Fort Polk is set to double in size, as well as become the premier place for training imbedded security advisors, according to the top Army official at the base, located in Vernon Parish.
Brigadier General James Yarbrough spoke to the SWLA Alliance yesterday about the direction of one of the fastest growing army bases in the United States.
”The message I want to convey to you is pretty clear: we are at a juncture of a period of unprecedented opportunity,” Yarbrough said.
”It’s really a perfect storm of decision by the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army.”
Yarbrough indicated that over $7 million has been brought into Fort Polk over the last few years that “increases the quality of life for soldiers and family members” that stay there.
”The Department of the Army has announced that we are to receive the mission, forever, that we’re going to train combat advisors that are embedded in host nation’s security forces. These are 11 to 15 man teams, 5,000 a year have been training at Fort Riley, Kansas since 2006. That was an interim decision to get that task right, knowing full well they are going to park it somewhere else. Well they’ve decided to park it here in Fort Polk.”
Teams like the ones Yarbrough spoke of have been silently putting effort toward getting the security forces of Iraq and other theaters of war ready to take over duties that the Army has been in charge of, he said.
”That’s an enduring mission. We reactivated the mission in 2005, and we’re going to keep it alive at Fort Polk.”
This new mission is one of the reasons that the expansion of Fort Polk is necessary, and will provide numerous opportunities for economic growth, not just in the Vernon Parish area, but for the entire state.
”This business of the Federal Government and the Army allowing us to double the size of Fort Polk is huge. We’ll be able to buy a hundred thousand acres over the next couple of years. There is only two posts out of the 89 installations worldwide, there is only two of us, us and Fort Benning, Georgia, that are allowed to proceed to purchase more land. Most posts couldn’t if they wanted to.”
Those posts, Yarbrough said, are so encroached by civilian development, including housing, shopping malls, and similar developments, that they couldn’t expand if they needed to.
However, the General said that the expansion will be a cooperative endeavor with those that live in those areas. If a homeowner doesn’t want to sell his or her property, he said, they don’t have to. Fort Polk will just redraw their plans to take that into account.
Fort Polk has the population size of a small city, similar to Sulphur. Yarbrough said that about 38,000 people work there everyday, and the income that those people bring to the area isn’t going to be changing, despite the downturn in the economy.
”This recession, though it’s not really a recession here, call it an economic downturn, but Fort Polk calls it business as usual,” he said.
”Nobody’s getting a pink slip out where we come from.”
According to recent economic studies of the state of Louisiana, Fort Polk causes a ripple effect throughout the state and region, Yarbrough contends.
$1.6 billion comes out of Fort Polk, putting it as the number one economic engine of the state, according to the General.
”We were behind the Port of New Orleans, but Katrina damaged some of that capacity down there,” he said.
”We’re pretty proud, because that’s stable income. Nobody’s getting laid off.”
Many of the upgrades that Yarbrough has pushed and is continuing to push, including privatizing housing, bringing in new businesses, and an upgrade to the barracks complex (Yarbrough said that those buildings, built in the 1970’s, were built by the devil) are aimed at getting rid of some of the stigma associated with Fort Polk in the Army world.
”We want people to go out into other postings and say, ‘They’ve got so much great stuff at Fort Polk, how come you don’t have that?’” Yarbrough said.
”The quality of Fort Polk, we hope, is going to equal the level of the sacrifice that our men and women have been putting out for the last four or five years.”
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Fort Polk is set to double in size, as well as become the premier place for training imbedded security advisors, according to the top Army official at the base, located in Vernon Parish.
Brigadier General James Yarbrough spoke to the SWLA Alliance yesterday about the direction of one of the fastest growing army bases in the United States.
”The message I want to convey to you is pretty clear: we are at a juncture of a period of unprecedented opportunity,” Yarbrough said.
”It’s really a perfect storm of decision by the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army.”
Yarbrough indicated that over $7 million has been brought into Fort Polk over the last few years that “increases the quality of life for soldiers and family members” that stay there.
”The Department of the Army has announced that we are to receive the mission, forever, that we’re going to train combat advisors that are embedded in host nation’s security forces. These are 11 to 15 man teams, 5,000 a year have been training at Fort Riley, Kansas since 2006. That was an interim decision to get that task right, knowing full well they are going to park it somewhere else. Well they’ve decided to park it here in Fort Polk.”
Teams like the ones Yarbrough spoke of have been silently putting effort toward getting the security forces of Iraq and other theaters of war ready to take over duties that the Army has been in charge of, he said.
”That’s an enduring mission. We reactivated the mission in 2005, and we’re going to keep it alive at Fort Polk.”
This new mission is one of the reasons that the expansion of Fort Polk is necessary, and will provide numerous opportunities for economic growth, not just in the Vernon Parish area, but for the entire state.
”This business of the Federal Government and the Army allowing us to double the size of Fort Polk is huge. We’ll be able to buy a hundred thousand acres over the next couple of years. There is only two posts out of the 89 installations worldwide, there is only two of us, us and Fort Benning, Georgia, that are allowed to proceed to purchase more land. Most posts couldn’t if they wanted to.”
Those posts, Yarbrough said, are so encroached by civilian development, including housing, shopping malls, and similar developments, that they couldn’t expand if they needed to.
However, the General said that the expansion will be a cooperative endeavor with those that live in those areas. If a homeowner doesn’t want to sell his or her property, he said, they don’t have to. Fort Polk will just redraw their plans to take that into account.
Fort Polk has the population size of a small city, similar to Sulphur. Yarbrough said that about 38,000 people work there everyday, and the income that those people bring to the area isn’t going to be changing, despite the downturn in the economy.
”This recession, though it’s not really a recession here, call it an economic downturn, but Fort Polk calls it business as usual,” he said.
”Nobody’s getting a pink slip out where we come from.”
According to recent economic studies of the state of Louisiana, Fort Polk causes a ripple effect throughout the state and region, Yarbrough contends.
$1.6 billion comes out of Fort Polk, putting it as the number one economic engine of the state, according to the General.
”We were behind the Port of New Orleans, but Katrina damaged some of that capacity down there,” he said.
”We’re pretty proud, because that’s stable income. Nobody’s getting laid off.”
Many of the upgrades that Yarbrough has pushed and is continuing to push, including privatizing housing, bringing in new businesses, and an upgrade to the barracks complex (Yarbrough said that those buildings, built in the 1970’s, were built by the devil) are aimed at getting rid of some of the stigma associated with Fort Polk in the Army world.
”We want people to go out into other postings and say, ‘They’ve got so much great stuff at Fort Polk, how come you don’t have that?’” Yarbrough said.
”The quality of Fort Polk, we hope, is going to equal the level of the sacrifice that our men and women have been putting out for the last four or five years.”
