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Fort Ord is a former United States Army post on Monterey Bay of the Pacific Ocean coast in California, which closed in 1994. Most of the fort's land now makes up the Fort Ord National Monument, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as part of the National Landscape Conservation System. Before construction and official designation as a fort in 1940, the land was used as a maneuver area and field-artillery target range during 1917. Fort Ord was considered one of the most attractive locations of any U.S. Army post, because of its proximity to the beach and California weather. The 7th Infantry Division was its main garrison for many years. When Fort Ord was converted to civilian use, space was set aside for the first nature reserve in the United States created for conservation of an insect, the endangered Smith's blue butterfly. Additional endangered species are found on Fort Ord including; Contra Costa goldfields and the threatened California Tiger Salamander. While much of the old military buildings and infrastructure remain abandoned, many structures have been torn down for anticipated development. California State University at Monterey Bay and the Fort Ord Dunes State Park, along with some subdivisions, the Veterans Transition Center, a commercial strip mall, military facilities and a nature preserve occupy the area today. On April 20, 2012, President Barack Obama signed a proclamation designating a portion of the former post as the Fort Ord National Monument.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Presidential Proclamation — Establishment of the Fort Ord National Monument )〕 In his proclamation, the President stated that, "The protection of the Fort Ord area will maintain its historical and cultural significance, attract tourists and recreationalists from near and far, and enhance its unique natural resources, for the enjoyment of all Americans." ==History== In 1917, with the entrance of the nation into the 2-1/2 year old conflict of World War I with the declaration of war address to the United States Congress by the 28th President Woodrow Wilson against the Central Powers of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and later the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)in April 1917. Land was later purchased just north of the city of Monterey along the western shoreline of the Pacific Ocean by Monterey Bay for use as an artillery training field for the United States Army by the U.S. Department of War. The area was known as the Gigling Reservation, U.S. Field Artillery Area, Presidio of Monterey and Gigling Field Artillery Range. Although military development and construction was just beginning, the War only lasted for another year and a half until the Armistice in November 11, 1918. Despite a great demobilization of the U.S. Armed Forces during the inter-war years of the 1920s and 1930s, by 1933, the artillery field became Camp Ord, named in honor of Union Army Maj. Gen. Edward Otho Cresap Ord, (1818-1883) a famous and well respected Federal military leader during the American Civil War who also served in the Second Seminole War in Florida and the western Indian Wars. Primarily, horse cavalry units trained on the camp until the military began to mechanize and train mobile combat units such as tanks, armored personnel carrier and movable artilllery. By 1940, the 23-year-old Camp Ord was expanded to , with a realization that the two-year-old conflict of World War II could soon cross the Atlantic Ocean to involve America. In August 1940, it was re-designated Fort Ord and the 7th Infantry Division was reactivated, becoming the first major unit to occupy the post. In 1941, Camp Ord became Fort Ord. But soon the first threat came from the west as the Japanese Imperial Navy struck at U.S. naval and military bases on the islands of Hawaii at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu and in the Philippines in a sneak air attack, Sunday, December 7, 1941. In a few days the other Axis Powers of dictators Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, along with Fascist Italy of Benito Mussolini, declared and spread their war in Europe against Great Britain and France and the low countries to the U.S. For the next thirty years, the fort was the primary facility for basic training for the once again rapidly and vastly expanding American Army. With the end of the War with the surrenders of Germany in May and Japan in September 1945, the soon onset of a "Cold War" against our former ally, the Soviet Union, (Russia) continued for the next forty some years to the early 1990s. In 1947, Fort Ord became the home of the 4th Replacement Training Center. During the 1950s and 1960s, Fort Ord was a staging area for units departing for war in the Korean War and later peace-time/occupation/ duty in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines and Thailand, who became our allies. Then Southeast Asia became a war zone with Vietnam, and later involving by the 1970s Cambodia, Laos, and at one time, the U.S.A. had 50,000 troops on the installation. The 194th Armored Brigade was activated there under Combat Development Command in 1957, but departed for Fort Knox in Kentucky in 1960. In 1957, land on the eastern side of the post was used to create the Laguna Seca Raceway which served to replace the Pebble Beach road racing course that ceased operations for safety reasons in that same year. The post continued as a center for instruction of basic and advanced infantrymen until 1976, when the training area was deactivated and Fort Ord again became the home of the 7th Infantry Division, following their return from South Korea after twenty-five years on the DMZ ("demilitarized zone"). In 1988, the "Base Realignment and Closure" ("BRAC") legislation considering the post-Cold War era was passed by the Congress, under 41st President George H. W. Bush. On July 14, 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed placement of Fort Ord on the National Priorities List (NPL). The site contained leaking petroleum underground storage tanks, a 150-acre landfill that was primarily used to dispose of residential waste and small amounts of commercial waste generated by the base, a former fire drill area, motor pool maintenance areas, small dump sites, small arms target ranges, an 8,000 acre firing range, and other limited areas that posed threats from unexploded ordnance. NPL status was finalized on February 21, 1990.〔http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/sfund/r9sfdocw.nsf/ViewByEPAID/CA7210020676〕 In 1991, the decision to close Fort Ord was made. In 1994, Fort Ord was officially closed. The Fort was the largest U.S. military base to be closed at the time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Ord」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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