railroad track, complete with cargo cars, will be used by AIT students for loading and unloading training.


unit’s annually required two-week Extended Com-bat Training. The nine individuals who came to build the track had to fi rst make the site ready by clear-ing some trees in order to make maneuvering long, heavy pieces of rail easier. The rail used on the project was recycled in part due to the cost of the steel. “Each of these rails weighs about 3,900 pounds,” McLaughlin said. In addition to moving the rails the soldiers had to prepare the rail bed by making it ready for drainage with ballast and installing hard com-posite rubber railroad ties. McLaughlin said the composite ties weigh

more than their wood counterparts and won’t rot. One of the disadvan-tages though is that the material is hard to drive a railroad spike into. “We had to predrill each of the holes.” In January of this year four railcars were loaded by crane onto the spur. Two concrete ramps — one at each end of the spur — will allow stu-dents to practice driving both tracked vehicles and wheeled vehicles onto a railroad car, and unload-ing them from the rail cars. The fuselage of an Air Force C-130E is also being incorporated into the Army Transporation School. In April the huge

plane’s fuselage was tak-en by truck from Dinwid-die County Airport to Fort Lee. The Air Force brought the plane to Dinwiddie in April 2009. The C-130 and a C-17 are two huge new tools for Fort Lee and the Army Transportation Center and School that’s moving to post over the next year.The plane will provide soldiers with a real-world aircraft to train on. Cur-rently, soldiers train on a wooden mock-up of a C-130. “It’s the same one that I used when I fi rst joined the Army 28 years ago. We’re using the same, sub-standard training devices. This is going to be a great capability for

us,” said Col. Tod Mellman, chief BRAC offi cer with the Army Transportation School during the plane’s move onto post.

BIG

Learning from a book is one thing, but learning hands on requires the right tools. To teach soldiers how to repair the Army’s ve-hicles or prepare cargo for transport requires some big hands on equipment including planes like the C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster. It also requires the backbone of the Army’s armored force — the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. Since the beginning of

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this year many of these big military items have arrived on post. As the Ordnance Corps makes its move to Fort Lee, the armor has arrived as training aids. In mid-May the fi rst of the armor started to arrive on post when an M1A1 Abrams and an M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle arrived by truck to Fort Lee.By mid-June another seven tanks had rolled onto post — this time by rail car. When those fi rst vehi-cles arrived in May, Chief Warrant Offi cer Fitzalbert Gordon said that the vehicles and other aids including turrets from various vehicles represent a series of shipments.“It’s all training equip-ment,” Gordon said.

“These are training aids, they allow soldiers to get hands-on training, realis-tic training.” Sgt. 1st Class Nawab Harden said the realism in training is important.“We want to get the sol-diers’ skills up so that they can put their skills to use once they get into their unit,” Harden said.One of the ways that soldiers may train on the equipment, according to Gordon, is through the introduction of a fault in the system. He said that instructors may introduce a fault into the vehicles systems and the soldiers will have to fi nd the fault and determine the fi x for the vehicle. Harden said that at least 20 vehicles will be coming to Fort Lee before

July when training will move into full swing.The vehicles will repre-sent the range of vehicles that are in the Army.“It’s an interesting time to be in the Army,” Gordon said. He said that the train-ing for soldiers learning how to repair the vehicles systems is moving from older buildings at Ab-erdeen Proving Ground to what is quickly becoming the logistical “mecca” of the Army — Fort Lee.Harden said that in July when the training for 91K — Armament Repair-ers — comes to Fort Lee, there will be about 250 to 300 students and about a dozen additional instruc-tors on post. Armament Repairer is primarily responsible for supervising and perform-ing maintenance and repairs on the mecha-

nisms and systems of tank turrets, tank weapons, fi ghting vehicles, towed and self propelled artil-lery, small arms and other infantry weapons. Elsewhere on post a C-130, and C-17 sit on a concrete pad, ready and waiting for soldiers to train on load operations. They’ll also be used by the Air Force Transporta-tion Management School which is moving to Fort Lee. Those are also lo-cated near four railcars that were put onto a purpose built rail spur where soldiers will learn how to load vehicles onto rail cars. The rail spur was constructed in 2009. The two planes arrived in the area last year, though the C-130 was not trans-ported to the post from Dinwiddie County Airport until earlier this year.

Seven brand new M1A1 Abrams tanks arrived on Fort Lee for the Ordnance Campus

A C-17, at left, and C-130 cargo planes peek over trees. They will be used by AIT students to practice loading

and unloading cargo.


QUARTERMASTER Next year there were will be about 2,500 more Advanced Individual Training students attend-ing the Joint Culinary Center of Excellence at Fort Lee. They will repre-sent all branches of the military with the excep-tion of the Coast Guard — though Coast Guards members will still train at the school in the Ad-vanced Culinary Training section. The school is growing as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure decision of 2005.

