Special to the Tribune Chronicle Soldiers with the 174th Air Defense Artillery Brigade scan for combatants after being attacked during a foot patrol Aug. 22 during pre-mobilization training at Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center, near Newton Falls.

PARIS TOWNSHIP — Over the next four years, Camp James A. Garfield — the recently renamed Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Facility — will be transformed into Ohio’s top National Guard training facility using a combined $37 million worth of federal investments on the more than 21,600-acre facility.

Infrastructure and groundwork have been done over the last two years that will allow the building of modern weapons-training and simulation facilities. They’re also preparing housing and other amenities for military and civilian units.

The idea is for the site to become a regional training destination through a series of projects designed to enhance its capabilities.

“We not only are looking at Ohio National Guard units coming here to do their training, but also Air National Guard, Marine Corps units, area police departments, Ohio State Highway Patrol and other civilian law enforcement units from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Virginia,” said Col. Daniel Shank, construction and facilities manager of the Ohio National Guard.

Property for the former Ravenna Army Ammunition Plant was purchased in the early 1940s and the plant was built in 1942. It was operated by the U.S. Army from 1942 until 1992, when it was turned over to the Ohio National Guard.

The ammunition plant was primarily used during the nation’s major conflicts, including World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and often was on standby in the years between.

Tim Morgan, an environmental supervisor for the Ohio National Guard, began working at the Ravenna Arsenal before it was turned over to the National Guard.

“At the time, they were storing high explosives,” he said. “We were taking apart old rounds, salvaging materials and burning explosive materials. In the early 1990s, when the Army decided it would never use the ammunition on the base, we had to determine what to do with it and to clean up the base.”

There were several hundred people working at the Ravenna Arsenal when the Army decided to shut down production. A year later, only 30 remained.

“We were in shock,” Morgan said. “I was a contractor with the Department of Defense. I thought my job would be gone, but when the Ohio National Guard decided they needed environmental staff, I applied and got a job.”

Morgan said there was not a lot of non-exploded ammunition on the property, but the grounds had to be cleared and some burned because of waste from the munitions factories.

“Ravenna Arsenal was really a self-contained community,” he said. “The only thing that was needed from the outside was energy. It had its own water supply and wastewater plant.”

Due to past operations, the arsenal was a Superfund site, but was not on the national priorities list.

“Of the 21,600 acres, more than 90 percent now can be used,” said Katie Tait, environmental specialist for the Ohio National Guard.

Approximately $124 million has been spent on the cleanup of the facility, and approximately $25 million more will be needed to complete it. All of the cleanup is projected to be done by 2025.

Looking toward the future, Shank said they are designing the property to include a combat pistol qualification course, an Automated Record Fire range, a battalion headquarters building, two company headquarters buildings, two covered training areas, 10 barracks buildings, four multi-purpose training buildings, a new engagement skills trainer simulations building, two transient training maintenance bays, a controlled humidity building for tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, an enhanced railyard and a training simulations building.

“Commanders will be able to design programs needed to allow their people to do individual and collective training tasks, including the use of their semi-automatic weapons and pistol training,” he said. “They will be able to do target practices at stationary and pop-up sites.”

The facilities will include areas at which engagement skills training can be done using simulation buildings, where trainees will be able to use pneumatic versions of their weapons to practice under different scenarios, including while wearing gas masks and night vision glasses.

“It is like being in an arcade, where trainees will be engaging targets and shooting at big screens,” Shank said.

These projects enhance the existing demolition range, Mark 19 range, shoot house, tank table 7 laser range, drop zone, 29 -acre dig site and multiple dismounted training areas, and create a training environment that meets multi-echelon requirements at one location.

“We are partnering with the Ohio Air National Guard to build transient training maintenance bays, so when a unit deploys to Camp Ravenna there will be an area to work on vehicles,” Shank said.

“Right now, to get some of this type of training, units have to go to Camp Perry, near Port Clinton, Ohio and Camp Atterbury in Indiana,” he said. “Once completed, there really will be no place like this any place in Ohio.”

Most of the work to improving the Ohio National Guard facility is being done by local contractors, he noted.

“This is having an impact on the area’s economy,” Shank said.

There are approximately 100 military and civilian personnel working on Camp James A Garfield.

Work being done to upgrade the facility will not be affected by the proposed East Coast Missile Defense system.

Camp James A. Garfield is one of three places being considered for a proposed East Coast Missile Defense site. The other two sites include Fort Drum, N.Y., and Fort Custer Training Center in St. Augusta, Michigan.

“If we are selected to be the site for the East Coast Defense system, it would not affect the investments that have been committed to this site,” he said. “There is sufficient room for both to be happening simultaneously.”