Photo By Aimee Malone | A scene from a sketchbook of a prisoner of war (POW) at Camp McCoy from the 1940s is...... read more read more
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Fort McCoy, Wis., was established in 1909. Here is a look back at some installation history from March 2019 and back.
75 years ago — March 4, 1944
An era ended at Camp McCoy with the closing of the Area Engineer Office. It suggested that the period of original construction was pretty much wound up, because the area engineer had charge of initial construction and of large-scale jobs.
The office was trimmed down more and more as the camp had completed its full growth, and the work of the post engineer had grown in importance as a result. Lt. William D. Frazer, last area engineer to serve on the post, left in January 1944 after turning over much of his equipment to Lt. Col. H. E. Fillinger, post engineer.
34 Years Ago — March 21, 1985
When 113 soldiers arrived at Fort McCoy, their objective wasn’t to train. The members of the 172nd Light Infantry Bridage (Separate), an active Army unit from Forts Richardson and Wainright, Alaska, were there to watch.
“Our primary role was to evaluate the annual training for the 205th Infantry Brigade,” said Capt. Larry Lambert, assistant operations officer for the 172nd.
“The secondary mission was providing them with active-component support and an opposing force for their field training exercise,” he said. The 172nd had this role because the 205th is its Army Reserve counterpart.
“We evaluated everything the 205th did for the entire two weeks — from the time their convoys arrived until the time the convoys departed,” Lambert said.
“The major things we looked for when evaluating the brigade were training, maintaining, caring and leading,” he said.
“The 205th accomplished all the objectives they had planned prior to their annual training and some went well, some not so well,” Lambert said. “Anytime that you’re able to sit back and observe it’s not hard to pick up on things someone does wrong.”
Being evaluators also benefited the 172nd. “We can serve as evaluators only because we don’t have training responsibilities ourselves,” he said.
“That allows us to look at a unit in great detail, and based on what we see we can look back at our own unit and eliminate some practices or implement others,” Lambert said.
The 172nd also provided Active-Component Support for Annual Training. Highly qualified personnel were brought into the field situation to advise and assist the 205th in making the training run smoother.
30 Years Ago — March 1, 1989
The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) had discovered a very cost-effective way to train for winter warfare missions in Northern and Central Europe, Alaska, and Iceland.
The division trained for all of these different geographical areas simultaneously at Fort McCoy. That’s four for the price of one.
Fort McCoy, with its diverse terrain and weather conditions, substitutes nicely for those faraway places, and the training can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost.
Task Force 2-502 deployed to Fort McCoy on March 1, 1989. The battalion task force consisted of the 2/502nd Infantry Battalion; B Battery, 1/320th Field Artillery; a Special Forces detachment; Team A-044 and Team A-041; A Company, 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne); 2nd Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery, 2nd Platoon B Company, 20th Engineers; and Heavy Maintenance Detachment, 801st Maintenance Battalion. The task force personnel strength was 638.
20 Years Ago — March 8, 1999
Fort McCoy won the Secretary of the Army 1998 Environmental Award for Cultural Resources Management in the installation category.
Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera recognized the U.S. Army Reserve Command installation, located in Monroe County, for its overall management of historic properties and archeological sites on 60,000 acres of land.
A panel of judges consisting of cultural resources management experts from the Army and other historical preservation organizations marked the noticeable improvement of this U.S. Army Reserve Command installation’s program.
Within three years, the program expanded from a staff of one archeologist to a full-service, state-of-the-art facility that services both the installation and other Defense Department customers.
The panel recognized the development of a pilot Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan (ICRMP) as a highlight of the post’s accomplishments.
An ICRMP establishes procedures to manage historic and archeological properties within the military mission of an installation. Fort McCoy’s pilot plan will be used as a model for installations throughout the Army.
In addition, the installation was commended for its ongoing teamwork with Native Americans, in particular the Ho-Chunk Nation (formerly known as the Wisconsin Winnebago), to identify and provide access to sacred sites located on the post.
| Date Taken: | 03.05.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 03.05.2019 17:18 |
| Story ID: | 313050 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 131 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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