Training of U.S. soldiers poised for major realignment.

FORT MONROE, Va. -- Military training and education programs in the U.S. Army are bound for significant changes. The impending transfer of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command headquarters from this historic facility to nearby Fort Eustis is only the tip of the iceberg.

TRADOC's move is one of several hundred base realignments proposed by the Defense Department and likely to De approved soon by Congress. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission not only recommended the relocation of TRADOC headquarters, but also the consolidation of seven schools at bases around the nation and the establishment of several joint centers of excellence at others.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defined these centers as bases where the research, support and training for specific functions are consolidated "to improve the ability of the military branches to share information, adopt common standards and procedures and increase efficiency."

The BRAC plans have the backing of TRADOC'S acting commander, Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones. "We owe it to American taxpayers to provide the best, most cost-effective and efficient basing strategy for our command-and-control headquarters and military units," Jones said.

That could be a substantial challenge, given TRADOC's size, officials conceded. The command operates 33 schools and centers at 16 Army installations around the country. Its schools conduct 1,714 courses, with seats for 400,000 soldiers, 30,000 personnel for other services, 6,700 foreign troopers and 16,000 civilians.

"At sometime in his or her career, every soldier or officer is touched by a TRADOC school," said Maj. Mark Van Hout, a spokesman for the command.

The job of guiding TRADOC through the coming changes has been assigned to the director of the command's new BRAC office, John A. Durkin. A retired Army colonel, Durkin has helped implement such reorganizations twice before.

During the 1991 BRAC, he helped plan the move by the 5th Division (Mechanized) from Fort Polk, in Louisiana, to Fort Hood, Texas, where it became the 2nd Armored Division. Then, amid the 1995 BRAC, he helped consolidate chemical, engineer, military police and noncommissioned officer schools into a maneuver-support center of excellence at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

"It's something I enjoy doing," he told National Defense. "It's a challenge. There are a lot of moving pieces--especially in the case of TRADOC."

As stipulated by federal law, he said, the changes would take place over a six-year period. Among them:

* TRADOC headquarters would move from Fort Monroe to Fort Eustis, in nearby Newport News, Va., to remain within commuting distance to U.S. Joint Forces Command, which is based just across the James River from here, in Norfolk. TRADOC works closely with JFCOM, which is responsible, in part, for joint training among all of the services.

* The Armor Center and School at Fort Knox, KT., would transfer to Fort Benning, Ga., consolidating with the Infantry School and Center into a Maneuver Center of Excellence. This would allow infantry and armored trainees to exercise together routinely on Benning's 189,000 acres of ranges, rather than having to travel great distances.

* The blow to Fort Knox would be softened by replacing the Armor facilities with the 84th Army Reserve Regional Training Center, now at Fort McCoy, Wis. Also, engineer, military police and combat-service-support units now based in Europe and South Korea would relocate to Fort Knox under the Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy.

* In addition, the Army Accessions and Cadet Commands would move from Fort Monroe to Fort Knox, and join the Human Resources Command--currently using leased facilities in Alexandria, Va.; Indianapolis, Ind., and St. Louis, Mo.--to form a Military Personnel and Recruiting Center of Excellence.

* The Air Defense Artillery Center and School at Fort Bliss, Texas, would move to Fort Sill, Okla., to combine with the Field Artillery School, establishing a Net Fires Center of Excellence.

* Drill-sergeant schools at Forts Benning and Leonard Wood would move to Fort Jackson, S.C., and consolidate with a similar facility there.

* The Ordnance Center and School, at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., and the Transportation Center and School, at Fort Eustis, would move to Fort Lee, near Petersburg, Va. The Missile and Munitions Center also would relocate from Redstone Arsenal, Ala., to Lee. There, they would merge with the Combat Support Command, the Quartermaster Center and School, and the Army Logistic Management College to create a Combat Service Support Center of Excellence.

* Fort Lee also would become the home of two joint centers of excellence. Air Force transportation-management training would move from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and merge with similar schools at Lee to form a single facility for both services. Also, the Air Force's culinary training would relocate from Lackland to Lee to join with similar Army schools.

* Another joint center, one for religious training and education, would be formed at Fort Jackson, where the Army's Chaplain School would absorb other services' facilities, currently at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.; Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss., and Naval Station Newport, R.I.

Before these moves can take place, the infrastructure--such as offices, classrooms, living quarters and roads--on the bases slated for expansion will need to be improved, Durkin said.

Benning, for example, would have to find room for 300 M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks and 10,000 personnel that would come with the Armor School.

In some cases, that would require new construction, Durkin said. In other cases, he added, it will mean renovation of existing structures, such as Benning's historic Infantry Hall. At Benning alone, such improvements could cost an estimated $460 million over four years.

The big loser within TRADOC is Fort Monroe, which is slated for closure. The change shouldn't be much of a factor for the 2,200 soldiers and employees at TRADOC headquarters, Durkin said.

"They'll just be moving down the road to Fort Eustis," he said. "They're entitled to move with their jobs. They won't have to sell their homes and move their kids to a new school system. That's not an issue for them."

The people at Monroe "who have the most angst are the installation employees," those who take care of the buildings and the grounds, Durkin said. "The vast majority of those jobs go away."

The good thing is that "government has a lot of tools to help those people, retraining, early retirement," he said. "They can compete for jobs at Fort Eustis or Fort Story."

Closing the fort is a big issue for the city of Hampton, Va., whose shops and restaurants just outside the gates depend largely upon the spending of the fort's employees. The installation generates more than $300 million in economic activity annually throughout the greater Hampton Roads area. City leaders estimated that its closure would have a negative 7 percent impact on the local economy.

Bowing to reality, state and local officials have turned their focus on what to do with the fort once the Army doses the gates. Once it doses, much of it will revert back to the state government.

That is both good news and bad. First, the good: Monroe is a prime piece of real estate that is situated on its own island in the Chesapeake Bay. Its centerpiece is a star-shaped, stone fort, surrounded by a moat that was built after the War of 1812 to protect the bay from foreign invaders. It includes more than 105 acres of land that can be redeveloped, handsome old office buildings and homes, beaches, fishing piers, a marina, nature areas and scenic trails.

Now, the bad: The fort comes with a price. Cleaning up unexploded ordnance on the site could cost in excess of $1 billion. It contains dozens of potential National Historic Landmarks that could cost up to $14 million per year to maintain. It is not clear what non-military use many of them would have.

To figure out what to do with the facility, Virginia's governor, Democrat Mark Warner, has appointed a Peninsula Working Group, made up of state and local officials, as well as community leaders. This group also will examine changes that BRAC are expected to bring about at Forts Eustis, and Langley Air Force Base.

Although Fort Eustis will be the new TRADOC headquarters under the BRAC recommendations, it will be managed as a joint facility by Air Force leaders at Langley.

For those TRADOC employees who move to Eustis, the change in management will be transparent, Durkin said. "They won't see any big change."

For TRADOC as a whole, he said, "this is a good-news story: It does a lot of things we've been talking about for 10 years."