Fort Rich expands as troops go to war

GROWTH INDUSTRY: Another 570-soldier unit is on its way, and construction spending is up.

By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
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A whopping 70 percent of the soldiers based at Fort Richardson have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan this year, not to return to Anchorage until 2010.

Add to that the soldiers who have deployed from Fairbanks’ Fort Wainwright, and Alaska has lost more than 9,000 residents: over 1 percent of its population.

It’s like the entire city of Sitka packed its bags and left the state for a year.

The mass deployments are tough for soldiers’ families, and it also means less money for businesses clustered along Fort Rich: from burrito joints and bars to coin laundries and alterations shops.

But the size of the deployments also shows the tremendous growth at the fort: More soldiers have deployed from the Army post this year than were even stationed there in 2003. Just in the last six years, the population of active-duty soldiers at Fort Rich has doubled, according to the Army.

Even though there’s a loss in economic activity when the soldiers are gone, the military is still a growth industry for Anchorage, said state economist Neal Fried.

Fried pointed out Tuesday that military construction is one of the few spots in the city’s otherwise lagging construction industry. Hundreds of millions of dollars for construction has been approved for the next three years, according to the Army.

BY THE NUMBERS

Right now, about 9,500 soldiers are deployed from Fairbanks and Anchorage: two-thirds are in Iraq and the rest are in Afghanistan, the Army said.

Nearly 8,000 family members of Fort Rich soldiers remain in Anchorage, and 8,700 in Fairbanks, according to Army statistics.

"It’s pretty intensive for us to deploy these folks out," said Col. Steve Apland, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for Alaska, at a business luncheon this week hosted by Anchorage Chamber of Commerce.

"You will notice it in your businesses, obviously," Apland stressed to his downtown audience.

But he said the Army’s presence in Anchorage will keep growing this year with an influx of about 570 new soldiers. They are part of a brand-new unit called the 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, to be staffed with military police, engineers and transportation officers who will assist combat personnel.

EMPTY SEATS

On Fort Rich, families are adapting once again to the empty space in their lives: less traffic on base roads, fewer soldiers partying into the night and months on end without their loved ones.

"Just driving, you notice less cars around, less soldiers around," said Heather Ward, a mother of two who lives at the fort in a new, two-story home that she calls the "creme de la creme" of Army housing. Her husband, a field artillery officer, deployed a few months ago to Afghanistan.

The soldiers are missed but their absence becomes "almost normal … until they come back and you realize there’s no parking," she said, letting out a laugh.

Maurilio Velasco, who runs a Muldoon restaurant near Fort Rich, doesn’t need to monitor local headlines to figure out there’s been a big deployment, he said.

"We can tell every time," said Velasco, general manager of the Qdoba Mexican Grill off Muldoon Road, of the sudden decline in customers. He estimates that Anchorage soldiers and airmen make up 70 to 80 percent of the franchise’s clientele.

"It’s not just about (losing) the money. It’s the customers. You get to know their faces and their names," he said.

When they deploy, "It’s almost like starting the business all over again," he said.

"A lot of the businesses around here depend on military clientele. It does hit them pretty hard," he said.

Nearby, at Muldoon Pizza, owner Steve Schwarz said soldiers are a big part of his business. "We feel the effect," he said, noting that when the soldiers are in town, they often come in large crowds of up to 20 and order plenty of the house beer.

The soldiers who remain in Anchorage sometimes "say hi" to Muldoon Pizza staff on behalf of their buddies overseas, Schwarz said.

STAYING BUSY

Ghost town isn’t the word for Fort Rich or any of the other bases with major deployments this year.

Millions are getting spent at Fort Rich on new buildings, from barracks to a child-care center that opened in May. This month, the fort is opening a 35,000-square-foot medical clinic. Federal stimulus money approved by Congress will provide $30 million to repair roads and fix roofs at the fort, Apland said at this week’s luncheon.

"We are kind of bursting at the seams," Apland said.

The Army also is spending money to improve the quality of life for soldiers’ families, he said. That’s what keeps family members in Anchorage when the soldiers deploy, and when the families are happy, soldiers are less likely to leave the Army, he said.

Ward, the soldier’s wife, said she notices that spending on quality of life seems to increase during deployments.

She said she and her kids are taking advantage of some of the stepped-up social activities the fort offers while the soldiers are gone. There’s a free carnival at the base this weekend and recently, the Fort Rich hosted a bunko night with free child care, she said.

"I always remind myself that if I’m not doing well, it’s because I’m not taking advantage of (the social activities)," she said.