History

THE BEGINNING
The history of Fort Leonard Wood dates back to the dark days just before World War II. By 1940, war had engulfed Europe and much of Asia. The United States was slowly and painfully struggling to put its military house in order. By then, many Americans believed that it was only a matter of time before the country would be drawn into what was rapidly becoming a global conflict.

The nation's leaders worked to increase the size of the armed forces, procure modern equipment and merge the two into an effective fighting force. One of the major challenges was finding suitable training areas for the expanding Army. In 1940, the War Department decided to establish a major training facility in the Seventh Corps area. This command comprised most of the states of the central plains. Originally located near Leon, Iowa, the site for the new training center was moved to south-central Missouri.

On Dec. 3, 1940, military and state officials broke ground for what was known as the Seventh Corps Area Training Center. In early January 1941, the War Department designated the installation as Fort Leonard Wood.

GENERAL LEONARD WOOD
The post is named for Major General Leonard Wood, a distinguished American Soldier whose service to his country spanned 40 years. A warrior and a surgeon, Leonard Wood graduated from Harvard University and began his military service as a contract surgeon during the Apache Indian Wars in the 1880s, winning the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor.

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Wood commanded the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the Rough Riders. His second in command, Theodore Roosevelt, took over the regiment when Wood was promoted. Theodore Roosevelt earned fame for leading the Rough Riders in the charge on San Juan Hill.

Leonard Wood served as the Army's Chief of Staff from 1910 to 1914. His last position of service was as Governor General of the Philippine Islands, which Spain had ceded to the U.S. after the Spanish-American War. General Wood held this position until his death in 1927.

BUILDING THE FORT
Building a major training center in the rugged terrain of the Ozarks presented a formidable challenge. The nearest rail service was several miles away. There was no housing for the thousands of workers who would build the post. Fort Leonard Wood had to be built quickly, since the first troops were scheduled to arrive in only a matter of weeks after the initial groundbreaking. First to train at Fort Leonard Wood, were elements of the 6th Infantry Division. Inclement weather complicated construction; bulldozers often were needed to drag lumber trucks through the mud. But through sheer determination and hard work, construction crews completed their task by June 1941. They had built nearly 1,600 buildings, comprising more than five million square feet of floor space, at a cost of $37 million and had done the job in six months.

ORIGINAL TRAINING MISSION
Fort Leonard Wood was to be the home of the 6th Infantry Division. In time, four other infantry divisions the 8th, the 70th, the 75th and the 97th trained at the installation. In addition, a number of non-divisional units, ranging from field artillery battalions to quartermaster companies, also trained on the post. During World War II, more than 300,000 Soldiers passed through Fort Leonard Wood on their way to service in every theater of operation.

While the post was initially designated as an infantry division training area, Fort Leonard Wood quickly took on an Engineer training mission. In March 1941, the first elements of an Engineer Replacement Training Center arrived in South-Central Missouri. The growing size of the Engineer force and limited training facilities at Fort Belvoir, Va., prompted the Chief of Engineers to look for additional training locations. Initially, Engineer training focused on the training of individual replacements for established units. Soldiers went through a program that included both basic and Engineer Soldier skills. The training schedule varied from eight to 14 weeks, depending on the need for Engineer replacements. In time, Engineer units were formed on the post and completed their training prior to movement overseas.

AFTER WORLD WAR II
With the end of the war in 1945, training declined at Fort Leonard Wood, and ceased completely in the spring of 1946. The War Department placed the post on the inactive list. Between 1946 and 1950, a small caretaker unit maintained some of the facilities, which were used for summer training by National Guard units. Much of the reservation was leased to an Oklahoma rancher who used the area for grazing cattle.

KOREAN WAR
In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. The United States, as a major part of the United Nations mission, went into action to halt and turn back the North Korean aggression. The Department of the Army once again needed training areas. On Aug. 1, 1950, the Army announced that Fort Leonard Wood was to be reopened to provide basic and engineer training for Soldiers destined for Korea.

The Army reactivated the 6th Armored Division and gave the division the training mission as the cadre unit. The commander of 6th Armored Division was MG. Samuel Sturgis, a distinguished Engineer who had served under Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific during World War II. Gen. Sturgis would ultimately become the Chief of Engineers.

THE COLD WAR
When hostilities ended in Korea, there was some concern over the fate of the post. However, the military demands of the Cold War and aggressive ef-forts by local community leaders led to a decision by the Army to make Fort Leonard Wood a permanent installation.

In 1956, the installation was designated the U.S. Army Training Center Engineer. Because of its new status as a permanent post, Fort Leonard Wood received substantial funds to replace the wooden construction of World War II era buildings with permanent brick structures. Construction included major troop barracks complexes, hundreds of military family units and support and recreational facilities. The construction of the 1950s and 1960s enabled the post to handle the significant increase in training workload brought on by the war in Vietnam.

VIETNAM
In 1967, the post trained more than 120,000 Soldiers. Not all of this training involved either basic or Engineer training. Skill training included such specialties as clerks, cooks, bakers, wiremen, mechanics and motor vehicle operators.

