Fort George G. Meade

Fort George G. Meade is a United States Army installation that includes the Defense Information School, the United States Army Field Band, and the headquarters of United States Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, the Defense Courier Service, and Defense Information Systems Agency headquarters. It is named for George G. Meade, a general from the U.S. Civil War, who served as commander of the Army of the Potomac. The fort's smaller census-designated place includes support facilities such as schools, housing, and the offices of the Military Intelligence Civilian Excepted Career Program (MICECP).



History
Initially called Camp Annapolis Junction, the post was opened as "Camp Admiral" in 1917 on 29.7 sqmi acquired for a training camp. The post was called Camp Meade Cantonment and Field Signal School by 1918, and in 1919, the Camp Benning tank school—formed from the World War I Camp Colt and Tobyhanna schools—was transferred to the fort before the Tank Corps was disbanded. Renamed to Fort Leonard Wood (February 1928 – March 5, 1929), the fort's Experimental Motorized Forces in the summer and fall of 1928 tested vehicles and tactics in expedition convoys (Camp Meade observers had joined the in-progress 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy). In 1929, the fort's 1st Tank Regiment encamped on the Gettysburg Battlefield and Fort Meade was used as a World War II recruit training post and prisoner of war camp. The Second U.S. Army Headquarters transferred to the post on June 15, 1947; and in the 1950s, the post became headquarters of the National Security Agency.

Cold War air defense
From the 1950s until the 1970s, the Fort Meade radar station had various radar equipment and control systems for air defense (e.g., the 1st Martin AN/FSG-I Antiaircraft Defense System). Fort Meade also had the first Nike Ajax surface-to-air missiles in December 1953 (operational May 1954) and an accidental firing occurred in 1955 with Battery C, 36th AAA Missile Battalion. In 1962, the Army's Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 13th Air Defense Artillery Group, transferred from Meade to Homestead AFB for initial deployment of MIM-23 Hawk missiles, and during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 6th Battalion (HAWK), 65th Artillery at Fort Meade (a United States Strike Command unit) was deployed to the Miami/Key West area (the 8th Battalion (Hawk) was at the fort in late 1964.) Fort Meade bomb disposal experts were dispatched to secure nuclear bombs in the 1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash.

Expansion
In 1977, a merger organized the fort's U.S. Army Intelligence Agency as part of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command. On 1 October 1991, a wing of the Air Force Intelligence Command transferred to Fort Meade, and the organization was replaced by the 70th Operations Group on May 1, 2005. In the early 1990s, 12.7 sqmi was transferred from the post to the Patuxent Research Refuge. A planned closure of the post in the 1990s was not implemented, and the Defense Information School moved to the fort in 1995. The 311th Signal Command headquarters was at Fort Meade from 1996-September 2006. The 70th Intelligence Wing headquarters was established at Fort Meade on July 17, 2000, and the Base Realignment and Closure, 2005, designated Fort Meade to gain ~5,700 positions making it the third largest workforce of any Army installation.

Hazardous waste
After an August 27, 2007, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency order to assess the contamination at 14 hazardous waste sites on Fort Meade (e.g., ordnance disposal area, 1940s waste dump, closed sanitary landfill), a September 2007 environmental impact report identified adding 2 golf courses would be a "significant threat to the biological and territorial integrity of the Patuxent Research Refuge" (the Army responded it is taking steps to limit the environmental damage.)

Defense Information Systems Agency
After United States Cyber Command was established at the post in 2009; on April 15, 2011, the Defense Information Systems Agency ribbon-cutting for the move from Arlington, Virginia, was at the agency's Fort Meade complex of 95 acre.

Geography
Fort Meade is bordered by the Baltimore-Washington Parkway on the west and is about 5 mi east of Interstate 95. It is located between Washington, DC and Baltimore. It is located in proximity to Columbia, Jessup, Laurel, Severn, Hanover, and Odenton.

Museums
The Fort George G. Meade Museum exhibits the Post's historical artifacts, including uniforms, insignia and equipment. The Museum also has a small collection of vehicles, including an FT-17, a MK VIII Liberty Tank, an M3A1 Stuart, an M4A3E8 Sherman, an M41 Walker Bulldog, an M47 Patton, armored personnel carriers such as an M113, M114 and M84, a Nike Ajax missile, and a UH-1H helicopter.