My Op-Ed piece in today's Rocky Mountain News

Let Army use the land it needs or let it leave

Wednesday, March 21 at 12:01 AM

By David Hughes, Colorado Springs

First the ranchers in southern Colorado and adjoining states stopped permitting Army maneuvers over their lands in the 1960s, even when they were compensated for any damages.

Then in 1970 the El Paso County commissioners voted to deny the Army permission to buy the slice of waterless land near Fort Carson's firing ranges now called Rancho Colorado - which has been a sore spot ever since - as "residents" moved to it and then complained about the noise. Then the Pueblo County commissioners blocked Fort Carson from acquiring the land south of Fort Carson so it could have expanded training room. I was chief of staff at Carson then, and had the job of training mechanized troops. Even though the issue was over federal troops trying to use a federal reservoir to train for war, Pueblo viewed the reservoir as its private lake - to heck with the Army's needs.

That forced the Army to buy a costly place - including the huge costs for transportation of equipment to and from a place called Piñon Canyon south of Pueblo to have enough training room for both the active Army and the National Guard - which also has to have summer training areas - before they go to Iraq or Afghanistan again and again.

Then Colorado Springs moved heaven and earth politically with the support of congressmen to get the Defense Department to station a large number of troops at Fort Carson, citing in part its Piñon Canyon training area.

Then, when the Army started to acquire the land around Piñon Canyon, in order to train the much larger Army forces that will be at Carson, not only the ranchers objected, which is understandable, but Colorado's legislature and its two senators are moving to block the expansion.

The state of Colorado, Colorado Springs and El Paso County sure love the federal income pouring in from Fort Carson. But they are strangely silent on helping the Army acquire the land it and its soldiers need. Now Sen. Ken Salazar wants the Army to not expand, but find some other way to train. But there is no free lunch. If Salazar does not want the Army to have the training area it needs, I suggest he and Sen. Wayne Allard move to pull troops out of Fort Carson and shut it down.

If the Army is blocked from expansion of Piñon, I will be the first to demand the Army pull its combat troops out of Fort Carson. I refuse to be party to denying the troops of our volunteer Army the training area they need, and yet expect their payrolls to enrich Coloradans.

David Hughes is a West Point graduate and retired U.S. Army colonel who served in both Korea and Vietnam. He is a third-generation Colorado native and is a resident of Colorado Springs.

http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/speakout/2007/03/let_army_use_the_land_it_needs.html