Face of Defense: Military Spouse Enlightens, Educates

By T. Anthony Bell
Army News Service

FORT LEE, Va., Feb. 7, 2012 – You don't have to meet Latorial Faison to know her.

Her life and experiences -- the search for self-identity, the revelation of family secrets, her academic triumphs, motherly aspirations, spirituality, perspectives on African-American history and culture, and a number of other topics -- have all been offered up for public consumption in the poetry she posts at http://www.latorialfaison.com.

A Fort Lee military spouse and educator, Faison offers up her thoughts and feelings with such a naked and unadulterated truth that one might feel a form of intimacy with this native of rural Southhampton County.

"I tell people all the time that writing is risky," the 38-year-old mother of three said, "because you have to say what you feel, be truthful."

Raised by nonbiological grandparents who adopted her at a young age, Faison's being was formed in the church and is grounded in such values as hard work and family unity. She took up writing in grade school and eventually wound up studying English and religion at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, earning degrees from both.

She later went on to teach extensively in various parts of the country. She is currently an instructor at Virginia State University.

On her calling as a poet, Faison said the strength lies in her ability to ignore what people might think of her work.

"I don't look for the confirmation of others to tell me who I am, or that what I'm doing is worthy," she said. "If you're looking for confirmation, then you might not ever tell the story."

Confirmation certainly was not on her mind when she was invited to speak at her high school graduation years ago. Faison was warned to remove references to Christianity from her address, but she refused to do so.

"They told me two days before graduation, 'You have to take that out,'" recalled the deeply religious Faison. "Guess what? I left it in. That's the story of my life -- if others set a boundary and I feel like I need to cross it, I'm going to cross it."

Faison uses this trademark approach to share, teach and enlighten; especially when she's penning prose about black history and culture. She has written two books on the subject and many other separate works. Her efforts seems to subscribe to the notion that black history, although full of monumental achievements and celebrated as such during African-American History Month, also is fraught with inhumanity and heartbreak. These unpleasantries are worthy of acknowledgement, she noted.

Faison's poem titled "Tears for Freedom" is one of many that tackle events and issues in which the word "celebration" isn't quite the right fit.

They swallowed the great

Atlantic to loose the grip

Of shackles and chains

They leaped boldly from

Ships of inhumanity

To priceless freedom

Mother Earth was drenched

In blood and tears as one child
Enslaved another

Faison acknowledges such content may make some uncomfortable, but history can't be changed, she said, or sugar-coated. However, she added, she isn't interested in digging up the past to incite anger, inflict pain or cause guilt, but rather to use it to help all people understand the unique struggles of African-Americans and to support efforts to better race relations.

"For instance, in the workplace and various places in the community," she explained, "you might see a black, or any person for that matter, and you might not understand what their motives are -- why they do what they do. If you knew something about their history, you will understand that person better."

Faison might have been thinking along those lines when she wrote these verses in her poem "Celebrate”:

Celebrate freedom's long road,

Every man and woman who bore the load.

Recognize every black institution.

Celebrate every black contribution.

Know the pride of black power.

Stand together in the final hour.

Acknowledge black history on any day.

Allow freedom to ring in the noblest way.

Faison's poetic range runs the full spectrum of emotion, from rage to pride. She said when she was younger, she wrote to "get things off my chest." As a result, many of those works are stinging, and even startling.

Faison said she still has the ability to alarm, but her expressions have evolved into something beyond her emotions. That ability is displayed in "Time to Be Set Free," a social and historical indictment that black people need "to let that past die and learn how to move beyond it," she said.

"I don't mean that we should forget it, that we don't honor it, that we don't teach it, but we don't sulk in its tragedy so much so that it deters us from prospering individually or collectively":

On this day we must recognize

That misconstrued fate has been baptized
Thrown from wretched slave ships capsized

To revisit the land of the living

Where we stare at one another
Half-way forgiving

For a past we never were meant to see

One so full of history
Let it be … just simply be

A time to kill

that negative
get-us-nowhere noise
And be set free.

Faison said she will continue to use verse to move people beyond the pain of the past, but she concedes that much work has to be done.

"People are still uncomfortable with our history," she said. "We need to get to a place where we can comfortably and honestly talk about things. And I don't think we are where we need to be."

Faison said she plans to support her husband in his retirement, complete her doctorate, write fiction and nonfiction books, work full-time at a public institution and become a dean.

BRAC Transforms Aberdeen Proving Ground Mission

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md., March 7, 2011 – With just over six months left to implement the Base Closure and Realignment Commission plan, the sweeping transformation it has sparked here is well under way and slated to be completed on time and under budget, officials reported.

The BRAC plan took effect in November 2005, and impacts more than 800 military installations. It involves closing some, consolidating or realigning others, and ultimately relocating some 123,000 military members and civilian employees. By law, all these actions must be completed by Sept. 15, 2011.

The plan is bringing major growth to Aberdeen Proving Ground -- more than 6,500 people and more than $1 billion in new construction to accommodate the new workers, Army Col. Orlando W. Ortiz, the garrison commander, told American Forces Press Service.

But it’s also bringing a fundamental change to the post’s historic mission, and how the Army ensures its warfighters have the most advanced equipment and systems possible to succeed on the battlefield.

The U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School, the major tenant that defined Aberdeen Proving Ground’s very identity for nearly a century, already has moved to Fort Lee, Va. There, it is part of the new Sustainment Center of Excellence, another BRAC initiative.

As officials here closed a page on their post’s legacy, they were busy preparing to open an exciting new one that would transform the installation into a hub of cutting-edge communications and electronics technology.