“We’ll be growing in Janu-ary,” said Chief Warrant Offi cer Russell Campbell, chief for the Advanced Food Service Training divi-

sion at the Joint Culinary Center for Excellence. In Fiscal Year 2011 the school is expected to have more than 7,000 AIT students enter its doors. About 2,500 of that is through growth - with an estimated 1,300 students coming from the Air Force and 1,200 from the Navy. The massive infl ux of stu-dents may not have hap-pened yet, but the work to prepare for them is well underway. An addition of more than 10,000 square feet is being added onto the current Joint Culinary

Center of Excellence. “What we have is the Joint Culinary Center for Excel-lence, this is where we train entry level soldiers,

The Joint Culinary Center of Excellence is undergoing an

expansion to accomodate more students from more branches of the armed services at Fort Lee.


QUARTERMASTER

sailors, airmen and Ma-rines in basic cooking,” said Brig. Gen. Jesse R. Cross, Sustainment Center of Excellence, Combined Arms Support Command and Fort Lee command-ing general. “This is where they will receive their professional military edu-cation.” But Cross said that the service members who come to the school will gain something else as well; the knowledge and

ideas to compete in the Army Culinary Arts Com-petition. “It’s almost like Iron Chef,” Cross said of the competition. “It’s not just slinging corned beef hash.” Cross said that the soldiers also have the op-portunity to come back for the Advanced Course where they can learn to prepare meals like in a 5-star restaurant. Campbell said that pro-gram has for years been a

joint front with the other branches. It too will be changing as a result of BRAC. Starting next year

Campbell said that the course will be fi ve weeks instead of the current three weeks and four days.

The Joint Culinary Center of Excellence

Students in the Advanced Culinary Skills Training Course presented their end of course meal

Sgt. Jermiah Swatzke prepares sweet potato chips.


DCA In more than 250 stores around the globe, soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast Guards-men get a benefi t that doesn’t come with their pay — they have the option of shopping at a commissary. The grocery and sup-ply store system has been around for more than a century, but it has also constantly been chang-ing. Thomas Milks, acting director and Chief Execu-tive Offi cer of the Defense

Commissary Agency, said the commissary is one of the most important non-

pay benefi ts for soldiers and other service mem-bers. Shoppers save an

average of about 31 per-cent on their purchases compared to commercial prices – savings worth more than $4,400 annu-ally for a family of four, according Milks. Milks said the com-missaries are even more important for those stationed overseas. “They offer service members a taste of home,” he said. As a scenario he said a service member may be stationed in Germany or Japan, far from home — the local grocery stores

The Defense Commissary Agency, which serves as grocer to the military, is now consolidated at Fort Lee.


DCAcarry few if any products packaged in English. Even those products that are familiar such as sodas may be formulated dif-

ferently. “But at the com-missary they can fi nd the name brands and the products that they’re familiar with,” Milks said.

“And they can also rest assured that the food is safe.”All foods that are sold in com-missaries must fi rst be inspect-ed by Military Veterinarians. Additionally, processing facilities must undergo in-

spections as well. The Defense Commis-sary Agency has an an-nual sales fi gure of close to $6 billion — that’s af-ter savings are passed on directly to their consum-ers. The agency operates on a budget of about $1 billion. That fi gure is paid for by taxpayers. “We sell the food at cost, with a 5 percent surcharge,” Milks said. The surcharge goes to building new commis-saries or renovating exist-ing ones. While the agency isn’t

growing through BRAC — it is consolidating. Earlier this year, a $21 million ad-dition was added to the existing DeCA headquar-ters. Parts of the head-quarters will be renovated over the next year as the 200 remaining employ-ees currently located off post move into the DeCA headquarters. “We’ll be done by Sep-tember of next year,” Milks said. When com-plete about 900 em-ployees of DeCA will be located on post.

The Fort Lee Commissary, on the same post as the Defense Commissary Agency,

is a testing ground for many ideas.


BEYOND BRAC As the Army base grows there’s growth not only related to the prima-ry mission of the military installation — but of the families that support the soldiers. It’s only natural that some of the growth on post goes toward sup-porting families. Some of that growth includes new Child De-velopment Centers, a revamped theater and a new chapel. These projects are for the most part are Army funded and not a direct

Base Realignment and Closure project, according to John Royster, Chief of

Master Planning with the BRAC Offi ce. Because Fort Lee is a

growing installation un-der the 2005 BRAC deci-sion the post has been in a state of growth since that decision was made. By 2011 all BRAC proj-ects will be completed — but that doesn’t mean the post will stop growing. Royster said that there are already several projects under way that are not BRAC funded projects on post. Among those are two Tactical Equipment Maintenance Facility buildings. “We have had a shortfall of those,” Royster

A new Child Development Center is under construction in the family housing section of Fort Lee.

