Fort Lewis Main Site

Published August 25, 2007

Wives ready Fort Lewis for troops' return

Few get this excited about making a bed, never mind making more than 200 beds.

But these half-dozen wives had a spring in their steps Friday as they tucked corners and smoothed blankets and sheets, one of innumerable tasks

both large and small

under way to prepare for the return of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) after a 15-month deployment to Iraq.

"It's like the light at the end of the tunnel," Melissa Townsend, wife of Col. Steve Townsend, the brigade commander, said in an earlier interview. "You can put your hands on it."

The brigade's "torch" party is scheduled to return home in early September to lay the groundwork for welcoming back the rest of the 3,600-soldier unit. Then, in a ritual that will repeat itself numerous times in subsequent weeks, weary soldiers will reunite with overjoyed spouses and children shortly after stepping off a plane.

The family readiness group for the Brigade Troops Battalion wanted to ensure the return was just as memorable for single soldiers whose families may live far away. More than half of the battalion's 450 soldiers are unmarried.

So the group went to work Friday to give a touch of home to quarters that have been vacate for more than a year. They started with making the beds. Over the weekend, they will ensure the comforts and necessities of home are waiting for the soldiers, such as toothbrushes, shaving cream, razors and a plate of oven-baked cookies.

"We would like them to feel as good when they come home as our husbands do," said Sharon Lemke, whose husband, Ryan, is a sergeant assigned to the battalion.

The family readiness groups for the brigade's other subordinate units are taking similar steps to welcome home their single soldiers.

The groups also have been busy creating the colorful banners for the homecoming ceremonies and getting the materials ready for the upcoming redeployment briefings for spouses and families.

"It takes a while to get ready," Townsend said. "There's a lot of steps."

It's welcome work for spouses who have worried and wondered these many months when they'd see the final days of what often seemed an endless deployment.

"It's hard," said Chastity Aguilar, whose husband, Sean, is a staff sergeant assigned to the Brigade Troops Battalion. "You stick together. You make the best out of it."

Five of the brigade's seven battalions deployed to Mosul in northern Iraq starting last summer and then reunited this year with the other two battalions that were sent to Baghdad from the start. Since then, the brigade's infantry battalions have been engaged in tough fights against the insurgency in and around the capital city.

More than 40 soldiers assigned to the brigade have died in Iraq during the deployment.

With her husband overseas, Melody Baker had to watch their son's graduation and send him off to college in Arkansas alone. Her husband, James, a chief warrant officer assigned to the Brigade Troops Battalion, also was with the brigade during its first deployment to Iraq in late 2003.

The second time hasn't been any easier, she said.

"This means it's getting closer," she said as she made another bed with assistance from her 15-year-old daughter, Bethany.

CAMP LEWIS, 1917 - 1919

As early as 1902, Tacoma businessmen had tried to interest the U.S. War Department in establishing a federal military post in the American Lake-Nisqually Plain area. At the time, however, the Army was more interested in a site in the Spokane Valley.

Major General Arthur Murray and a party of Army officers visited the prairies and timberland south of Tacoma in 1912 and recommended the area favorably as a potential military reservation. General Murray said, "There is no finer Army post site anywhere in the U.S. In this area there is every physical condition desirable for Army training and maneuvers." State troops used the Lewis area in 1915 for exercises involving the deployment of a regiment. The area was called Jackson's Prairie, and many Tacoma and Pierce County citizens revived the idea of building an Army post near American Lake. No one person can be given credit for this idea. Frank S. Baker, publisher of The Tacoma News and Tribune, was one of the leaders in this movement. The Chamber of Commerce was interested in establishing a post at American Lake. Other citizens and organizations recognized the value of an Army post near Tacoma.          MORE

WORLD WAR II, 1939 - 1949

By May 1938, the 3d Infantry Division and Fort Lewis boasted 5,000 men in garrison. Intensive infantry training and frequent field maneuvers were becoming the norm on post. A final prewar (1938-1940) spurt of construction gave Fort Lewis 455 permanent and temporary structures worth fifteen million dollars.

On 1 July 1940, the post garrison numbered 7,000 men with the arrival of the IX Army Corps from the Presidio of San Francisco; and the troop level would increase dramatically after September, when the one-year Selective Service Act came into being. With 26,000 regulars, guardsmen, and draftees on post by Christmas, living space became scarce.

Two officers who were to become famous World War II generals were stationed at Fort Lewis in 1940 and 1941. General Mark W. Clark, Chief of Army Field Forces, was stationed here as a major from 1937, when he graduated from the Army War College, until March 1940 when he returned to the War College as an instructor. He served with the G-3 staff of the 3d Division and also as division public relations officer.

General of the Army and President Dwight D. Eisenhower was assigned to the 15th Infantry at Fort Ord, California, in February 1940. He served as Chief of Staff of the IX Army Corps at Fort Lewis from 1 March 1941 to 24 June 1941, when he went to San Antonio, Texas, to be Chief of Staff of the Third Army.     MORE

KOREA, 1949 - 1955

In the summer of 1950, communist North Korean forces invaded the Republic of South Korea; and the United Nations acted to halt the aggression. Wartime restrictions were placed in effect at the post as Major General Laurence B. Keiser, 2d Division Commander, ordered all officers and men on leave to return to Fort Lewis by the fastest possible means.

The 2d Division was ready. Since it had been stationed at Fort Lewis, the 2d Division participated in four large-scale maneuvers; an amphibious assault in the autumn of 1946 at Aliso Canyon, California, in cooperation with the Navy and Air Force; a month-long combat operation at the Yakima Firing Center in the spring of 1947; "Operation Yukon" in 1948 when troops were indoctrinated in airborne training in Alaska; and the large-scale "Operation Miki" in the fall of 1949 when, with the Navy, a mock invasion of the Hawaiian Island of Oahu was staged.

In July and August 1950, the 2d Division became the first American division to leave the United States for the fighting in Korea. Like the other units to hit Korea during the early stages of the fighting, the 2d Division was committed piecemeal. Units were shoved into the lines as soon as they hit the peninsula. General Keiser himself had been in Korea for 13 days before he had a command, despite the fact that men of his Division were fighting.

ON THE CUTTING EDGE, 1972 - PRESENT

Fort Lewis was redesignated Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division and Fort Lewis on 21 April 1972. On 26 May 1972, Army Chief of Staff General William C. Westmoreland unfurled the 9th Infantry Division colors during a day-long activation ceremony held at Gray Army Airfield and presented them to Major General William B. Fulton, signifying the reactivation of the "Old Reliables."

The activation was phased over a 12-month period. During this period, the 9th recruited over 8,000 men, including many from the Pacific Northwest. It became the first "all volunteer" division in the U.S. Army.

Once reactivated at Fort Lewis, the 9th was deeply involved in training for future conflicts. It participated in exercises from Alaska to California and east to North Carolina.    MORE

THE STORY OF THE RED SHIELD INN

The Fort Lewis Military Museum is fortunate to occupy one of the most historic buildings on the historic installation. It is one of two extant buildings on Fort Lewis which date back to the First World War era, and the only known structure which remains from the recreational area known as Greene Park.

When the United States entered World War I, the need arose for additional camps to train the new National Army. The area to be known as Camp Lewis was already under negotiation to be donated to the Army for use as a cantonment by the citizens of Pierce County who welcomed the military to the area.

The new camp was built for the lowest cost and in the shortest space of time of any cantonment in the country, and in September 1917, the first recruits arrived for training. By December 31, 1917, over 37,000 men, primarily of the Ninety First Infantry Division, were on post.   MORE