I had the good fortune to attend a briefing by the current commander of United States Army Garrison, Fort Devens, Mass (yep the name's back) LTC Nott back in March and he told us (a group of retired military officers) about all the changes that are happening there.
Many people are not aware that the Army never totally pulled out of Fort Devens. The Army kept the former 10th Special Forces Group area and stationed about a battalion's worth of active troops there to support the Guard, Reserve and ROTC activities in the region. The Marines and Navy also moved in and they have support elements of active duty personnel to support reserve activities for their services as well. Even though the post housing is gone and much of the former Intelligence School area is gone and is now privatized, the Army kept the South Post Training Area for the Guard and Reserves to use. LTC Nott was quite proud of the fact that plenty of money has been pumped into the South Post Training Area to significantly upgrade the ranges, and they now have some nice facilities with more improvements and upgrades in the planning stages.
The name change back from the Reserve Forces Training Area to US Army Garrison, Fort Devens has been fairly recent. The civilianized part of the post is still referred to as Devens. Because of our current wars in the Middle East, Ft Devens has assumed a greater significance than was previously thought by the idiots who ran the BRAC Commission. The only other Army installations in the Northeast are West Point, Ft Drum and Natick Army Labs. There needed to be something in the middle of New England. At any given time now, there are 2,000 to 3,000 troops on Ft Devens training and preparing to go to war.
Mark L.