The Army has confirmed the deployment in the upcoming February 2019 time frame of several thousand troops from the 1st Infantry Division. The 1st Brigade Combat team is headed to Europe, the Combat Aviation Brigade to Europe and a small slice of that unit to Afghanistan, and the 1st Sustainment Brigade to Afghanistan.

The Military Affairs Council was told Thursday the combined deployments will involve more than 5,000 soldiers, with the deployments lasting for nine months.

There is the impact on families and the Soldiers, and there is the economic impact back in the Junction City – Fort Riley area. Geary County Commissioner Ben Bennett noted there is worry about the economic impact of losing families, and losing sales tax dollars.” He noted the community will survive. “Because we’ll plan for it that way. We knew this was coming even though it hadn’t been formally announced. Our relationship with Fort Riley is such that we knew it was going to happen.”

Bennett said local officials would really like to see a third brigade be a part of Fort Riley in the future. Nothing, however, appears to be imminent on that point right now.

Speaking after a Military Affairs Council meeting in Junction City on Thursday the Chief Operations Officer for USD 475 David Wild stated, “The installation does a real good job of keeping us informed. There is a February student population count that is of concern, but as pointed out in this meeting it’s probably believed that most of those families aren’t going to go anywhere because we’ll be approaching the end of the school year.” A second student enrollment count is taken in the district on February 20th due to the turnover from the military student population. That count helps determine needed state aid for the school district.