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BEYOND BRACsaid. The Tactical Equipment Maintenance Facilities are where military vehicles are repaired and main-tained. Additionally there are two, 600-person, fi ve-story barracks buildings being constructed for the 262nd Quartermaster Bat-talion that trains Petro-leum and Water soldiers. In addition to those barracks, which will take between one year and 18-months to complete, two new Company Op-eration Facilities, a new Battalion Headquarters and dining facility are planned. “That’s all to overcome a defi cit of [Advanced Individual Training] bar-racks space,” Royster said. He added that the planned Dining Facility or DFAC should become the largest in the Army — superseding the what is now the largest Dining Facility, which just opened recently on Fort Lee at the Ordnance Campus. But all of those im-provements address the military mission of Fort Lee. There are other im-provements that deal in-directly with the military mission, including two new Child Development

Centers — one with a 126 pupil capacity the other 135, Royster said. “We still don’t have enough,” Royster said. “There’s not enough space on post though.” Other improvements have been made by reus-ing older, existing build-ings. The Fort Lee Reel Time Theater reopened earlier this year after

being closed for about a year’s worth of renova-tions. Since 1996 the theater building had been used for two purposes — train-ing and plays by the Lee Playhouse. Now, according to Lee Farmer, chief of business operations for Family Morale Welfare and Recre-ation on post, the theater building will serve three

purposes — to show movies, live theater and training.“It’s the largest training facility on post,” Farmer said. The 596-seat the-ater building now has a state-of-the-art surround-sound system, new seats, carpet, fl ooring, paint on the walls and much more.“It’s a whole new facelift, it’s really brought it up to

code,” Farmer said.The theater was the fi rst brick building on post when it was constructed in 1948. It reopened of-fi cially April 17 with a free screening of “How To Train Your Dragon.” Each weekend the theater hopes to offer Department of Defense Identifi cation card hold-ers the opportunity to see three movies.

“That’s the most we’ll have at any given time is three movies,” said Millie Turner, chief of Food, Bev-erage and Theater for the Fort Lee Army & Air Force Exchange Service. Some weekends, she said, the theater will have only two movies, most of which will be fairly recent, with the occasional pre-screening opportunity.The theater will not show movies Monday through Thursday. Farmer said that this will allow the building to continue to be used for training and for the Fort Lee Playhouse performers to get in practices for their upcom-ing theater season. The theater season begins Sept. 11 with the musical “Pippin.”“We’re very excited by it all,” Farmer said.

EVENTS

Each year Fort Lee plays hosts to two major competitions that draws people from around the world to the Army base.In the spring, the post hosts the Army Culinary Arts Competition. While the competition is still called the Army Culinary Arts Competition — it

New Army barracks are under construction at a rapid rate to accomodate numerous AIT students who will train at

Fort Lee.

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is now inclusive of all branches of the Armed Forces. In 2009, The Army Cen-ter of Excellence, Subsis-tence offi cially became the Joint Culinary Center of Excellence, further inte-grating chefs and culinar-ians from each branch.The event draws soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast Guardsmen from across the country and the globe. The 2010 competition was opened to the public more than ever before and visitors were able to see and taste the talent that the chefs bring to the fi gurative table. For the fi rst time ever the event was open to the public for a full seven days. Each

day the public was also al-lowed to purchase tickets for meals served by two separate teams to sample the menus prepared by the men and women that defend the country.The second major com-petition generally takes

place in the fall. The Non-Commissioned Offi cer and Soldier of the Year Competition draws soldiers from across the globe to Fort Lee for an intense competition that challenges soldiers in everything from warrior

tasks and battle drills to the fi ner points of wear-ing the uniform of an American soldier.

MUSEUMS

The Army Women’s Museum and the Army Quartermaster Museum are already located on Fort lee, but in the very near future the post may soon be home to a third museum: the Army Ord-nance Museum. The existing muse-ums on post are already important as they tell the story of how the Army was supplied and the accomplishments and challenges of females in the Army from the

Soldier Show v. 27.0 entertained hundreds of folks at Fort Lee’s Reel Time Theater. The Soldier Show is a musical show

featuring a cast of servicemembers.

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BEYOND BRACRevolutionary War to the present. Recently the Army Women’s Museum re-ceived 3,000 additional square feet of space for classroom space and dis-play space. The opening of the addition, increases ex-hibit space to about 8,000 square feet. The addition took about six months to construct by the Trent Corporation and cost about $800,000. The fund-ing for the expansion, she said, came from the Army

Women’s Museum Foun-dation, which raised the money privately. The Quartermaster Mu-seum is already a bit larg-er — at more than 25,000

square feet — than the Army Women’s Museum and tells the story of sup-plying soldiers whether in the Revolutionary War or the current stories of air

dropping supplies with pinpoint accuracy to sol-diers in Afghanistan. In 2009 artifacts from the Army Ordnance Mu-seum began arriving on post as part of that facil-ity’s move to Fort Lee. The new museum will dwarf the existing museums at Fort Lee. Most of the historic guns and tanks will be housed in a 100,000-square-foot facility that will be built on post. The museum has the potential to be a huge tourism draw to the area.

