For fiscal year 2021, Fort Indiantown Gap led the nation as the largest National Guard training facility, with approximately 730,000 training days by more than 113,075 individuals.
This is the Gap’s second year in a row, and fifth time in the last seven years, as the busiest National Guard training center in the country.
The National Guard operates 48 training centers across the continental United States and Pureto Rico. A manday of training is equal to one person training for one day.
“In addition to the numerous ranges and state-of-the-art training facilities we offer, our customer service is second to none,” Col. Lane Marshall, Fort Indiantown Gap’s garrison commander, said in a press release. “And that is a direct result of the men and women that make up our team. Each one works tirelessly to ensure that our customers have the resources and support they need to meet their training objectives.”
In the Pennsylvania National Guard release on the achievement, Lt. Col. Andrew O’Connor, FTIG’s director of plans, operations, training and security, was quoted as saying that the installation’s location and its ability to host Warfighter exercises also play a role in its being the busiest training center.
“There’s a lot of reserve-component units in the northeast, and that helps,” said O’Connor in the release. “The New York National Guard is pretty big, the Virginia National Guard is pretty big, and there are a lot of Army Reserve units around.”
The Gap is the only Level II National Guard training center in the northeast United States, which the Guard defines as having billeting for a brigade, maneuver acreage for a company-plus, individual and crew-served weapons ranges, and squad and team collective ranges.
“A lot of people come here, and they don’t know much about us, and then they say, ‘You guys are great. I never knew this place existed,’” said O’Connor. “Units come here, like what they find, and they want to come back.”
Fort Indiantown Gap covers 17,000 acres in northern Lebanon and Dauphin Counties. It is home to several major schools, including the Eastern Army National Guard Aviation Training Site, the 166th Regiment Regional Training Institute, the Regional Equipment Operators Training Site, the Lightning Force Academy and the Northeast Counter Drug Training Center.
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