War Slows Ft. Carson Transfers

Ft. Carson won’t be getting some soldiers, if an internal Army document is any indication. Last week, the Gazette reported that the Colorado Springs Army installation may not see an expected 5,000 soldiers until a year later than previously thought. And 2,800 soldiers that were expected to go there, may not be coming at all.

The reason? The war and Army reorganization, says the report.The 2,800 service members will be staying in Ft. Hood, Texas because of the restructuring. The rest will prepare for redeployment to Iraq, and then head to Ft. Carson in 2009.

This economic impact of the hold up remains to be seen, but Ft. Carson, with a population over 10,000, will be getting another 4,000 soldiers on time.

Fred Crowley, an economist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said the yearlong delay may cost real estate speculators and businesses.

Those in trouble, he said, will be the businesses that borrowed money to make investments in ventures aimed at the soldiers that will arrive a year late.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.