A few numbers help tell the story of how quickly the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq intensified the Army’s expansion plans for the base south of Tacoma.
• The number of soldiers at the base swelled from fewer than 19,000 before the terror attacks to more than 34,000 today. Some belong to units that grew because of the wars, such as the Green Berets in the 1st Special Forces Group. Others, such as the base’s three Stryker brigades, might have expanded even without the conflicts, officers said.
• The Army’s annual construction budget boomed from $6.8 million at Fort Lewis before the attacks to $136.2 million in 2002. Much of that money went to new facilities the post needed to train and send soldiers and reservists to war.
• Money for nonwarfighting projects, such as housing and hospitals, also kept rising. Since 2001, the Army has spent $1.7 billion on projects at the local base. Some new facilities care for injured soldiers, such as the $53 million Warrior Transition Battalion and $3.1 million clinic for serious brain injuries.
Col. Jay Flowers, Lewis-McChord’s chief Army operations officer, said the base grew as the Army expanded its overall ranks. The service had 562,000 active-duty soldiers last year, up from 480,800 in 2001.
He said the Pentagon’s decade-long investment in Lewis-McChord should allow it to keep many of its resources even if the Army shrinks as the two wars draw down.
It’s now the West Coast’s largest military installation, and the fleet of Air Force C-17 cargo jets at McChord Air Field gives the base a global reach.
It also is a hub for preparing soldiers from bases around the country for combat. The Pentagon built mock buildings at Lewis-McChord for soldiers to practice in settings that resemble what they’ll see overseas.
Other changes made the base a leader in military health care. The Army placed its headquarters for medicine in western states at Madigan Army Medical Center. It also created a clinic for traumatic brain injuries and a research center that looks for ways to infuse technology into behavioral health programs.
“This base has grown in stature,” said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, who helped steer resources to Lewis-McChord as a leader on the House Appropriations Committee.
Yet it’s hard to say for certain how much of the growth can be attributed directly to 9/11 and the wars. The Defense Department had planned to increase the military’s footprint in Western Washington even before the attacks, said Retired Army Gen. James T. Hill, who led Fort Lewis 10 years ago.
“(Fort Lewis) was going to be a major installation,” he said. “It wasn’t going to go away, and we knew that other units would be coming.”
Lewis-McChord gained resources as the Pentagon reduced its presence overseas in countries such as Germany and South Korea. The last round of military base closures in 2005 steered more personnel to the South Sound. The Defense Department ultimately merged the Air Force and Army sides of the installation, creating the joint base in 2010.
One casualty of 9/11 was Gen. Hill’s decision to open the gates to civilians. He wanted transparency with surrounding communities.
“We were wide open,” said Lt. Col. Ted Solonar, Lewis-McChord’s provost marshal. He served here in the 1990s and returned in the years after the terrorist attacks.
The base now has guards at every gate checking identification. Visitors often must have an escort, and commercial trucks are screened for explosives. Those changes make the base a “harder target” for someone who’d want to do harm to service members, Solonar said.
Ten years of warfare also made for changes at the Washington National Guard, headquartered at Camp Murray outside of Lakewood.
The state’s Guardsmen continually deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq, sometimes in small groups and sometimes as full units. The state’s 81st Brigade Combat Team has deployed on two yearlong missions in Iraq since 2005.
Meanwhile, the Guard took on new assignments for homeland defense. It recently built up a unit trained to respond to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks. Another unit is staffed with civilian high-technology workers who handle cyber-warfare for the Pentagon.
Those homeland resources, coupled with assignments in the war zones, make serving in the Guard “fundamentally different” from the jobs citizen soldiers performed a decade ago, said Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, director of the state’s Military Department.
“It’s hard to find members who have not deployed at least once, and many of them have deployed five or six times,” he said. “We have a battle-tested, resilient force.”
