Tricord's New Post threatens our old post, valuable Fort A. P. Hill

October 7, 2005 1:06 am

IAM WRITING this as commander of Fort A.P. Hill and a soldier serving in defense of America's liberties. It's disturbing to see a full-page advertisement, apparently produced in concert by a high-profile lobbying group and a developer that denigrates the mission of one of the Army's premier training centers.

Since the days preceding American entry into the World War II, Fort A.P. Hill has been engaged in training this nation's fighting men and women. The base's primary mission is to provide realistic training to America; defense forces, which come from all services of our military, to include Marines from Quantico and sailors from Dahlgren. Also included are federal agencies and local police departments, such as the FBI, ATF, and the Richmond and Fredericksburg Police Departments, whose officers hone skills necessary to protect our communities.

Last year, even with the heavy pace of deployments to multiple theaters of overseas operations, nearly 60,000 military personnel trained at Fort A.P. Hill. The work they do and the missions they perform may be largely invisible to people in the Fredericksburg region going about their day-to-day lives, but as a Special Forces officer who also trained here, let me assure everyone that the work going on a has broad effect on American warriors engaged around the globe.

When America's sons and daughters join the military, this nation becomes responsible for ensuring they have all the training and tools needed to survive and win as they go into harm's way. Many might view this as a sole responsibility of military leadership but, realistically, all citizens share in this duty.

This becomes even more significant for those living near bases where that training is conducted. The professionals who've trained here over the decades have been fortunate in that the installation was located in a largely rural area. People living near the installation understood and supported the important work taking place.

Preserving rural buffers around installations helps maintain the training environment. Degrade those buffers and you degrade readiness. The Department of Defense has identified this as an issue affecting training and readiness nationally. Recent legislation provides assistance in establishing compatible use buffers and Fort A.P. Hill is actively joined in this opportunity.

We've stated often that placing large concentrations of residential units in close proximity to Fort A.P. Hill's borders, or any such installation, is a recipe for conflict. This is in addition to eventual safety concerns and deterioration of the training environment inside the boundaries. Ample precedent is found nationwide supporting this fact.

Fort A.P. Hill's value to this nation is well understood by military professionals. The installation ranked very high in military value during detailed analyses conducted for the recent Base Realignment and Closure process. Part of this value relates to the ability to conduct consistently realistic training, as well as important research and development involving night vision devices.

However, developer pressure is mounting. We've tried to work with local governments, including staff and elected officials to outline current and forecasted training missions as clearly as possible without compromising security.

Our senior mission commander, Maj. Gen. Guy Swan, the senior officer charged with the joint forces defense of our nation's capital has written Spotsylvania's government that constructing a large subdivision, with commercial and retail business components, a short distance from important training facilities degrades our mission capability and our nation's readiness.

Incredibly, some dismiss this concern, saying, "Anyone can write a letter!" The New Post developer's lobbyist, the principal consulting official a longtime Fairfax County economic developer, seeks to convince officials and surrounding communities that the Army isn't accurately advising local elected leaders.

Please understand--the Army has no profit motive. Our sole reason for opposing incompatible development is our responsibility to give American fighting men and women the best training and support we can manage.

Fort A.P. Hill is the only regional training facility of its type within hundreds of miles. Protecting range and training areas is a top Department of Defense priority. Units come from throughout the East Coast and as far away as Texas, Colorado, and even from allied nations. On any given day, between 5 and 15 different military units are on post, each training for their own unique missions.

Through sound strategic planning, our installation has been optimally configured to support simultaneous training needs, but to listen to detractors, Fort A.P. Hill should shrink everything it's asked to do toward the center of the post.

Tricord's ad notes that Fort A.P. Hill is 76,000 acres "with enough space to adequately provide for its own buffer." As a soldier-citizen, this is the most disheartening statement I'd want to see from a land developer. It means they believe development should take place right up to a training installation's boundary because the interior of the post itself is enough. Thinking like this reduces training space by 50 percent to 70 percent, making training ineffective and creating numerous conflicts among units requiring training.

This argument virtually defines the issue of encroachment. As a retired Army lieutenant general, who's a Spectrum Group associate, told me via e-mail recently, encroachment is forcing military training into ever-tighter boxes. I'm convinced we're trying to do the right thing for our military and our nation by opposing this proposed development.

Tricord's advertisement states they support a "strong military." Admirable, but for the inconsistencies. The developer speaks of "minimizing interference" with night training, itself an admission there will be interference on night training! I can assure citizens our military is successful based in large part by "owning the night" and engaging the enemy through superior night optics. Until one has relied on night vision devices in a hostile environment, please don't imply that minimizing interference with training and research and development is somehow acceptable. Any interference with night training clearly puts America's military at risk.

As Gen. Swan advised Spotsylvania in his Sept. 12 letter requesting disapproval of this rezoning, Fort A.P. Hill has many important new facilities and missions designed to help America successfully defeat emerging threats.

It's important to point out we're not asking anything other than to preserve existing zoning which provides compatible buffer. The developer asserts it is Fort A.P. Hill that needs to reconfigure and reduce internal capability to allow this rezoning, which is based--let's face it--on a company's profit motive. Profit motive is certainly noble, but I'm sorry, we assess the bigger picture and maintain that if it's bad for Fort A.P. Hill's training and R&D missions, then it's also bad for our nation.

I sincerely appreciate that Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors are allowing the men and women of the United States Army to voice their concerns on impact of training and other important aspects of our mission by this encroachment. They're the community leaders who ultimately make the final decision on what's right for Spotsylvania.

We're asking them to not forget the soldier.

LT. COL. JAMES A. MIS is commander of Fort A.P. Hill.