Carson to add another 400 troops

Fort Carson will add 431 soldiers next year under moves announced by the Pentagon Thursday.

The plan would add a battalion of combat engineers along with finance and supply experts to the post in 2010, boosting its population past 26,000.

“It’s great for the post and the community,” said Col. Robert McLaughlin, the post’s garrison commander.

It reduces the sting of Army cuts that cost Colorado Springs a 3,500-soldier brigade of infantry troops that was supposed to be housed here by 2013.

A Pentagon news release said the latest additions to the post are part of a growth plan conceived in 2007 and will support other units at war. The Army in recent years has boosted the number of combat engineers in its ranks because their skills are needed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There, engineers work on rebuilding projects while also working to find and defuse insurgent bombs.

The engineer battalion headed for the post is a familiar one. The 52nd Engineers called Fort Carson home until the unit was folded in 2005.

Other new soldiers will support Fort Carson’s 4th Infantry Division, including 96 financial management experts who will keep the books straight.

It may be hard to notice the trickle of extra troops after the flood of reinforcements that is arriving at Fort Carson this year.

Additions to the post included the 4th Infantry Division headquarters CQ and its 1st Brigade Combat Team CQ, boosting Fort Carson’s population by 6,500 troops CQ.