Virginia Congress members press for details on Fort Eustis layoffs

A bipartisan group of Virginia congressional officials sent a letter to Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George Tuesday seeking more transparency regarding plans to move the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) headquarters from Fort Eustis in Newport News to Austin, Texas.

Last month, George told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee that TRADOC would be merged with the Army Futures Command (AFC) in Austin to form a new command — the Army Transformation and Training Command.

However, the announcement raised questions about how many military and civilian staff would be impacted and which TRADOC functions would relocate to Austin. Maj. Chris Robinson, a TRADOC spokesperson, said last week that more updates were expected to be revealed in mid-June.

The lack of details prompted Tuesday’s letter from the bipartisan delegation, which includes several Hampton Roads representatives, seeking more information on the merger.

The letter stated that, based on discussions with Army senior leaders over the past several weeks, the delegation learned that AFC will retain a four-star general in Austin, but that TRADOC will not retain a four-star general in Fort Eustis. It also said it is unclear how many service members and their families will relocate, what facility impacts will be and whether there would be cost savings from eliminating redundant roles and responsibilities between the two commands.

“We have received a number of troubling updates from other community stakeholders that lead us to believe the impacts on Virginia will be more substantial than the Army has shared with Congress thus far,” the letter states. “We appreciate that analysis is ongoing, but we urgently require clarification.”

The delegation heard that TRADOC’s G-2 section at Fort Eustis, consisting of approximately 250 positions, may be eliminated as part of the consolidation. Delegation members were also told that the Center for Initial Military Training at Fort Eustis may be folded under a staff directorate and that the headquarters staff of the three-star general at Fort Eustis may be reduced to 20 to 25 soldiers, with ongoing general staff reductions projected to be between 20 and 80 personnel.

“We agree that ruthless prioritization is necessary to ‘deliver critical warfighting capabilities, optimize our force structure, and eliminate waste and obsolete programs,’” the letter states. “At the same time, we believe these changes must be made with precision, underpinned by clear analysis, and executed effectively.”

The letter was signed by Republican U.S. Reps. Rob Wittman, Ben Cline, John McGuire, Jennifer Kiggans and Morgan Griffith; Democratic U.S. Reps. Bobby Scott, Jennifer McClellan, Eugene Vindman, Don Beyer and Suhas Subramanyam, as well as Democratic U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. The group stated that they wish to receive the complete analysis that led to the proposed merger of TRADOC and AFC.

The delegation also requested an anticipated timeline for the proposed merger, a discussion of any associated risks identified by the Army in completing the analysis and budget and funding information about the merger. They requested the information be received by June 10.

TRADOC, created on July 1, 1973, trains more than 750,000 soldiers and service members annually. Its headquarters have been based at Fort Eustis since 2011. Robinson said the command has more than 35,000 military and civilians worldwide. Of this, approximately 2,000 are based at Fort Eustis, and of those, about 800 personnel are tied to the headquarters component of TRADOC.

The planned merger follows a directive from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to transform and streamline the military and eliminate “wasteful spending.” In an April 30 memo from Hegseth to senior Pentagon leadership, he directed the Secretary of the Army to merge the AFC with TRADOC as a way to “downsize, consolidate, or close redundant headquarters.”

The delegation’s letter says a successful merger of TRADOC and AFC requires “a detailed and viable plan.”

“I am committed to working with Secretary Driscoll and General George to ensure that our Army is lethal, ready and prepared for the next fight,” Wittman said in a statement. “In order to work effectively with Army leaders, we must make sure that we fully understand the analysis effort that supports the changes proposed by the Army Transformation Initiative–in sending this letter, I hope to open a productive dialogue with the Army about how to best achieve the vision set forth in ATI and preserve the critical mission of Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).”

Robinson said TRADOC had no further updates to provide since last week.