WüRZBURG, Germany — In response to the changing dynamics of the U.S. Army and the departure of much of the 1st Infantry Division from Europe this year, the 69th Signal Battalion will move from Würzburg to Grafenwöhr in the next two years, according to a release issued Thursday by the 5th Signal Command headquarters.
A clear date or time frame has not been established for the move, and command spokeswoman Monica Tullos wrote in an e-mail Friday that the Army is still working out just when it will happen.
The battalion has 31 soldiers with 43 family members, she said, as well as 350 U.S. civilian and local national employees.
To address the concerns of those employees who work for the 69th, question-and-answer sessions will be held Tuesday, with one U.S. employee session at 10 a.m., and a 1 p.m. session for local nationals. Both will be at the Leighton Theater.
Families are encouraged to attend.
“As far as possible, the command wants to retain those loyal and capable employees that have been such an integral part of the success of this command,” the release states.
The battalion does not currently have any units deployed, but it does have soldiers augmenting missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tullos wrote.
Soldiers with the battalion already spend a lot of time in Grafenwöhr, testing their communications systems and providing support to the Joint Multinational Training Command, she said.
“They spend a great deal of time in the training center,” Tullos said, adding that they work extensively with all of the computer operations at Grafenwöhr. Soldiers assigned to the battalion will be moved based on the Army’s needs, the release states, and the specifics of those movements will be resolved over the coming months.
Battalion soldiers were told of the plan Thursday, Tullos said. Exact plans for soldiers in the battalion and their families are not yet established.
Aside from 1st ID support, the battalion supplied communications services for a number of U.S. Army garrisons in Germany, some of which are slated to close this year as part of the 1st ID transformation.
