Flagship Sill: a power projection platform for 100-plus years.

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was established in 1869 as a platform from which the United States Army could project military power throughout the Southwest. Today, 135 years later, Fort Sill has enhanced capabilities and developed state-of-the-art facilities to accommodate a significantly larger power projection footprint than "the Southwest."

Today, Fort Sill routinely deploys multiple units simultaneously by rail and air to military operations worldwide--strategically projecting military might quickly and cost effectively while ensuring Soldiers and their equipment are mission capable for training exercises or contingencies. Fort Sill is a flagship installation for projecting power, one of the Army's 16 Focus Areas for a Ready and Relevant Army at War.

For Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF and OIF) alone, Fort Sill has deployed more than 9,000 Soldiers and more than 69 million tons of equipment for both Active and Reserve Component (AC and RC) units with home stations from across the nation (as of March 2004). As the post mobilized/deployed detachment- to brigade-sized units with thousands of pieces of equipment to the Central Command theater, some 3,000 Soldiers redeployed through Fort Sill.

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Also during that same time frame, Fort Sill deployed troops and equipment for major training exercises, such as the 2d Infantry Division Warfighter and Ulchi Focus Lens exercises in Korea and a National Training Center rotation at Fort Irwin, California. One unique exercise certified the strategic deploy-ability of the 3d Brigade, 2d Infantry Division's Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT).

On 27-28 April 2003, an element of the SBCT arrived at Fort Sill by rail and truck. Just five days later, the SBCT's 600-plus personnel and 152 vehicles (including 60 of the 19-ton Stryker vehicles) deployed by air from Fort Sill's Henry Post Field. It took 45 C-17 sorties and only 46 hours to deploy them from Fort Sill to Fort Polk, Louisiana. The brigade was certified as deployable and is now in Iraq.

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Because of Fort Sill's access to transportation, facilities and services and the can-do attitude of its supporting directorates post-wide, the Chief of Staff of the Army recognized Fort Sill's outstanding power projection capabilities in recent years. His "Army Deployment Excellence Award" has been awarded twice since 2001--Fort Sill won the award one year and was First Runner Up the second.

Projecting Power Today--What It Takes. For the expeditionary Army, its deployment flagship must have access to transportation assets and large, efficient support facilities; plenty of billeting and motor pool space; and enough training facilities to accommodate multiple units mobilizing for deployment. Fort Sill has them all, and more.

* Fort Sill is geographically located within the footprint of significant numbers of III Corps units and in the heart of the nation, making it accessible by many AC and RC units. Not only FA units have deployed from Fort Sill, but also Engineer, Transportation, Military Police and Quartermaster from as far away as South Dakota and California. Units can deploy from Fort Sill in any direction by air and deploy by rail to the south, east or west coasts for ship embarkation.

* Air Transport--Fort Sill has access to multiple aerial transport facilities to deploy/redeploy personnel and equipment efficiently and effectively. Fort Sill accesses three airports: Henry Post Field on post, the Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport just 10 minutes away and Altus AFB that's 60 miles away. In 2003, Fort Sill's Unit Movement Office loaded about 140 planes with 1.1 million pounds of equipment and 6,000 military personnel for deployments. Because the Air Force schedules limited time on the ground for loading, Fort Sill ensured that departures would not be delayed due to loading; in 100 percent of the deployments, the planes were loaded and available for early departure.

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Henry Post Field's runway can accommodate C-17s or smaller aircraft (in ideal conditions, larger aircraft), and the airfield is convenient and easy as part of Fort Sill. It offers virtually unlimited space for deploying troops and equipment.

The Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport, only five miles away, is an excellent alternative for deploying forces. It can accommodate a wide variety of aircraft, including the C-5 Globemaster. Because of the one-of-a-kind partnership between Fort Sill and Lawton, including the Airport Authority, the airport is available 24/7. It has become the most frequent aerial port of embarkation/debarkation for forces deploying from or redeploying to Fort Sill. During the height of OIF deployments for combat operations, Fort Sill managed more than 100 aircraft through the Lawton Airport without a single mission delay.

Altus AFB in Altus, Oklahoma, is little more than an hour away and also can accommodate a wide variety of aircraft, including the C-5.

* Rail Transport--Fort Sill works with two major railroads to deploy troops and equipment quickly and cost effectively south, east and west for sea transport to theaters. Fort Sill works closely with the Union Pacific Railroad and Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Railroad. This allows the post to take advantage of competitive pricing and deploy equipment more cheaply than surrounding power projection platforms. For example, it is cheaper to deploy a unit by rail from Fort Sill to the NTC than it is for Fort Hood to deploy the same-sized unit by rail to the NTC. Fort Sill's coordination with these two railroads provides more options for receiving empty railcars and a more efficient and timely flow of those cars.

Because of the favorable rail access, Fort Sill can deploy forces to a variety of seaports. The port at Beaumont, Texas, outside of Houston, is often the primary port. Transit time to Beaumont is about 30 to 36 hours. East coast ports, such as Charleston, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida, are equally accessible by rail. Trains coming from Fort Sill arrive at the east coast ports in about five days. Trains traveling to the west coast ports, such as to Long Beach, California, take little more time than it takes to reach Beaumont. Fort Sill can efficiently deploy forces to (or redeploy them from) the Balkans, Northeast Asia or Southwest Asia.

The Transportation Command and port authorities consistently give units moved by Fort Sill via rail high marks for the way the equipment arrives in port. During OIF deployments, no rail cars were rejected or had to be reworked for any reason at any port. The Directorate of Logistics' (DOL's) philosophy is that all equipment being transported by rail to a port will leave Fort Sill 100 percent ready for sealift to avoid causing a "domino effect" delay of the combat mission.

