Senator Looks to Lure Army to Texas

It might be a long shot, but U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is working to bring more soldiers to Texas posts -- including Fort Bliss --from as far away as Colorado. Hutchison has her sights on soldiers at Fort Carson, Colo., which has run into problems expanding a training range about 150 miles southeast of the post. The Texas Republican said those soldiers would have the best training available in the Army and could be rapidly deployed overseas from either Fort Bliss or Fort Hood, which is in central Texas. "Fort Carson does not have the training ranges that are easily accessible to keep these troops in good shape," Hutchi son said. She is speaking with top Army officials to try to relocate those soldiers to Texas. But, she said, there is another possibility for sending additional soldiers to Fort Bliss that "has more potential." The Army announced last week it would relocate a 3,800-soldier armored brigade combat team that initially was headed to White Sands Missile Range. White Sands lost the brigade, but Hutchison said it would be appropriate to send it to Fort Bliss...Military.com

If there is plenty of space elsewhere, why are they expanding Fort Carson? As I've posted before, having enough space or land is not their problem:


"The Base Structure Report(pdf) for FY 2008 contains the land profile for the Department of Defense. The introduction to the report states, "The Depart of Defense remains one of the world's largest 'landlords' with a physical plant consisting of more than 545,700 facilities (buildings, structures and linear structures) located on more than 5400 sites, on approximately 30 million acres."

The land profile further refines that to 29.8 million acres owned or controlled by DOD. More than 98% of the land is in the US, with the Army managing 52% and the Air Force 33%.

29.8 million acres equals 46,562.5 square miles. How do you put that in perspective? Let's try this: Of the Thirteen Original Colonies, six of them (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire & Massachusetts) would fit into the land mass controlled by DOD, with 8359 square miles or 5.3 million acres left over. In other words, you could add another New Jersey.

29.8 million acres and they don't have enough land to practice? They may have a turf problem or a setting of priorities problem, but they don't have a lack of land problem."