(See list of changes at end of story)
HEIDELBERG, Germany — A year from now, part of the 1st Armored Division will be Texas-bound, the 3rd Corps Support Command will head to Kentucky, a centralized combat aviation brigade will be created in Germany, and some engineers who were once known as “topo guys” will become “geospatial planners.”
U.S. Army Europe’s transformation and rebasing plan for 2007 was announced Thursday. It will affect some 12,500 soldiers, an estimated 18,750 family members and nearly 1,100 civilian workers in Germany as the Army vastly reduces the number of U.S. troops and standardizes, modernizes, reorganizes and renames its units worldwide.
Unlike the first round of transformation a year ago that focused on returning the 1st Infantry Division to the U.S., the plan for 2007 takes more of a diverse approach. It returns the 1st AD’s 1st Brigade Combat Team — now in Iraq — to the U.S., but leaves the 2nd BCT — also in Iraq — in place for now. It encompasses changes in logistics, aviation and engineering units, and how combat service support units are configured. The plan moves five units, while converting 21 and inactivating 25.
Additionally, three signal units in Darmstadt will inactivate, along with a military intelligence battalion there.
The moves are expected to begin in June 2007.
“Last year, it was … a big focus on the Big Red 1,” said Bill Chesarek, USAREUR’s global rebasing and restructuring division chief. “This year, you could say we’re starting on the 1st AD. Friedberg is the best place to start.”
The home for years of the 1st AD’s 1st Brigade, Friedberg and Giessen will see what once were 3,500 soldiers become none. Barracks, training areas, housing areas, depots, distribution centers and other military facilities are scheduled to close, but instead of closing in 2007, as previously announced, most are now scheduled to close in 2008.
The area’s facilities were going to be closed even before it was announced that two Germany-based heavy divisions would return to the U.S. — because of unsuitable training areas, Chesarek said. And since then, “We haven’t upgraded anything. We’ve just done maintenance,” he said. “So it made sense to send them (back to the States) instead of one of the other brigades.”
Three major factors are driving the timing of which USAREUR units go where and on what timeline, Chesarek said: current missions in Iraq and Afghanistan; the worldwide rebasing and restructuring plan, including the availability of new facilities; and “minimizing turbulence” for soldiers and families affected.
Chesarek said the 2007 moves and changes should have minimal impact on most individual soldiers, who will be dispersed in large numbers through normal Army processes such as retirements, changes of station and enlistment terms ending.
“They’ll really, really draw down (before a unit moves or inactivates) and most will go to individual assignments,” he said. “Some will PCS. Some will go to school.”
All soldiers now deployed to Iraq and scheduled to return to the U.S. will do so after first coming back to Germany, Chesarek said, and will make the move with their families.
Having soldiers return stateside directly from Iraq has been ruled out once and for all, he said. “Maybe it would have been a little cheaper, I don’t know. But as a morale issue — not so good,” he said.
Besides the 1st BCT’s move to Fort Bliss, Texas, Chesarek said, the plan reflects changes in how the Army will operate and how units are being “modularized” to make them more standardized, interchangeable and self-sufficient.
The 3rd COSCOM headquarters — also currently in Iraq — is moving to Fort Knox, Ky., for example, with some of its subordinate units being disbanded, while others will become part of a USAREUR-wide command that will assume all theater sustainment duties.
Similarly, what was an aviation brigade will become the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, and pieces of two engineering brigades will be molded into one “engineer theater enabling command,” according to the plan.
Among that group will be a unit called the “Geospatial Planning Cell,” which will provide complex maps and battlefield overlays. It was formerly known as the 60th Engineer Detachment, located in Schwetzingen.
“Us old-fashioned guys would call them ‘topo guys,’” Chesarek said, for “topography.”
But because of the use of satellite imagery and other technological advances, the old designation deserved an update, he said.
The transformation and rebasing plan is supposed to, over about eight years, reduce what were 62,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe to 28,000 (4,000 more than previously estimated because some of the modularized units are larger than their predecessors), and to concentrate them in several hubs.
Part of the 2007 plan addresses new construction at the hubs, such as Grafenwöhr, Kaiserslautern and Wiesbaden. Col. Roger Gerber, global rebasing and restructuring division deputy chief, said his office had requested $517 million to get started on those projects.
“We expect this is fully funded and we’ll execute it,” Chesarek said. “This is what we think we can do next year, given all the things we know about.”