With the reduction of the Army, following the Vietnam War, the overall number of Soldiers training at the post declined. However, the composition of Soldiers arriving for Engineer training changed in the 1970s and early 1980s. By the mid-1970s, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps began training their construction equipment operators at Fort Leonard Wood. The post also began providing Engineer training to other nations. In 1982, the 4th Training Brigade was training Engineers from 15 foreign countries.

THE ARMY ENGINEER SCHOOL
In 1985, Fort Leonard Wood entered yet another phase in its history. That year, the Secretary of the Army announced the U.S. Army Engineer School would move from Fort Belvoir, Va., to Fort Leonard Wood. For years, the Engineer School had suffered a lack of space for training.

Actually, the Army had looked at moving the Engineer school in the mid-1970s, but was unable to get the plan approved for nearly ten years. The Engineer School completed its move in 1989 occupying a new $60 million state-of-the-art training and education facility. For the first time in nearly 50 years, all Engineer training including officers, warrant officers, noncommissioned officers and enlisted personnel would take place at the same location. The growth of the post brought even more construction, with new commissary, fitness and training facilities.

HISTORY—POST COLD WAR
The end of the Cold War did not result in a decline in activity at the post. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq prompted a significant military response by the United States and its allies. Fort Leonard Wood units were deployed to Southwest Asia for operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

In addition, the installation processed more than 4,000 Reserve component Soldiers mobilized in response to the Iraqi invasion. This included 16 Army Reserve and nine National Guard units. Fort Leonard Wood also provided personnel and technical expertise to contingency and humanitarian operations in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. Post Cold War training also included instruction in Engineer construction techniques for Navy, Air Force and Marine Corp personnel stationed at Fort Leonard Wood.

With the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, the Nation entered into a struggle against global terrorism. Fort Leonard Wood intensified its effort to defeat this new threat. This included revising doctrine and tactics to meet an asymmetrical threat and the equipment to support forces. Fort Leonard Wood deployed forces in support of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM. The installation also trained and supported other units from both the active and reserve components.

U.S. ARMY'S CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL, RADIOLOGICAL AND NUCLEAR AND MILITARY POLICE SCHOOL
The relocation of the U.S. Army Military Police School (USAMPS) and the U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Schools (USACBRNS) was a milestone in U.S. Army history and is significant in the history of Fort Leonard Wood. In 1995, the Department of the Army, in compliance with the Base Realignment and Closure Act, targeted Fort McClellan for closure. In 1999, the post entered the final phase of closure, which would result in enlargement of Fort Leonard Wood. Two major commands at Fort McClellan, the Military Police (USAMPS) and U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Schools (USACBRNS), were directed to relocate to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. by the year 2000, where they would join the Engineer School under a combined command to be called the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence or MSCoE.

In preparation for the relocation of the Military Police School, the construction of training, housing and administrative facilities was contracted and be-gun. A three-story general instruction facility, later designated as the Maxwell R. Thurman Hall, was built with two wings, the MG Harry H. Bandholtz wing for the Military Police School and the MG William L. Sibert wing for the U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School. This facility features classrooms with state-of-the-art technology, support facilities and administrative offices for both schools. Thurman Hall was connected to the existing Engineer School building and was completed on May 21, 1999.

The applied instruction facilities included an addition to the existing Engineer Museum for the Military Police and Chemical Museums, plus Stem Village. The Stem buildings included facilities for One Station Unit MP Training (OSUT), Advanced Law Enforcement (ALET) and Family Advocacy Law Enforcement Training (FALET). These multi-purpose structures resemble various businesses and houses in an urban setting. The Military Operations in Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) range was also constructed which consists of sixteen buildings. During 1999, Stem Village was completed on March 2, the MOUT range on Sept. 9 and the museum extension on Aug. 31.

In addition to the instruction facilities, twelve non-commissioned officers (NCO) barracks, three community buildings, an operations facility and a dining facility were constructed at Fort Leonard Wood. On Sept. 29, 1999, the NCO student housing complex was memorialized as the SGT Michael A. Grieve Complex, in honor of a member of the 716th MP Battalion who was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his actions in January 1968 in South Vietnam.

Other Military Police facilities completed at Fort Leonard Wood in 1999 were ready for use on the following dates: an evasive driving course on April 5, HMMWV driving course on May 24, RTIC buildings on July 1, Range 17 (USMC) on July 1, MP Memorial Grove on July 1, Range 19 (MK19 and U.S. weapons) on July 6, Range 21 (9mm handgun) on July 14 and Range 13 (ALETD SRT) on July 15.

In January 1999, the Military Police Basic NCO unit arrived at Fort Leonard Wood, followed in February by the MP NCO Academy and the MP Ad-vanced NCO unit. On Oct. 1, 1999, these consolidated with similarly arriving Chemical NCO units and the existing Engineer Libby NCO Academy to create the MSCoE NCO Academy. Over the course of 1999, all Military Police training and school activities moved to Fort Leonard Wood with the following highlights: the activation of the 14th MP Brigade on Aug. 13, graduation of B Company/795th MP Battalion on Oct. 29, and the graduation of MP Officer Basic class 4-99.

The Military Police School personnel, programs and facilities that became part of the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence at Fort Leonard Wood in 1999 continue to produce Military Police professionals as crucial components of the Relevant and Ready Army in the Global War on Terror.  read more...

---