The Vicenza base lacks nearby training areas, forcing costly training trips to Germany

Evidence

It’s a well-known problem that the 173rd in Vicenza “has inadequate training areas in its immediate area and must conduct most of its high-intensity training six hours north in Germany,” a 2012 article in the Armed Forces Journal explains. In fact, the only place in Italy for the 173rd to train as a brigade would be on the island of Sardinia, off Italy’s west coast, which is even farther from Vicenza than the German training areas. … This raises the question: Why would the Army want to move soldiers from Germany to Italy, only to send them back to Germany on a regular basis for training? Even if the new decision to maintain a split basing arrangement means that only four battalions will be making the nearly nine-hundred-mile round-trip to get to the training areas, transporting two thirds of the 173rd brigade to Germany on a regular basis clearly adds to the new base’s effective total cost. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 762

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The split-basing problem justifying Vicenza expansion was self-inflicted — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 769
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: The split-basing problem justifying Vicenza expansion was self-inflicted — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 769