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The 25 ID in Hawaii is going to receive an additional four brigades?...based in Alaska, Georgia, and Kansas no less. LOL, Schoomaker's idea of a division in the future truly is just a command-and-control headquarters.



Army announces locations for 10 new combat brigades

By Matthew Cox
Times staff writer



The Army has mapped out its plan to find homes for its 10 new combat brigades — a move that will add several thousand soldiers to a handful of major posts by the end of 2006.

The July 23 announcement comes just months before the planned beginning of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process.

Army officials say this is just the next step in a larger plan that began in January to increase the active force from 33 to up to 48 combat brigades. To make this possible, the Defense Department gave the Army permission to increase end-strength by 30,000 soldiers, to about 512,000.

Dubbed Brigade Combat Team Units of Action, these new modularized units will stand up at Army posts in Alaska, Washington, Texas and Louisiana in fiscal 2005. Posts in Kansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Hawaii and again in Texas will receive new brigades in fiscal 2006.

The posts were chosen based on an analysis of operational needs to place new units at locations that could best support training requirements and also have the best ports or airfields to launch them into action as quickly as possible, Army officials said.

“It was a very thorough analysis; and we felt for several reasons … that these are really the right installations for these units,” Brig. Gen. David Ralston, director of force management for Army Operations, said at a Pentagon briefing.

Army officials insisted these posts were not selected based on anticipated BRAC recommendations. .

“We really did try to make the most common-sense, logical decisions in order to station these operationally at the right places,” Ralston said.

The Army in fact considers the new locations “temporary” because the upcoming BRAC may conflict with the Army’s recommendations and force some of these units to move again.

“We are taking the risk that these units may be moved,” said an Army official, who spoke on the condition that he remain anonymous.

Standing up these new combat brigades began in fiscal 2004 with the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., which added 4th BCTUA this year.

The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., will also add another combat brigade in fiscal 2004.

Fiscal 2005 is when most of these new units will set up housekeeping at posts separate from their division headquarters.

Here’s a quick look:

In fiscal 2005

• Fort Lewis, Wash., will add about 3,900 soldiers when the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) relocates from its home of Fort Polk, La., to become the Army’s fourth Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

• Fort Polk will net about 300 soldiers when the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, stands up it’s 4th BCTUA at the home of the Joint Readiness Training Center.

• Fort Richardson, Alaska, will add about 2,600 soldiers when 25th Infantry Division (Light), based in Hawaii, stands up its 4th BCTUA with an airborne capability for forced entry operations.

• Fort Hood, Texas, will add about 5,000 soldiers when the 4th Infantry Division (Digitized) stands up its 4th BCTUA.

In fiscal 2006:

• Fort Bliss, Texas, will add about 3,800 soldiers when the 1st Cavalry Division, headquartered at Fort Hood, stands up its 4th BCTUA.

• Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, will add about 3,600 soldiers when the 25th ID stands up the Army’s fifth Styker Brigade Combat Team and transforms its 3rd Brigade to create the 25th’s 1st BCTUA.

• Fort Benning, Ga., will add about 3,400 soldiers when the 25th ID stands up its 3rd BCTUA.

• Fort Riley, Kan., will also add about 3,400 soldiers when 25th ID stands up its 4th BCTUA.

• Fort Bragg, N.C., will add about 5,300 soldiers when the 82nd Airborne Division stands up its 4th BCTUA.

In addition to the 10 planned new units of action for 2005-2006, the 173rd Airborne Brigade (Separate) in Italy will pick up just under 2,000 soldiers when it becomes a full BCTUA.

LOL, the 25th ID is more like the 25th Mechanized corps now.

Jeez.

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