STARKVILLE — They have a variety of day jobs, from aircraft worker to law student, but they are all members of the U.S. Army Reserve, they all train in Starkville and they will have a new training facility in about 18 months.
The Guy II and Will A. Jones U.S. Army Reserve Center has been at the intersection of Willow Road and Highway 12 since 1958. Its 14,000 square feet were meant to accommodate one unit, but four currently use it for monthly training drills, facility manager Staff Sgt. Debra Sharp said.
The new 25,000 square-foot building will sit on 15 acres in Cornerstone Park, in the southwest part of town, and is scheduled for completion in May 2021. Veteran-owned construction company Trans4Fed, based in Purvis, won the bid last week for the $10.3 million construction contract.
The building will include a vehicle bay, an assembly hall, a weapons simulation range and office and classroom space. It will be more energy-efficient and “really what you would expect when you replace a 50s building with a 21st-century building,” said Jeff Johnston, public affairs director for the U.S. Army Reserve’s 81st Readiness Division.
“This building will be designed for today’s Army, not the Army of the Korean War,” Johnston said.
Reservists are private citizens, not on active duty, but they have to be ready to leap into action at any moment. The larger building will have the space to store enough equipment to meet that readiness standard, Sharp said. Additionally, the Reservists are looking forward to having a facility that has more parking space and is not adjacent to a busy highway where traffic and construction sometimes get in the way.
The 81st Readiness Division has more than 200 facilities in nine Southern states and two U.S. territories, and it does not build new facilities often, Johnston said.
“Just like in the rest of the military, our buildings are aging a lot faster than we can replace them, so this is somewhat of a big deal for us and it represents a real reinvestment for the Army Reserve in Starkville,” he said.
Sharp and Trans4Fed owner Larry Harrington agreed having a veteran-owned construction company build the new facility adds value to the project because the company understands what the Reserve needs. The building might also serve as a promotional tool for the military, Harrington said.
“Anything that attracts someone to be a part of that, which I think a facility like this will, is a big thing because it transforms lives,” he said. “Not only do they serve the nation as a whole, but (the military) has a tendency to improve those individual lives and those families.”
The Reserve hopes to get the current building memorialized to local fallen soldiers after the new one is finished, Sharp said.
Who they are and why they joined
Victoria Heim’s entire family is in the military, so she always wanted to join herself, she said.
Heim graduated in May from the University of Mississippi, where she was an Reserve Officer Training Corps member, and is now a cadet second lieutenant and first-year law student there. She also works for the Ole Miss athletics office.
She is one of several students at area universities — including Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Alabama — that train at the Army Reserve Center, Sharp said. Training drills range from physical exercises to doctrine briefings to target practice.
Heim has been training at the center for a few months, while Sgt. Toris Tolbert has for all 22 years of his military career. Both said the current facility gets too crowded sometimes.
Sgt. 1st Class Dorothy Washington, an aircraft worker at Columbus Air Force Base, said sometimes a unit has to train outside because another one is occupying the entire inside space. The new building will boost the Reservists’ morale, she said.
Washington joined the military 29 years ago to gain a sense of discipline and “motivation to do better in life,” she said.
Tolbert said he joined for the education benefits, including the student loan repayment plan. He graduated from Mississippi State University and now lives in Grenada and manages six offices for the Mississippi Department of Employment Security.
Both have been deployed as active duty soldiers, and Heim said she hopes to do active duty someday. The Reserve can be a way to “test the waters” and decide if a person wants to fully commit to the military, she said.
Reservists are just as qualified to serve the country as active duty members, and the range of other careers that Reservists can have is an asset, Heim said.
“With active duty people, all they might know is how to be in the Army, whereas we might have a different perspective because we have civilian jobs,” she said.
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