Hopewell News

The United States Army Ordnance Center and School officially transferred to Fort Lee Sept. 11. The school formally uncased its colors and raised its flag that afternoon at the Sustainment Center of Excellence. The school transferred from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., due to the expansion of Fort Lee under the Base Realignment and Closure decision.
The ceremony was held behind the Sustainment Center of Excellence building because the Ordnance Center and School is still under construction. Along state route 36, construction equipment can seen at the site of the facility.
The ceremony included a remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the events that followed as the military invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Those honored were the 21 ordnance soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan this year. The memorial was comprised of a wreath, 21 American flags, an M-16 rifle, a helmet and a display consisting of Army insignia. Toward the end of the ceremony, soldiers from the ordnance school put 21 dog tags on the rifle.
"9/11 is a lot like what Pearl Harbor Day was for a previous generation," said Brig. Gen. Lynn Collyar, chief of ordnance and commanding general of the school. "After 1988, when the [Berlin] Wall came down and the Cold War was over, we kind of let things go on autopilot, and [9/11] brought back to reality that the world doesn't have the freedoms that we have. And there's always someone ready to take that away if you let them."
Collyar explained why the school decided to uncase its colors on a day of remembrance. He said all the victims of the attacks had bright futures ahead of them.
"We chose this day, as you heard earlier from the narrator, to unfurl our flag because we want everyone to know we will remember our fallen comrades," he said. "To date there has been 199 ordnance soldiers killed since 9/11 2001."