HEADQUARTERS COMPANY

US ARMY GARRISON BATTALION

FORT STEWART

US THIRD ARMY

Fort Stewart was a huge installation with facilities that reflected different eras and military missions. Once an antiaircraft training school, it later became a tank firing range, and then part of a flight training center. Personal automobiles had to display a post bumper sticker: red numbers for enlisted and blue for officers.

During the Vietnam War the US Army Flight Training Center was located at Fort Stewart and nearby Hunter Army Airfield. Fort Stewart was the Army's largest installation east of the Mississippi River, encompassing approximately 280,000 acres of Georgia's costal lowlands and piney woods. In 1966 the Army's need for helicopter pilots had eclipsed the training capabilities of both its existing aviation schools at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and Fort Walters, Texas. During the summer of 1966 the HQ of the US Army Aviation School Element was established at Fort Stewart as an adjunct of the two existing schools to train fixed-wing pilots. In April 1967, after the US Air Force base at Hunter Airfield in Savannah became available to the Army, the headquarters of the school moved to Hunter and the installation was renamed Hunter Army Airfield. In July 1967 the combined facilities of Hunter Army Airfield and Fort Stewart were re-designated as the US Army Flight Training Center. Both fixed-wing and rotary-wing pilots were trained. Although Fort Stewart had a small airfield most of the aircraft were housed and maintained at Hunter Army Airfield. Part of Fort Stewart's vast acreage was used for a helicopter gunnery range and in the summer months, another part a training facility for National Guard and reserve troops. The small garrison assigned to Fort Stewart maintained the base's infrastructure and provided administrative and financial services to the flight training center.