{"id":9070,"date":"2013-06-25T15:25:41","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T19:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=9070"},"modified":"2013-06-25T16:20:15","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T20:20:15","slug":"is-fort-drum-about-to-lose-1500-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/06\/25\/is-fort-drum-about-to-lose-1500-troops\/","title":{"rendered":"Confirmed: Fort Drum losing 1,500 – 2,000 troops"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A Military Police barracks facility at Fort Drum. Photo: New York District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

Update, 3:35 pm: We’ve received confirmation from Fort Drum in the form of this press release, pasted below:<\/p>\n

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
\nCaveats: NONE<\/p>\n

Press Release
\nRelease Nr. 1306-08
\nJune 25, 2013
\nFort Drum Public Affairs<\/p>\n

Statement by Major General Stephen J. Townsend, Fort Drum & 10th Mountain
\nDivision (LI) Commander, on announced inactivation of 3rd Brigade Combat
\nTeam, 10th Mountain Division<\/p>\n

“After a long period of study by the Department of the Army, we now
\nknow that the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division will be
\ninactivated by Fiscal Year 2017. \u00a0The 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, the
\nSpartans, was activated at Fort Drum, New York on 24 September, 2004. Since
\nthen they have deployed 3 times to Afghanistan (2006, 2009, 2011), with one
\nmore deployment anticipated before inactivation. \u00a0The Soldiers of 3BCT
\nepitomize the combined spirit of the legendary Spartans of ancient Greece
\nand the courageous 10th Mountain veterans of World War-II. Their history
\nwill be recorded and remembered as our history, the heroism, expertise and
\nsacrifice of the Spartan Brigade will not be forgotten.<\/p>\n

Even with the loss of a brigade, I don’t expect the overall
\nreduction to have a significant impact here at Fort Drum as we expect
\nadditional maneuver battalions to be assigned to our remaining brigades.
\nAfter the addition of these units to the remaining Brigades, we expect the<\/strong>
\n net loss to be somewhere between 1500 and 2000 Soldiers.<\/strong> (emphasis NCPR’s)<\/em><\/p>\n

Fort Drum remains one of the newest, most sustainable, state of the
\nart installations in our nation’s Army. \u00a0With the last decade of
\ninstallation improvements, it is well known that we are among the most
\ncapable for training opportunities and Family support services. \u00a0These will
\nbe the drivers of the 10th Mountain’s continued mission success here at Fort
\nDrum for a long time to come.<\/p>\n

The dedication of our civilian workforce and the patriotism and
\nsupport of our surrounding communities allows Fort Drum to be more than a
\ntraining and deployment facility – it is our home. \u00a0We ask for your
\ncontinued support to your 10th Mountain Division and to your Fort Drum.”<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In the last couple hours, two stories have come out in our local media that say probably, yes. The Watertown Daily Times reports<\/a> that “sources around the North Country defense community” are anticipating an announcement this afternoon by the Department of the Army of a net force reduction, over the next four years, of 1,500 soldiers. WWNY-TV says<\/a> “a source with knowledge of the Pentagon’s plans” says the same.<\/p>\n

Our Fort Drum reporter Joanna Richards is looking into the claim; meanwhile, here’s what those two sources are saying: As part of a reorganization of the Army, one of the base’s brigade combat teams, possibly the 3rd, will be removed from Fort Drum (they’re both being careful to say this information isn’t confirmed.)<\/p>\n

The cuts would be part of the Army’s plan to reduce soldier levels from about 570,000 to about 490,000 by fiscal year 2017. They’re not connected to sequestration, by the way. The cuts, if in fact they’re happening, wouldn’t be as bad as some had anticipated: The WDT reports the Army had evaluated the local impact of cutting as many as 8,000 soldiers. So did the Fort Drum Regional Liaison Organization. Here are some of the results of those two studies:<\/p>\n

The area surrounding Fort Drum was projected to lose thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity and incomes. Area schools, housing and hospitals would also be negatively affected by such a move.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s much more in the article, and again, we’ll have more information when it’s available (and confirmation when that happens.)<\/p>\n

Ironically, this post replaces one I was going to do this afternoon about Watertown’s ranking in a new study as the fifth-best “micropolitan” economy out of 576. That from the Watertown Daily Times<\/a> as well. A successful micropolitan area, by the way, is a community with a population between 10,000 and 49,999 residents that\u00a0 has “experienced rapid, consistent growth in size and quality for an extended period of time.” Hopefully if Fort Drum does <\/em>end up losing those troops, the impact won’t be such that it becomes an unsuccessful micropolitan area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update, 3:35 pm: We’ve received confirmation from Fort Drum in the form of this press […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[11545,997,882,12638,11480],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9070"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9091,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070\/revisions\/9091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}