Aberdeen Proving Ground has long been heavily involved in the Army’s research, development, testing and evaluation mission, explained Army Col. Andrew Nelson, deputy garrison commander for transformation. But by consolidating many disparate and geographically separated organizations that supported those processes here at one post, BRAC is “bringing it to the next level,” he said.

“Aberdeen Proving Ground has been, but will be to a greater extent, one of the Army’s major hubs of research and development of new technologies, and the testing and evaluation of those new technologies that lead to fielding new systems to support the warfighter,” Nelson said.

“This is the center of all of that -- the technology development that is leading to soldiers being better equipped and better supported in the operational environment where they are,” he said. “It’s the clothes they wear, the radios they speak through, the computer system that tracks where individual vehicles and soldiers are on the battlefield, to having [unmanned aerial vehicles] that give them the best intelligence of what the enemy is doing.

“That is what Aberdeen Proving Ground already is, and what it will be about,” Nelson said. “Everything we do here is all about ensuring that the individual soldier and the combat leader have the best possible equipment and systems and technology that is giving them the advantage on the battlefield.”

The biggest group of new arrivals to support this expanded mission is a collection of activities referred to as “the C4ISR materiel enterprise” that focuses on command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

The lion’s share of its 7,200 people are coming from Fort Monmouth, N.J., which is closing under BRAC and transferring most of its functions to Aberdeen. The new arrivals hail from Fort Monmouth’s Communications and Electronics Command and Communications-Electronic Research, Development and Engineering Center and several of their program executive offices. Others are arriving from related activities at Redstone Arsenal, Ala.; Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; and Fort Belvoir, Va.

CECOM established a forward presence at Aberdeen in 2007, and officially uncased its colors here in October 2010. A steady stream of its workforce began arriving this past summer, some directly from Fort Monmouth, some from temporary swing space at Aberdeen and others, new hires replacing workers who chose not to relocate.

Today, about 60 percent of the new C4ISR team already has made the move to Aberdeen Proving Ground, settling into the state-of-the-art research and development campus known as the “C4ISR Center of Excellence.”

Meanwhile, construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the second phase of the C4ISR project, which Nelson said is expected to be completed this month or next. The entire C4ISR complex, once complete, will include 13 buildings and more than 2.5 million square feet of new space.

The next-largest group of newcomers to Aberdeen, numbering just over 600, hails from the Army Test and Evaluation Command headquarters and Army Evaluation Center, both in Alexandria, Va. While construction was wrapping up on its new headquarters, Army Maj. Gen. Genaro Dellarocco opted to move directly to Aberdeen, rather than temporarily to Alexandria, when he assumed command in October. Working in swing space at Aberdeen, he’s paving the way for the rest of the headquarters elements to follow, while supervising subordinate commands that were already based at Aberdeen when the BRAC recommendations were announced.

In addition, BRAC is consolidating a variety of other organizations at Aberdeen. These include the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense from Falls Church, Va.; Air Force Non-Medical Chemical-Biological Defense Development and Acquisition, from Brooks City Base, Texas; the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research from Forest Glen, Md., the Army Research Institute from Fort Knox, Ky., and the Army Research Laboratory’s Vehicle Technology Directorate from Langley, Va., and Glenn, Ohio.

The BRAC initiative also has brought a broad range of defense contractors to Aberdeen Proving Ground, where many are operating in a new 416-acre complex just outside the gate.

Ortiz credited detailed planning that started before the ink had even dried on the BRAC 2005 recommendations with ensuring the post is ready to receive the new arrivals.

The planners worked closely with inbound organizations to identify their exact requirements, and with state and local officials to ensure surrounding communities were prepared for the influx.

And, able to take advantage of an economic slump that made bidding on the 17 major construction projects required at Aberdeen Proving Ground highly competitive, they realized huge cost-savings in implementing BRAC.

“In our fiscal year 2010 program, we were awarding contracts at 60 to 70 percent of what the government estimate was [in 2005],” Nelson said. “That’s a big savings, money the Army didn’t have to invest here.”

The first major construction project, a new gate with five vehicle inspection lanes, was completed in May 2009. As the other projects took shape around the installation, less obvious to casual observers were the tremendous infrastructure improvements required to support them. These included multiple-lane gate accesses, roadways, water, sewer and electrical line and miles and miles of fiber optic cabling.

Exciting as these new developments are, Ortiz said he’s made a concerted effort to ensure Aberdeen’s 70-plus previous tenants don’t get short shrift.

“We don’t want haves and have-nots,” he said.

So the post has undertaken a massive plan to upgrade existing facilities and demolish many of its old World War I- and II-era buildings. Ultimately, plans call for demolishing 188 facilities and 775 housing units over the next five years. As these efforts continue, Nelson said he expects lots of activity at Aberdeen during the spring and summer months as workers move into new or renovated facilities. July is expected to be particularly busy.

With the clock ticking down, Ortiz said he’s confident Aberdeen Proving Ground is on track to fully comply with the Sept. 15 BRAC deadline.

“We’ve already integrated a sizeable number of the new workers and the buildings that aren’t already completed are very far along,” he said. “The conditions are pretty well set.”

The plan is going so well, in fact, that Ortiz expects Sept. 16, the first workday after the BRAC deadline, to be “just another day at work” at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

“I honestly do not believe that on Sept. 16, folks are going to notice anything different,” he said. “As the locals will tell you, for us, BRAC has already happened. The magic of that Sept. 15 date has long come and gone.”

So instead of fixating on the BRAC deadline, Aberdeen Proving Ground is focusing on its new, expanded mission, Ortiz said.

“What we’re focusing on is the future,” he said.”That’s where we really need to go.”