Army bomb unit moving from Atlanta to Tennessee

Clarksville, Tenn. — A bomb unit comprised of about 370 soldiers will move from metro Atlanta to Fort Campbell by the end of July, an Army commander at the installation said.

Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend told the Clarksville Chamber of Commerce that the 52nd Ordnance Group will officially move from Fort Gillem, in Forest Park, to the post on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line.

The new unit specializes in explosive ordinance disposal and counter improvised explosive device operations.

The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper in Clarksville reported that Townsend said most of the soldiers have already arrived at Fort Campbell. But the commanders have not yet relocated from Fort Gillem, he said.

The move is part of the Base Realignment and Closure plan of 2005, which has already brought more than 5,000 additional soldiers to Fort Campbell. Fort Gillem is one of three bases in Georgia scheduled to close.

Townsend also said the troops in the 101st Airborne Division will likely split their next deployment between Iraq and Afghanistan again.

The division headquarters currently is still in command in Afghanistan, where it has been for the past 14 months. The 159th Combat Aviation Brigade is also deployed in Afghanistan until the end of the year.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigade Combat Teams deployed to Iraq last year, while the 4th BCT brigade and the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade recently returned from Afghanistan.

The brigade combat teams would be split “about half and half” between the two countries but won’t be leaving all at once, Townsend said. The departure will take place over the course of a few months, beginning fairly early in 2010 and spread out through the spring and summer, he said.

A Pentagon spokesman stressed that no deployment orders have become official.

“Townsend was describing the current planning priorities for the 101st as we understand them now,” said Maj. Jimmie Cummings, an Army spokesman.