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Army Unveils Historic Division, Combat Brigade Re-Stationing Plan
07/28/2005
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The Army unveiled its “largest change … since 1939” as it announced details of a plan that over the next three to five years will “re-flag, re-station and re-patch” dozens of units and move thousands of soldiers and their families from Europe and Asia -- and around the United States.
Raymond DuBois, special assistant to the secretary of the Army, said the plan unveiled officially July 27 was “the true cornerstone of Army transformation” because it took into account the creation of 10 additional modular brigades with 30,000 soldiers added to the active force, the initial stages of the return to the United States of the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division from Iraq after years of being stationed in Korea, the eventual return to the United States of brigades in the 1st Infantry and 1st Armored Divisions from Germany and base realignment and closure (BRAC).
The moves are also coming during a time in which 17 Army brigades are engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.
While the realignment and closure actions “are technically not part” of the announced plan, Gen. Richard Cody, Army vice chief of staff, said that “BRAC allowed us … to put the right formations at right locations for training, for families” and eventually for deployment.
“If we took a clean map, we would do this,” Cody said.
Adding, “We’re putting like capabilities at these posts.”
Army officials said that would mean three designs for the modular brigades called brigade combat teams (BCT) – Stryker, infantry, and heavy. The airborne design is a subset of the infantry design.
It also means the restructuring of combat support and combat service support units.
Cody said that under the new configurations there would be 3,900 soldiers in a Stryker brigade, 3,900 in a heavy brigade and 3,500 in an infantry brigade. There would be just over 3,500 in an airborne infantry BCT.
He said corps and division headquarters would have 1,022 soldiers assigned to each, and that 40 of the active brigades would be under divisional headquarters.
DuBois said the Army had briefed the plan to Anthony Principi, head of the base realignment and closure commission, and he endorsed the moves.
Both said the moves are designed to reduce strain on active and reserve component soldiers and their families.
Army spokesmen in the past said that “the complex set of chess moves” will leave soldiers closer to training facilities, allow longer tours on a single installation and provide employment opportunities for spouses.
They also will be closer to airport, seaports and railheads for deployments.
This includes some soldiers in place, but the unit to which they are assigned is re-patched.
As Army Secretary Francis Harvey told attendees at the July 7 Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare breakfast, the modularization initiative “involves the total redesign of the operational Army into a standardized, stand alone, more powerful, more flexible and more rapidly deployable force.”
One of the largest gainers of forces will be Fort Bliss, Texas, Cody said, as the air defense artillery school moves to Fort Sill, Okla., under the realignment recommendations announced earlier this year. Bliss would become the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division and home to its four modular brigades.
Cody said that Army plans include putting in new barracks, family housing, schools, medical facilities and other infrastructure at installations such as Bliss that would be gaining forces as part of the moves.
“We will sequence military construction” with the moves, he said.
He added that Bliss had 40 percent of the maneuver training inventory in the Army.
Bliss would be gaining about 20,000 soldiers under the plan. Brigades would also be added to Forts Carson and Drum.
“Hood goes back to where it was in the beginning,” DuBois said, referring to the movement back to Colorado of the 4th Infantry Division.
Cody said that by 2007, 90 percent of the moves will be completed.
He added that soldiers from units now serving in Iraq but stationed in Europe would return to their homes in Germany and later move to their new installations in the United States.
Their equipment, however, will likely remain in theater, DuBois said.
In Europe, Dubois said that effects would be a drawdown of about 50 percent of the Army presence there as the 173rd Airborne Brigade and a new Stryker brigade, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, comes to full strength in Germany.
Cody also noted that some of the re-flagging and re-patching had historic significance, such as the return of the 4th Infantry Division to Fort Carson, Colo., from Fort Hood, Texas, and the 1st Infantry Division from German to Fort Riley, Kan.
The vice chief added that in 2007, the Army would look at the brigade structure to see if five more modular brigades would be added to the active force.
At the same time, as the active force is modularizing, the same thing is happening with the National Guard’s 33 brigades and the combat support and combat service support units in the Army Reserve.
As for Army aviation, there will be 11 brigades formed when the process is through – consisting of two attack battalions, an air assault battalion, support battalion and maintenance battalion, Cody said. Although they will be wearing division patches, “they will be used as task forces.”
Where the active component brigade combat teams (BCT) will be located:
Fort Benning, Ga. – 1 BCT
Fort Bliss, Texas – 4 BCTs
Fort Bragg, N.C. – 4 BCTs
Fort Campbell, Ky. – 4 BCTs
Fort Carson, Colo. – 4 BCTs
Fort Drum, N.Y. – 3 BCTs
Fort Hood, Texas – 5 BCTs
Fort Knox, Ky. – 1 BCT
Fort Lewis, Wash. – 3 Stryker BCTs
Fort Polk, La. – 1 BCT
Fort Richardson, Alaska – 1 BCT
Fort Riley, Kan. – 3 BCTs
Fort Stewart, Ga. – 3 BCTs
Fort Wainwright, Alaska – 1 Stryker BCT
Schofield Barracks, Hawaii – 1 Stryker BCT, 1 BCT
Fort Irwin, Calif. – 1 BCT
Korea – 1 BCT
Germany – 1 Stryker BCT
Italy – 1 BCT | 
Link to Army.mil web site to view related stories & larger version of BCT Stationing map. |
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