* Logistical Support--Fort Sill has the logistical facilities to accommodate loading and off loading large numbers of equipment rapidly or pull maintenance on that equipment, as necessary. To support rail operations, the installation has an unparalleled railhead with eight independent loading points and an expansive marshalling area. The new railhead has nearly tripled the throughput of railcars from 104 to 340 cars per day.

The facility has cut the time it takes to out load by two-thirds. A battalion-sized unit can load equipment and tie it down on 100 cars simultaneously in six hours. The process use to take 18 hours. With the increased railcar throughput, today. Fort Sill can out load an entire brigade in 18 to 24 hours.

In one case, a multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) battalion was able to out load on 84 rail cars within two hours with only tie downs needed to complete the process.

Collocated with the railhead, the marshalling area can hold approximately 550 pieces of equipment in a ready-to-load state. The layout of the area facilitates an efficient out load as units don't have to cross their own paths during the process. The design also allows units to marshal behind units in the process of loading.

Because of these state-of-the-art rail facilities, Fort Sill can out load units as efficiently and effectively as any power projection platform in the Army.

Fort Sill DOL's Maintenance Division has processed more than 100 vehicles per week to bring deploying units' equipment up to standard--inspected and road tested. The philosophy is that all equipment deploying from Fort Sill will be fully mission capable to ensure units are combat ready as they disembark in theater.

In one case, an RC unit's 145 vehicles arrived by rail with 120 of the vehicles not mission capable. Fort Sill's DOL Team worked thousands of overtime hours to get the vehicles off loaded, brought up to mechanical standard and out loaded on railcars in seven days--tasks that usually take weeks.

* Fort Sill has an abundance of billeting, motor pools space and training facilities to support mobilizing/deploying/redeploying units. The installation has an overall capacity of 14,000 barracks spaces scattered across the post. The Directorate of Public Works (DPW) has active programs to maintain and renovate those barracks, particularly for mobilizing Soldiers. In addition, Fort Sill has a number of hard-top surfaces useable as motor pools--most can accommodate up to battalion-sized units.

Fort Sill offers deploying units access to excellent and relevant training areas. They can access qualification ranges for individual and crew-served weapons, approximately 49,000 acres for maneuver training and more than 37,000 additional acres of ranges and impact areas. The installation also has a convoy live-fire range.

* Can-Do Attitude--Fort Sill personnel, both Soldiers and civilians from multiple directorates and agencies working with deployments, have a can-do attitude about Soldiers deploying for training or contingency missions in support of America at war. It is no accident that Fort Sill was recognized twice in the two Chief of Staff of the Army's Deployment Excellence Awards. The post directorates and agencies support deploying units and the nation at war as "One Team. One Mission with No Mission Too Hard." And that same quality of teamsmanship extends out in coordination with nonmilitary service agencies and transportation providers.

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Projecting Power Tomorrow--Improvements to a Premier Platform. As a power projection platform of excellence, Fort Sill is planning improvements to increase its mobilization and deployment capabilities for the future. The installation has several initiatives underway to make its deployment operations more efficient.

A new unit movement facility is being built and will be completed in April. Units will have a state-of-the-art complex to plan and conduct unit movement operations. It will include an automation room for up to 25 separate units to document and coordinate movement requirements and update their databases simultaneously. This complex will triple the capacity of the current facility. Additionally, the facility will provide classrooms for up to 80 unit movement students at a time as well as facilities to prepare cargo for air movement.

Plans also have been completed for a new rail maintenance facility to accommodate depot-level maintenance on locomotives. This will prevent Fort Sill from having to send locomotives to a depot, which keeps locomotives out of service for additional months at a time. Construction of the locomotive maintenance facility is scheduled to begin in 2006.

As a result of lessons learned during recent deployments, other projects to enhance Fort Sill's power projection capabilities have been planned and are in various stages of development. These include expanding the aircraft ramp at the Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport to allow six wide-body aircraft to be on the ground at one time without interfering with commercial airline activities; building a facility for additional rail storage that will hold up to 100 more railcars; expanding the alert holding area for units to pre-stage up to 600 pieces of tactical equipment; and improving a variety of ranges and training areas.

Fort Sill is today and will remain in the future a premier power projection platform, one of the Army's flagships, because of the dedication and professionalism of its Soldiers and Department of the Army civilians. These are the personnel from not only DOL and DPW, but also other post agencies that support mobilization and deployment, including the Directorate of Plans, Training, and Mobilization (DPTM) and those agencies that support Soldier readiness, such as the Adjutant General (AG), Medical Department Activity (MEDDAC), Dental Department Activity (DENTAC) and others across the post.

Although 135 years have passed since Fort Sill first projected US Cavalry troops throughout the Southwest to fight Indians, Fort Sill continues to play an important role in projecting national power, only now, to fight the Global War on Terrorism.

By Colonel G. Keith Herring

Colonel G. Keith Herring is the Garrison Commander of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He was the Chief of Plans Branch in the Operations Directorate (J3) at Central Command, MacDill AFB, Florida, where he was instrumental in planning both Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. He commanded the 9th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery (9-1 FA) (Provisional) and when it became 2-20 FA, was the first commander of the new divisional Multiple-Launch Rocket System/Target Acquisition Battalion in the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Hood, Texas. In 2-7 FA, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York, he was the S3 until he deployed to the Republic of Haiti where he was a Plans and Operations Officer in Task Force Mountain and Executive Officer for the Joint Task Force Commander. He holds an MBA from Oklahoma City University.