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| US Army announces German redeployment plans |
| 2005-04-13 |
| The Pentagon's plans for a major reduction and redeployment of US army forces in Europe will include moving the headquarters from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden and slashing troop strength by some 38,000 forces, reports said on Tuesday. US Army spokeswoman in Heidelberg, Elke Herberger confirmed a report in the German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung, saying "the headquarters of the land-based forces are to be moved from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden". Also under the plans by the US Army commander in Europe, General B.B. Bell, troop numbers in Europe are to be slashed from the current 62,000 to just 24,000 in the next five to ten years. In addition, the military's current main operating areas will be reduced from 13 to just four. Under the plans, two of the US Army's headquarters in Heidelberg, USAREUR (US Army Europe) and Task Force 5, are to be merged and moved to Wiesbaden. At the moment, Heidelberg is host to four of the eight US military headquarters in the southwestern German state of Baden- Wuerttemberg, with some 4,000 soldiers. The troop reductions and redeployment are part of the Pentagon's reorganisation plans aimed at returning some units back to the United States while leaving smaller units in Europe, including some being moved into Eastern Europe. |
| Posted by:seafarious |
| #9 Anyone have some pictures of the |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-04-13 2:00:28 PM |
| #8 Too little too late. How many people work at Ramstein? That's the ceiling. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-04-13 1:24:49 PM |
| #7 It is all for the better. They don't need us there and we have more pressing needs they can not or will not meet. The cross-cultural exchange alone was important back in the 1950's when my Dad was stationed in Neu Ulm but things are quite different now. Bye bye I say and make it quicker. |
| Posted by: Tkat 2005-04-13 1:16:21 PM |
| #6 This is just the next tranch of a downsizing that has been going on since the early '90s. Who now remembers Abrams Airforce Base, in whose bookstore, restaurants, and Christmas Market I once spent so much money? Not to mention all the pubs in the Sachsenhausen section of Frankfurt, which had to learn to live on the spending of au pairs and university students, after all the Ami soldiers left. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-04-13 1:05:48 PM |
| #5 Redesigning EUCOM. Right now EUCOM's area of responsibility includes: 35% of Earth's landmass, 50 million sq km of land; 60% of planet's coastline; 20% of the Earth's waters; 1.4 billion inhabitants, which is 23% of world population. The twist to this is that there is a new, IRAQ Command, of equal rank, that will probably carve a big chunk out of EUCOM and CENTCOM in the future. But as of yet, no announcement has been made as to what the new AORs will be. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-04-13 12:06:00 PM |
| #4 slashing troop strength by some 38,000 forces Damn, that's a lot of beer not being sold. Too bad, so sad. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-04-13 10:05:09 AM |
| #3 Bout damn time,but five to ten years seems like an inordinate amount of time. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-04-13 9:12:31 AM |
| #2 Ought to bring them all home, they don't serve any purpose but to stimulate the local economy over there. |
| Posted by: JerseyMike 2005-04-13 8:32:13 AM |
| #1 LLL - You wanted a withdrawal strategy, here's a withdrawal strategy! Oh, you meant Iraq? |
| Posted by: Spot 2005-04-13 8:30:53 AM |