Fort Leonard Wood

A few weeks ago, we went on a Parkway tour of Ft. Leonard Wood, about 2 1/2 hours south of St. Louis near Rolla. Sgt. Ortez met us at the gate and gave us our guided tour.
Ft. Leonard Wood consists of 60,000 acres, is the largest training facility in the United States and has 34,000 people living there at any one time. I was surprised at the many new buildings, including the 4 elementary schools we saw on the base. Our over-sized bus limited some of the areas we went to.

Anyone can visit the base after checking in at the main gate and can see the museum to the four areas in which Ft. Leonard Wood trains: engineering, chemical, military police, basic. Click here for more information.
There are actually two museums anyone can visit, but we only had time to visit the indoor one with wings devoted to each of the areas in which Ft. Leonard Wood trains. We were, of course, interested in the engineering.
It begins with mapping and exploration and continues to today's engineering challenges. Above and below photos show how pontoon bridges are constructed.
All sorts of engineering challenges are shown including the Panama Canal, mountainous terrain of Korea.
The deserts, jungles of Viet Nam and the Gulf War with the "hidey holes".
There were also outdoor exhibits including a portion of the Berlin Wall
And, a World War II out-door museum which displays typical barracks, mess hall, chapel and equipment of the World War II era. It is open Monday-Saturday from 10:00-3:00.
After the museum, we went to the NCO Club for a delicious lunch.
It was not a typical "mess hall."
After lunch, we toured more of the base. We saw sample prisons (field and permanent), signs with everything in Arabic---for military police training, but we were asked not to photograph.
We had several "guides" telling us about the equipment the soldiers were being trained on.
We mostly saw large earth-moving machines.
It was pretty surreal seeing all of this equipment just moving dirt, gravel, stones from one place to another.
It was a bee-hive of activity.
At times the blowing dust, made us feel we were in some foreign desert rather than the hills of Missouri.
The tower on the right was used before 2-way radios to guide the soldiers being trained to use the equipment.
It was a very interesting trip. Even though most people can't tour as much of the base as we did, it will still make an interesting excursion with our grandchildren some day.