Fort Indiantown Gap

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Fort Indiantown Gap
Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania
Fort Indiantown Gap Training Center
Type	National Guard Training Site
Built	1931
In use	Currently
Controlled by	Pennsylvania National Guard

Fort Indiantown Gap, also referred to as "the Gap", is located along Interstate 81 in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, 23 miles (37 km) northeast of Harrisburg. The installation is an active US Army National Guard Training Center and serves as headquarters for the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and the Pennsylvania National Guard. The Eastern Army Aviation Training Center and Northeast Counterdrug Training Center are also located here. The fort surrounds Memorial Lake State Park.

[edit] History

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania owns the facility, but it has leased portions of it to the US Army for various operations throughout its history. The post is undergoing major installation changes in preparation for the arrival of the Stryker Brigade. It will be the home to the largest mechanized Brigade aside from Fort Knox, Kentucky. The post dates to pre World War II 1930s. It is the largest training post for Active, Reserve and Guard forces in the United States. It has more munition ranges than all of the Army TRADOC posts combined. The post can serve 75,000 soldiers at one time and has been a mobilization and embarkation center in the past for World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War and recently the operatons in Kosovo and the Balkans.

The post was originally developed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, on the recommendation of General Edward Martin, as a National Guard training site in 1931. Over the years, the facility has served as home to both Pennsylvania and federal military forces. In 1941 the post was officially named Indiantown Gap Military Reservation (IGMR). Martin retired from military service and went on to serve as Pennsylvania Governor and then Senator. After his death, the Pennsylvania legislature renamed the facility the Edward Martin Military Reservation, a designation that Martin himself had rejected throughout his life. The new name was never fully accepted by the military personnel who served there. In 1975, the Secretary of the Army renamed the post Fort Indiantown Gap in order to more closely align it with the other Active Duty stations throughout the United States. Pennsylvania also reinstated the Indiantown Gap designation, which it retains today. In 1976, the Commonwealth donated a section of the land to the Veterans Administration for the establishment of a National Cemetery.

The Active Army has a small enclave remaining since the Base Realignment and Closure decision to realign the post in 1995, but no federal troops are quartered at Fort Indiantown Gap any longer. Most of the World War II structures and buildings have been demolished in accordance with Department of Defense directives to scrap World War II buildings. The post will shortly transition into a modern garrison in order to support the changing role it will soon be playing. The Army is once again planning to take up residence on the post in order to train the soldiers that will be assigned to the new Stryker Brigades. Once the Active Army takes control, the post will fall under the command of the Army Training and Doctrine Command.

As of March 2007, the base still largely consisted of World War II-era buildings that have disappeared from active Army posts.