Milestone for a growing base

FORT LEE -- Three days ago, the youngest soldier at this Prince George Army post was called to the command sergeant major's office.

That's not usually a happy event for a 17-year-old trooper.

But Pfc. Maria Morgenstern found out she'd been tapped to help the governor of Virginia and a galaxy of generals cut the ribbon for Fort Lee's $49million Sustainment Center of Excellence.

"I said, like, 'Oh, wow,'" said Morgenstern, who comes from El Paso, Texas.

Yesterday's ribbon-cutting for the new headquarters building marks a "wow" for Fort Lee, too, as the post begins to take its pride of place as the Army's premier logistics base.

The 218,579-square-foot headquarters -- soldiers call it the "SCoE" -- also signals an enormous economic boost for central Virginia.

Fort Lee is in the midst of $1.2 billion in construction projects alone to accommodate the Army's consolidation of its supply, maintenance and transportation centers and training at Lee, making it the service's third-largest training installation.

"This is an economic powerhouse for the region," Gov. Timothy M. Kaine told an audience of more than 500 soldiers and civilians in the energy-efficient, four-story building.

"In the middle of tough times . . . we can still say we're optimistic," Kaine said, "and we see great times ahead."

By 2011, when the Army's current base realignment and closure process ends, the Fort Lee community will have effectively doubled in size, to about 45,000 soldiers and civilians.

"The SCoE creates a combat service support training center unlike any before," said Maj. Gen. James E. Chambers, "and will provide the best possible training to the sustainers of our Army, and our sister services.

"We will train students in a total of 185 courses in the SCoE," said Chambers, commander of Fort Lee and the Army's Combined Arms Support Command. "And no one will train more military occupational specialties than Fort Lee."

The post's soldiers, he promised, will leave Fort Lee "ready to support victory on the battlefield."

Soldiers and civilian workers will begin to occupy the building March 7.

"It's now official, Jim," Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Chambers' boss at the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, told Fort Lee's commander at the ceremony.

"You have a nicer office than I have."
Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or .