You can be proud of yourself, Fort Lewis

By David W. Kuhns Sr., Northwest Guardian

There is an awful lot to feel good about at Fort Lewis. And everyone here should be proud of that fact.

It is human nature to focus on the problems we face in life, whether they are at work, in our personal lives or in the community around us. There is nothing wrong with paying attention to life’s irritants — that is how we arrive at solutions. But it is reassuring, sometimes, to take a bit of time to put those problems into a larger perspective. When you weigh all the pluses and minuses of life, this is a really great place to live and a great time to be here.

Next week, a lot of Soldiers will find themselves out on details cleaning up the post. It is one of those tasks that has to be performed periodically — like cleaning out your gutters at home — but there will certainly be some grumbling about the job.

I hope those out there trimming bushes, clearing litter and making repairs take some time to look around them. What an incredibly beautiful post we have. The prairie flowers are blooming on the ranges, the rhododendrons are starting to open up, the oak trees are beginning to bud out. It is all so green and clean and welcoming. Fort Lewis looks more like a park than an Army post. We should all be happy to pitch in from time to time to keep it looking that way.

We can be justly proud of that.

Some of the barracks and family quarters on Fort Lewis are getting a bit old. There is no doubt about that. And it is easy to focus on a Soldier’s room that looks like it did in the 1950s, or a family house in need of renovation. Better to think about the revolution in living conditions here over the last few years.

The Residential Communities Initiative has brought hundreds of new sets of family quarters to Fort Lewis. These are beautiful homes, designed with Soldier families in mind. Existing family housing is in the process of renovation, too. The old barracks are also being upgraded at a rapid pace. A special effort has been made to prepare barracks for units returning from deployments, with workers laboring around the clock. New barracks construction has given thousands of single Soldiers homes as good as any in the Army. The pace of all this change has been staggering.

We should all be proud of that.

Other facilities and services on Fort Lewis have changed radically, too. Leaders signed a covenant with families here several months ago that symbolized a commitment to care for all those our Soldiers hold most dear. More than just words on paper, that commitment has led to a re-examination of family programs — expansion of some, adjustments of others; new facilities, new opportunities. Fort Lewis has put its money and its efforts where it said it would. And families are benefiting every day as a result.

We can all be proud of that, too.

Most of all, we benefit from the incredible people who live, work and train here. We are a nation at war and Fort Lewis serves as one of the Army’s primary power projection installations. Our combat, combat support and combat service support units have been at the forefront of the battle in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The performance of these Soldiers has been remarkable.

The headquarters and support Soldiers have been innovative, dedicated and heroic. From the I Corps staff members of Task Force Olympia, the engineers of the Triple Nickle, the logisticians, transporters and maintainers of 593rd Sustainment Brigade, to the professionals of 62nd Medical Brigade and the 42nd Military Police Brigade — all have performed fantastically.

Our combat units set the example for the rest of the Army, too. Soldiers of 1st Special Forces Group and 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment have been at the forefront of more battles than we will ever learn about. The Stryker brigade combat teams took a new kind of organization, a new way to conduct operations, married it to old-fashioned dedication and courage, and became the go-to units in Iraq.

We can all be incredibly proud of all those Soldiers.

And while those Soldiers were deployed, or training long hard hours getting ready to deploy, behind them stood our families. They have maintained their homes, carried on their lives, kept up morale and provided normalcy to let the Soldiers perform at their best.

We should all be proud of them, too.

So we can still look for problems that need fixing. But for next week, let’s concentrate instead on the numerous positives than mark life here at Fort Lewis.

You are all part of the best team in the Army — Team Lewis.

Be proud.