Posted on 08/19/2004 8:37:58 PM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
STUTTGART, Germany (AP) - The U.S. military will keep a significant troop presence in Germany and even expand some bases, a senior U.S. commander said Thursday, despite the planned withdrawal of two Cold War-era divisions over the next decade.
Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, deputy head of the U.S. military's European Command, also said major Air Force installations in Germany would be untouched by the troop realignment plans that President Bush announced Monday.
Wald said a new, mobile brigade using lighter Stryker armored vehicles would be added, and major headquarters would also stay.
``The real issue is not the percentage of troops leaving, so much as there will still be a significant capability left here, and it will be transformed to be more mobile, more light, and more responsive,'' Wald told reporters at European Command headquarters in Stuttgart.
The sprawling Ramstein air base in western Germany, already a major strategic airlift hub for the U.S. military's global operations, ``will become even larger,'' he said.
Another base at Spangdahlem, home to two U.S. F-16 squadrons, also will remain, he said.
Overall, though, the Pentagon wants to replace the larger, permanently based forces it relied on to deter the Soviet Union during the Cold War with more mobile forces to respond to new threats such as terrorism and regional crises.
Pentagon officials have said the two heavy divisions in Germany, the 1st Armored based in Wiesbaden and the Wuerzburg-based 1st Infantry, will leave.
Wald said the Stryker brigade - about a third the size of a division - would symbolize the effort ``to better respond to the new threats of the 21st century.''
Wald said the brigade's location was still be negotiated with the German government. European command officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said current plans envision basing it at the large U.S. training range near the Bavarian town of Grafenwoehr.
Command officials also said an airborne brigade or battalion would be stationed in Europe, and the Army would keep rotating other brigades into Europe, one at a time.
With the Cold War's end, the U.S. military wants to move away from permanently based troops with accompanying infrastructure such as schools and family housing, relying instead on more stripped-down facilities where units would rotate through for shorter deployments of several months in barracks or tents without spouses or children.
Many military personnel currently serve three-year tours overseas with their families.
``The part that does leave will be augmented by rotational forces on a routine basis, either here in Germany or other places in the area,'' Wald said.
As part of the consolidation, European Command's headquarters may actually be expanded, he said.
On Monday, Bush said the realignment ultimately would bring up to 70,000 troops - plus about 100,000 family members and civilian workers - from around the world back to the United States. Major shifts would not begin before 2006.
More than 200,000 U.S. troops are now stationed overseas, mostly in Europe.
Wald resisted giving specifics on the number of troops to be withdrawn from Germany or the timetable, but said that the Pentagon's concept of having fewer standing forces abroad would have advantages for the families of U.S. soldiers.
Military personnel would face ``smaller deployments and actually go places for a less extended period of time,'' Wald said. That shift ``will give them better predictability and quality of life,'' he said.
When I was there (81-83), Wuerzburg was home of the 3d ID (mech). I was actually holed up on a little Army airfield about 20km south in Giebelstadt. Wuerzburg is beautiful little city and was where the 3d ID HQ was along with some of the combat force. The rest of the division was garisoned in smaller facilities outside of the city.
The study pointed out the fallacy of pumping megabucks of tax-payer's money into upgrading mega-APODs like McChord and Charleston to improve deployment times while ignoring the enroute infrastructure constraints. It's like hooking up a 10 gal/minute pipe to a 5 gal/min pipe and expecting to put out 10 gallons of water every minute minute.
(The political downside was that it meant putting dollars into overseas projects instead of congresscritters' local districts. As a result, the money went into improving airfields here in the U.S. as pork barrel projects.)
Marne Magic Land. Fort Stewart just ain't the same.
Man, that photo brings back memories.
Were you in Stuttgart 20 years ago, too?
No, I just remember his photo when he was the CSA.
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