Welcome to Fort Bliss! The Garrison Command team welcomes you to Southwest Texas and Fort Bliss. Located on the largest international border in the United States you will arrive at the corner of Texas, New Mexico and Old Mexico. We look forward to serving you.
As one of the premier installations in the Department of Defense, our values-based organization focuses on supporting contingency operations while providing high quality service to a growing and increasingly diverse population of Soldiers, Families, and Civilians. You will also be coming to a warm and hospitable community who welcomes and supports our military.
Since its establishment in 1848, Fort Bliss has been proud of its legacy of service to the Army and the surrounding communities. An infantry and cavalry post prior to World War II, Fort Bliss became the center of Antiaircraft Artillery training in 1942 and then evolved into the Air Defense Center. Today, Fort Bliss is multi-faceted, multi-functional installation serving and supporting all branches of the service as well as other federal agencies. It is home to a diverse listing of organizations such as, the 1st Armored Division; the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command; the Brigade Modernization Command; William Beaumont Army Medical Center; the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy; Joint Task Force North; and, the German Air Force Command Air Defense Center.
Significant changes have taken place over the past seven years at Fort Bliss. The post has transformed from an institutional training installation into a major mounted maneuver training post. With the arrival of the 1st Armored Division from Germany, a Fires Brigade from Fort Sill, and multiple other units, Fort Bliss has tripled in size. With a $6B expansion and a new 1st Armored Division Headquarters facility, the post is a sprawling mega-complex developed on East Bliss. West Bliss remains as the historical area which was first established on La Noria Mesa in 1893. Currently, 90,000 Soldiers and Family Members call Fort Bliss and El Paso home.
The Fort Bliss cantonment area is in West Texas within the city limits of El Paso. The remainder of its contiguous acreage sprawls across portions of Texas and New Mexico, extending forty-five miles north to New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range and seventy-five miles northeast to New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest. All told, the 1.12 million acres comprising Fort Bliss is larger than the state of Rhode Island.
Fort Bliss has excellent recreation and training facilities. We have a huge community multi-purpose park, a state of the art RV Park, in addition to an outdoor swimming pool and an Olympic-sized indoor pool. Balfour Beatty, our housing partner, has built two outdoor pools, one in the Paso Del Norte neighborhood and one in the upper Beaumont neighborhood.
The Aquatic Training Facility is scheduled to open this spring. The 50,000 sq ft facility at East Bliss Town Center will include three indoor pools all designed to support mission requirements and then convert to recreational activities. Pools will include: a 50 Meter-Olympic Pool; a Bulkhead Deep Water Tank 32' x 36' - 13 ft deep which will support drown proofing and have additional ceiling support for a 5-ton crane to support helicopter dunk training. Included will also be a Multi Purpose Pool 'Zero with 8' entry depth to take temperature up to 92 degrees in four hours to support Wounded Warriors and rehab support SWET (Shallow Water Egress Training).
Other quality of life facilities include a 36-hole Underwood Golf Course, the IHG Army Hotel, an auto hobby shop, nationally accredited Child Development Service and Youth Centers, physical fitness centers, the Centennial Banquet Facility and a 52-lane Bowling Center. In October 2010, the Army Air Force Exchange Service opened a new 500,000 square foot "Freedom Crossing at Fort Bliss." This is a first-of-a-kind Lifestyle Center which includes a large Main Exchange store, sit down casual dining, a 10 multi screen movie theater with first run movies and a variety of retail offerings similar to any off-installation mall, but with a small town, main street feel. Another new facility is the post commissary located adjacent to Freedom Crossing, it offers a wide variety of food items and other goods which compares with any quality market.
If you have orders for Fort Bliss, be sure to visit the Balfour Beatty Communities Family Housing website for information regarding your housing needs. They are currently building a total of 564 Junior Enlisted/Junior Noncommissioned officer townhomes and plans are underway to build another 408.
If you are looking for information about local schools, go to our School Liaison Office link on our FMWR website. The local community also provides Soldiers and Families with a variety of fun activities. Try hiking and camping in the nearby mountains; shopping at local malls; strolling through museums; cheering at the Sun Bowl games or snow skiing in nearby Ruidoso, New Mexico.
There is so much more to Fort Bliss than what I have room to mention here, so I invite you to explore our website as well as our Face Book page for the information that you are looking for. Fort Bliss is where you want to be, it is a great place to work and live. Whether for a short visit or a permanent assignment, I hope you enjoy your time while you are here.
https://www.bliss.army.mil/
http://www.facebook.com/FortBlissPAO
http://www.armymwr.com/
http://www.blissmwr.com/
http://fbmonitor.com/
www.ftblissfamilyhousing.com/
freedomcrossingatfortbliss.com
https://www.facebook.com/army.bliss
www.wbamc.amedd.army.mil/
https://www.facebook.com/FortBlissSpouses
https://www.facebook.com/Freedom-Crossing-at-Fort-Bliss
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