Fort Benning
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Fort Benning is a military base facility of the United States military southwest of Columbus, Georgia. The base is located in Muscogee County, Chattahoochee County and Russell County. It is known as the U.S. Army Infantry Center.
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History
Fort Benning is named for Confederate General Henry L. Benning, a native of Columbus. It was established in October of 1918 as Camp Benning, and did not receive permanent quarters and status until World War II., the base covers 182,000 acres (737 km²). During World War II, Fort Benning included 197,159 acres (797.87 km²), and had billeting space for 3,970 officers and 94,873 enlisted persons. The Chattahoochee River runs through Fort Benning. Due to the deep green color of the water, it is known to the soldiers of the 586th Engineer Co. (Float Bridge) as the 'Chattanasty'. The deer hunting is excellent.
The Airborne School on Main Post has three 250-foot (76 m) drop towers for training paratroops. The towers were originally an amusement park ride of the New York Worlds' Fair and were brought to Fort Benning in the 1950s.[1]
Mission
Fort Benning's first mission was to provide Basic Training for units participating in World War II. With the end of that war, Benning was closed until the Army could find a use for it. The first Tenant Unit to arrive was the Infantry School, which has been here ever since. The Civilian Conservation Corps completed the wooden permanent buildings in the 1930s, and Fort Benning expanded from that point forward.
Fort Benning is where the US 2nd Armored Division was formed.
The post has a large basic training facility for infantry. It is home to the Infantry Training Brigade of the United States Army as well being the Army's airborne (parachuting) training center. Further, it is home to a Basic Combat Training Brigade (BCTB) on Sand Hill. This is distinguished from the Infantry Training Brigade (ITB) in that ITB includes both basic training and infantry Advanced Individual Training (AIT). ITB training therefore lasts 14 weeks while BCT is 9 weeks. BCTB is used to train non-infantry personnel, who go on to AIT at other duty stations.
Post organization
There are four main cantonment areas on Ft. Benning. They are the Main Post area, Kelley Hill, Sand Hill and Harmony Church.
Main Post houses various garrison and smaller FORSCOM units of Ft. Benning such as 36th Engineer Group, 988th MP Co., the 43rd Engr Bn., and the 29th Infantry Regiment, as well as a number of TRADOC-related tenants, e.g. OCS,Primary Leadership Development Course PLDC and Airborne School.
Kelley Hill houses the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized).
Sand Hill is the primary location of the Infantry Training Brigade and Basic Combat Training Brigade.
Harmony Church area houses the Sniper and Ranger schools, and the 1st Battalion of the 29th Infantry Regiment (training support for Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Strykers)at Building 5500. Victoria Pond, where the amphibious training for the Bradleys take place is out there. Way out in this area, about 1 mile (2 km) from Red Diamond Road is a Civil War era cemetery in a large meadow. The graveyard is marked in the C C 2 area on the Fort Benning tactical military map as CEMETERY 2.
Fryar Drop Zone, the drop zone that airborne students land on, is in the Alabama portion of Fort Benning.
Fort Benning is also home to:
- The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as School of the Americas
- The US Army Pathfinder training school
- US Army Officer Candidate School
- US Army Rangers School
- 75th Ranger Regiment Headquarters
- 3rd Ranger Battalion
- The Infantry Officer's Basic Course (IOBC)
As of August 2005, Major General Walter Wojdakowski is the current post commander.
Because of all of the essential programs it is home to, Fort Benning is considered extremely unlikely to be impacted by the Base Realignment and Closing Commission BRAC, unlike many of Georgia's other military facilities, which are at risk.
Fort Benning is the main set of the popular and free online first-person shooter, America's Army.
Post Commanders have included General John 'Black Jack' Pershing and General Omar Bradley, for whom the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was named.
Convicted Vietnam war criminal William Calley spent 3 1/2 years under house arrest at Fort Benning.
Fort Benning in the movies, books, and legend
In the movie Tank, James Garner was inside a bar on an Army post and a neon sign reading END OF THE HALL was visible. That footage was shot inside the Fort Benning Non-Commissioned Officer Club.
In one of W.E.B. Griffin's books in the Brotherhood Of War series a chewing out at the Airborne School was described as a high school drop-out screaming into your face that "He didn't know what kinda chicken-shit outfit you came here from, but you better get your act together real quick, or I'll ship you outta here so fast your asshole won't catch up with you for 2 weeks!"
In the 1980s there was a story going around Ft. Benning that in the past there had been a situation where Phenix City, Alabama, a town across the Chattahoochee River, had some Ft. Benning troops in jail and wouldn't give them back. The story goes that the (unnamed) Commanding General assembled 8000 troops at the bridge and threatened to send them in to rescue the men if they weren't released. An alternate version told was that the General pulled several tanks up on the banks of the River and threatened to open fire. The first version was included in the intake briefing during inprocessing, but sounds too much like the film Tank to be very believable.Template:TRADOC