Fort Stewart garrison commander Col. Kevin Milton told Liberty County Chamber of Commerce members last week what local residents can expect from their Army neighbor.

“We’ll have the division here for a while,” Milton said, referring to the one-to-two-year reset phase the 3rd Infantry Division brigades now are in.

“We’re just training for unspecified missions,” he said.

The American military is undergoing a gradual pull-out from Iraq and Afghanistan, and therefore large-scale deployments currently are not planned, the colonel said.

Milton told area leaders and business people smaller units will locate to Fort Stewart from now until 2014, including a chemical company and an unmanned aerial unit. He said about 240 new soldiers and their roughly 250 family members should soon call Fort Stewart home.

Milton said the Army leadership has decided to bring a brigade back to the U.S. from Europe in 2015, but it has not yet been determined where the brigade will be assigned.

“We’re as likely as anyone else on planet Earth to receive them,” he said.

Read more in the June 1 edition of the News.