LEESVILLE, La. – A community organization that opposes budget cuts to Fort Campbell announced that they would unite with Fort Polk Progress during a recent visit to Central Louisiana.
Officials with the Friends of Fort Campbell said they hope that the 30 other Army defense communities recently studied for force structure reductions would join with them and Fort Polk Progress to create a unified opposition against budget-driven reductions to active-duty Army.
On Oct. 2, Fort Polk Progress hosted representatives from the Fort Campbell communities of Montgomery County, Tenn. and Hopkinsville, Ken. in conjunction with the rotation of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of 101st Airborne of Fort Campbell through the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC).
Fort Campbell community in attendance included Jim Durrett, County Mayor, Montgomery County, Tenn. and his Chief of Staff Jeff Truitt; Rich Liebe,
Christian County Magistrate, Hopkinsville, Ken.; John C. Mahre, special assistant to Christian County Judge Executive, Hopkinsville, Ken.; and Katie Lopez, Christian County’s Director of Military and Governmental Affairs.
The Friends of Fort Campbell contingency observed 2/101 BCT maneuvers at the JRTC and met with Mike Reese, chairman of Fort Polk Progress, along with 15 regional community leaders and Fort Polk Progress board members to discuss the future of the Army and the prospect of additional cuts to active duty force structure.
“We were proud to host our friends from Fort Campbell,” said Reese. “We immediately saw eye-to-eye and agreed that working together to advocate for our Army makes sense. The active-duty Army is being reduced too quickly. The Brigade Combat Teams we host in our communities are weapons systems built around the soldier. They cannot be built overnight and they deserve to be protected.”
“The goal of our newly-formed coalition is to not only meet our fellow Army community leaders, but to exchange ideas and to find a consensus around protecting active-duty Army force structure,” said Mayor Durrett. “Every Army community is invited to participate. We know the Army needs our help. We want to galvanize our voices and unite our efforts nationwide to do just that. The community must be the advocate for the Brigade Combat Teams moving forward.”
In just over three years, the Army’s force structure has shrunk from 570,000 to 450,000 active-duty soldiers. In 2013, ten Army communities in the United States saw a Brigade Combat Team eliminated. This past summer, two more BCTs were reorganized and thousands of other soldier positions from BCT and non-BCT Army communities alike were eliminated.
“There is a real possibility that the active-duty Army will further shrink to 420,000 in the coming years, which raises questions regarding its ability to implement the nation’s security strategy,” said Mahre. “The time to take action is now.”
“We live in an Army community,” said Lopez. “We see these soldiers every day and understand the strain on them from multiple deployments.”
In the coming months, Fort Polk Progress and the Friends of Fort Campbell will reach out to other active duty Army communities to expand the conversation about protecting Army force structure.