Fort Leonard Wood Deputy Garrison Commander Sue Halter confirmed again Wednesday that area service members and civilians can expect major new construction this summer, along with many more troops.
“You want to see dirt fly? There’s going to be a lot of dirt flying because we’re getting a new starbase,” Halter said during Wednesday morning’s Woodworks meeting with leaders of service and support organizations.
“Starbase” isn’t yet a universally recognized term around Fort Leonard Wood, and Halter received laughs when some misunderstood that the post would be getting a new Starbucks location for upscale coffee lovers. The Starbase barracks are multimillion-dollar facilities that are used for basic training and will replace older brick “rolling pin” barracks that date back to the 1950s and 1960s.
Halter said the next Starbase will be designated for engineer training. Each takes slightly less than two years to build, and the one on which construction will soon begin is scheduled to be complete in January 2010, Halter said.
Other construction projects are planned for school-age services and for a new post chapel. While Halter said the school-age services facilities will move out of wooden buildings that date back to World War II, she received questions from some in her audience about the future of the existing chapels on Fort Leonard Wood when the new chapel and offices are completed.
Responding to audience questions, Halter said Fort Leonard Wood won’t be tearing down chapels. The new chapel will add to rather than replace the existing facilities for religious worship on Fort Leonard Wood.
That’s because Fort Leonard Wood needs more facilities for religious worship to accommodate more service members, she said. Chapel activities are already using the facilities of Pershing Elementary School, she said, and the space problems will become unworkable soon with the addition of more units to Fort Leonard Wood’s personnel roster.
“We are growing, as you well know,” Halter said. “In fact, the 92nd MP Battalion out of Fort Benning, we’re sending a team down there (in June) ... We’re going to go down there, give family members a welcome to Fort Leonard Wood and answer some of their questions. We’re going to reassure them that we’re going to take care of their families.”
Those soldiers will begin to arrive this summer, and the new Maneuver Enhancement Brigade will stand up in October, Halter said. However, the new brigade commander has already been designated and soldiers will begin to arrive by summer to organize the new unit.
“Fort Leonard Wood is not dying, we’ve got so much to do,” Halter said. “What I ask you to do is to take all this information we put out and get the word out. We offer a lot here to help take care of soldiers’ families.”
Halter said the garrison commander’s office is open to ideas that help soldiers and their families.
“We’re excited in what we offer,” Halter said. “There’s nothing we say ‘no’ to unless we just completely cannot do it or it doesn’t make sense.”