Fort Carson

Took a ride through Fort Carson the afternoon of August 21. I'm a military retiree, so I can. I remember reading a couple of years ago that the 4th ID was moving from Fort Hood to Fort Carson after returning from their 2008 deployment (their third in 5 years) to Operation Iraqi Freedom. To that end, Fort Carson has undergone a construction boom that is just mind boggling. We entered post on McGrath Ave., just off I25 a mile or so north of the KOA. They're building headquarters buildings, motor pools, barracks, and family housing. For modern facilities, it looks to be the place to be stationed.

Fort Carson is the home of the Second, Third and Fourth Brigade Combat Teams of the 4th Infantry Division, the 10th Special Forces Group, the 71st Ordnance Group (EOD), the 759th Military Police Battalion, the 10th Combat Support Hospital, and the 43rd Sustainment Brigade.

Fort Carson also has an associated training facility located 150 miles south-southeast called the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS), part of which we drove through on our way to Santa Fe. In May 2006, Fort Carson’s Land Use Requirements Study (LURS) validated the need for an additional 418,577 acres of training land at PCMS to support training for Soldiers stationed at Fort Carson. In February 2007, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) approved the Army’s request for a waiver to pursue land acquisition for up to 418,577 acres at PCMS. Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site is one of the Army's few, non-live- fire training areas allowing force-on-force, mechanized brigade training exercises. As the second largest Department of Defense training site in the nation, PCMS hosts two major military exercises a year. In each exercise, roughly 5,000 troops, 300 heavy tracked vehicles and 400 wheeled vehicles take to the expansive wilderness in month-long, intensive war maneuver exercises.

As can be seen from the above sign on the side of I25 near the area, some of the local residents are against the expansion of the maneuver site. The Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition is a broad-based coalition representing communities across Southern Colorado in their opposition to the proposed military expansion. PCEOC members include business owners, teachers, students, elected officials, ranchers, environmentalists and many others.

P.S. After initially posting this, I was informed by an anonymous reply that PCMS has been a live-fire maneuver area since the 1990's. Over the past 2+ centuries, the military has not assumed any responsibility to clean up those areas where they have conducted live-fire exercises. There are unaccounted live munitions from Storm King Mountain just north of West Point to housing developments in Orlando. The military currently has enough land to conduct necessary training. They should not be allowed to acquire more.