If the Pentagon has its way, parts of the 1st Infantry Division would move to Fort Riley, Kan., while the 1st Armored Division would head to Fort Bliss, Texas.
The moves are part of the Army’s recommendations listed in the Base Closure and Realignment report, released Friday. The two Germany-based divisions are part of a worldwide repositioning of U.S. military units being proposed.
According to the report, the 1st ID headquarters in Würzburg, along with the Division Support Command headquarters and aviation brigade units, would be moved to Fort Riley. Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of U.S. Army Europe, had previously said that the 1st ID would begin moving back to the States as early as next year.
Meanwhile, the Wiesbaden-based 1st AD would be moved to Fort Bliss, according to the BRAC report. Bell had previously said that the 1st AD would begin moving in about 2008.
Other units would be moved into and out of Fort Riley and Fort Bliss to make up their final configurations, which are expected to reflect the Army’s desire to create modular, brigade-sized elements, called units of action.
Bell, when asked on Friday by a Stars and Stripes reporter, said the BRAC recommendations were “heartening” and “exactly right for the DOD and the Department of the Army.”
“It’s a good-faith effort to gain synergy where we had fractured institutions,” Bell said. “These are things we’ve known for years that should be put together but that were avoided.”
A spokesman at the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, reiterated the comment earlier this week by Gen. James L. Jones, the EUCOM commander, by saying, “We continue to work with the office of the Secretary of Defense and the military services to ensure the synchronization of the plan with current operations and transformation roadmaps.”
Jones was referring at the time to the Overseas Basing Commission report, or OBC, released on Monday that criticized the Pentagon’s transformation plan as shortsighted, created without sufficient input from outside sources, and being rushed into place.
“At this point, our vision for EUCOM Strategic Theater Transformation remains,” said the spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Rick Haupt. “Any changes to that vision as a result of OBC and BRAC remain to be seen.”
Haupt cautioned that the recommendations did not mean the moves were a done deal, noting financial and other hurdles that were yet to be resolved.
Reaction in Giessen, Germany, home of the 1st AD’s 16th Engineer Battalion, was mixed.
“Well, I’d like to stay in Germany,” Pfc. Christopher Scott said. “I chose Germany as my duty station, so I think it’s not cool [to be moved].”
Spc. Daniel Tarlitz said he thought the Army should try new towns for future bases.
“They should start someplace where they don’t have anything,” he said.
Stripes reporters Nancy Montgomery and Ben Murray contributed to this report.