The U.S. Army Women’s Museum on Fort Lee is open to the public.


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“The museum should be done by around September 2011,” said Dr. Joe Rainer. Rainer is the Army Ordnance Museum director. “When it will be complete is still sort of up in the air.” Rainer said that the museum annu-ally draws about 70,000 people per year. The ordnance museum, com-bined with the existing Army Women’s Museum and Army Quartermaster museum, will be the larg-est museum complex on the East Coast outside of Washington D.C.

HOUSING

As Fort Lee grows, that means that there will be

more soldiers and fami-lies coming to the post. The installation is already hard at work to make sure many of those coming will have a place to live. By March 2011 there will be 1,505 homes avail-able on post including 1,089 for junior Non-Com-missioned Offi cers, 277 for senior Non-Commis-sioned Offi cers and a total of 139 homes available for offi cers and warrant offi cers.A total of around $137 million has been invested in demolishing older homes on post and con-struction of newer homes. Fritz Brandt, with the BRAC construction offi ce, explained that when all the construction is com-

pleted the oldest homes on post will be at Jackson Circle. Those homes are less than 15 years old. But even with the hous-ing construction boom there still won’t be enough space to house all the soldiers assigned to Fort Lee. The homes on post are highly prized by soldiers. In December, when an open house was held to showcase what the new homes in Adams Chase, a neighborhood on post, look like — sol-diers were smiling and nodding their heads as they walked through. “They’re very nice,” said Master Sgt. Robert Mickle, a 19-year career soldier. “I haven’t seen homes this nice anywhere else I’ve

been.” Mickle and his wife Stacy were checking out the model duplex at the December event with an eye toward their own home. “We’re number three on the waiting list,” he said. Each unit features a two-car garage, hard-wood fl oors downstairs with tile in the kitchen area, energy-star compli-ant appliances and laun-dry rooms. “It’s very impressive,” Mickle said. While some of the new housing is being built as a result of the Base Realign-ment and Closure growth on post, not all units are being constructed because of BRAC. In fact there has been a need for


BEYOND BRACon-post housing for some time. The post is supposed to be able to house a little more than a third of the permanant party soldiers, which is expected to be about 4,900 soldiers at the end of the BRAC process next year.. Ad-ditionally, some of the oldest homes on post are close to a half century old — older than many of the soldiers living in them. Fort Lee Common-wealth Communities, a 50-year public-private partnership between

the Army and Hunt, Pin-nacle and Falcon LLC, will rehabilitate, develop and construct more than

1,000 homes on Fort Lee. The Army decided years ago to make a move to public-private partner-ships in fulfi lling the housing needs of sol-diers. Since its incep-tion the RCI — or Residential Communities

Intiaitve — has taken approximately $1 billion in federal government assets and leveraged it to

generate more than $10 billion in construction and renovation develop-ment throughout the De-partment of Defense. For those soldiers that don’t get a place to live on post, the housing division of the RCI offi ce helps soldiers to locate appro-priate housing off post. With some soldiers opt-ing to live as far away as Richmond, most though choose to live locally in Colonial Heights, Prince George, Chesterfi eld, Petersburg, Hopewell or Dinwiddie.

Workers labor on new, modern housing units at Fort Lee. About 90 percent of housing

on post will be less than 10 years old when construction is complete.


COMBAT The primary mission of Fort Lee is a training cen-ter — when the entirety of the Base Realignment and Closure growth is done on post, it is expected to be the third largest training installation in the Army. But Fort Lee is also home to the 49th Group, which has seen frequent combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. As of May 2008, roughly 4,500 soldiers based at Fort Lee have been de-ployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan. About 3,500 of those soldiers were part

of the 49th Quartermaster Group. The 49th Group is made up of 15 companies — about 2,400 active duty soldiers — who are trained

in a variety of disciplines including petroleum and water specialties and mortuary affairs. Companies from within the group have been de-ployed almost constantly

since the beginning of the war on terror — and even before that. Maj. Mark McGovern said that the 54th and

111th are the only two ac-tive duty mortuary affairs units in the Army. He said that the two units have been near constantly deployed on one-year rotations in sup-port of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan respec-tively. While they have de-ployed to those areas on a rotating basis, the units have also lent a helping hand when called upon in other areas such as the recent earthquake in Haiti.

Sgt. 1st Class Aaron Beckman participates in the 2009 Department of the Army Best Warrior

Competition held last year at Fort Lee.



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