By Mitch Meador

The Lawton Constitution

FORT SILL -- The big influx of people from Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) won’t be until the summer of 2009, but Fort Sill is already hopping.
  Walls are springing up on the new Air Defense Artillery (ADA) School that’s coming here from Fort Bliss, Texas, under BRAC. And it’s true that the 31st ADA Headquarters will arrive in June with 150 soldiers and their families. But the surge that Fort Sill experiences this summer will be for reasons quite apart from BRAC.
   Fort Sill’s mission as a power projection platform is starting to draw in some hefty units. Lead elements of the 34th Combat Aviation Brigade have been here since January. Made up of National Guardsmen from 11 states, the brigade currently has 50 aircraft parked on Henry Post Army Airfield.
   “It will reach its peak in terms of numbers of people and aircraft in June and July at close to 3,000 people on the ground and almost 100 aircraft,” Fort Sill Garrison Commander Col. Robert S. Bridgford said.
   “Of that, over 400 are trainers who came in from other installations and are here for three, four, five months, and then they’re going to come back after about a month break,” said Bridgford.
   Another multistate combat aviation brigade, the 28th, will arrive here in February-March 2009 with approximately 3,600 Guardsmen. And there’s still another one, the 40th, planned after that.
   “We’ve had huge preparations for mobilization. We’ve increased the number of pads out at the airfield to allow us to have up to 100 aircraft, and we’re going to increase that later on to about 130 … and we’ve done a lot of renovation and minor construction in support of the mobilization,” Bridgford said.
   Temporary dining facilities in the form of two white tents are now in front of the brigades’ barracks, Buildings 1603 and 1604 west of Prichard Field. There are also a couple of tents at the airfield to be used for an operations center and administration.
   Bridgford said barracks, administration facilities and the airfield have been reworked to give the mobilizing units better operations center from which to train.
   While all this is going on, the training side of Fort Sill has a new mandate to “Grow the Army.” As a result, the post has had to add temporary facilities to both the 95th Adjutant General (Reception) Battalion area and the 434th Field Artillery Brigade. Relocatable barracks have gone in to support the 3,000 additional soldiers who will be going through combat basic and advanced individual training this summer.
   Meanwhile, planning continues for both BRAC and the Residential Community Initiative (RCI) partnership with Picerne Military Housing to take effect Nov. 1.

31st ADA Brigade complex    

Bridgford said the first two funding increments for the ADA School have enabled construction to get under way for one of the key pieces in BRAC, and last week Fort Sill got the money to build the 31st ADA Brigade complex and the Armed Forces Reserve Center. Groundbreaking dates for those two projects will be set up for late summer or early fall.
   Of the 11 buildings in the ADA School complex going up now, the tactical equipment maintenance facility on the west side of Sheridan Road is the furthest along. Bridgford estimates it to be 65 percent complete. It will house the Patriot missile s y s t e m e q u i p m e n t and the training for it.
   The Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) building is probably next furthest along, followed by the ADA School’s dining facility.
   Bridgford said Fort Sill officials are very happy with what the community is doing in terms of medical support for the impending population boom, and added, “It’s a critical linchpin to us being able to provide support for all of our populace.”
   He noted that area schools have already issued $68 million in bonds to expand their facilities, and the Lawton school district will vote May 13 on a $38.5 million bond proposal.
   “I think the regional planning commission has done a great job. The infrastructure, the water, the power that many of the cities or towns around us are doing, are great. Everybody seems to be leaning forward to prepare for our arrival, and then all the housing and the apartment complexes. And then in terms of Department of Transportation, we just had a meeting with them a little over a week ago as we began looking at the traffic flow around here, as it begins to expand on Fort Sill,” he said.
   Bridgford said the BRAC growth may mean widening some roads on post, and planners wanted to look at what that would do to intersections outside the post.
   There is a constant interaction between Fort Sill and the 31st ADA Headquarters about the upcoming move. Some of the advance party is already here, and soldiers will begin arriving later this month. Some of the unit’s equipment will be railed in and some will be line-hauled via trucks.
   “We’re getting a few groups coming in here from the ADA School,” he added. “They’re starting to come in and will form an advance party here and begin doing this same thing for the school this summer.”
   
Senior leadership    conference May 13-16    

Senior leadership from Fort Bliss will be here May 13-16 to talk with Fort Sill leaders about timelines, incentives for civilians to move up here, pay structure and position structures in the Fires Center of Excellence.
   In addition, more than 100 soldiers, family members and civilians from Fort Bliss will be coming May 12-15 to see Lawton-Fort Sill and the surrounding area. The deadline for civilians to decide whether to move is fast approaching, so that any vacancies in the ADA School can be nationally advertised and filled before the doors open for business.
   Meanwhile, Fort Sill has been hard at work with its RCI partner on the number of homes to be built, how they will be laid out, the planned renovation schedule for all the homes in inventory, the rates at which new housing construction and renovations will occur, and the construction of community centers.
   Bridgford said he will brief the Department of the Army on Sill’s community development management plan at the end of this month. He also has to brief the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and then the plan goes through congressional oversight for approval.
   The former Welcome Center is now the home of some Communications Electronics Command (CECOM) personnel. Neither the old Post Theater nor the Community Activities Center fit within Picerne’s plans, so Bridgford said he is working on alternatives for those. The Regional Correctional Facility will continue to be used as such until its mission moves to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., in fiscal year 2010, and then Bridgford plans to move Range Control into the facility.