By Kathleen M. Doyle

     The Air Defense Artillery (ADA) School is packing its duffle bags and casing its colors after 41 years at Fort Bliss, Texas. Commanders (past and present) took the first formal step in the long-planned move on Wednesday, 6 May 2009, in a brief "color casing" ceremony in which soldiers prepared both the ADA School and its training units’ flags for movement to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. (Casing ceremonies are performed whenever Army units deploy or move to a new post.)
     The Air Defense Artillery School and the 6^th ADA Brigade (training) will relocate to Fort Sill, 650 miles northeast of their present location and back to its roots. Present day Air Defenders may not be aware that Fort Sill and Field Artillery are from whence we [ADA] came. It probably seems a world away – from mountains and sand, to hills and grass – however, no matter the location or environment the quality of instruction and training will be same, if not better. As half of the “Fires Center or Excellence” (CoE) Air Defense will find new challenges and stereo-types to overcome.
     The Air Defense Artillery School, founded in 1968, and the 6th ADA Brigade are the Army units responsible for training Soldiers tactics, techniques and procedures in the air and missile defense arena.
     The 6^th ADA Brigade’s Command Sergeant Major, Lynwood Lewis Sr., said the ceremony was bittersweet because of the air defense school's history at Fort Bliss. But the move to Fort Sill, ordered by Congress as part of the 2006 Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) recommendations, will provide the school with new up-to-date facilities that will surpass what we currently have on the ground here at Fort Bliss.

    
Major General Howard B. Bromberg, Commandant of the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery (ADA) School and Chief of ADA, cases the ADA flag with the assistance of Command Sergeant Major Robert S. Rodgers on 6 May 2009 at Fort Bliss, Texas. The colors will be uncased at a yet to be specified time on Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
(Photo by Kathleen Doyle.)

 
    And while Fort Bliss, will now be the headquarters for the Army's 1st Armored Division, ADA Soldiers will still fire missiles on the post's wide open training ranges that stretch through parts of southern New Mexico. The move marks one of the most significant changes at Fort Bliss, since the Air Defense Artillery School opened its classrooms in 1968.
     Completion of the BRAC directed move is expected to meet the 2011 deadline.