FORT RILEY — Last week Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the Pentagon would open combat roles to women and Maj. Gen. Wayne W. Grigsby, the commanding general of Fort Riley and the 1st Infantry Division, is very supportive.
“All soldiers bleed red,” Grigsby said in front of local leaders, Fort Riley officials and media Friday afternoon inside the 1st Infantry Division Headquarters when asked about Carter’s announcement. “It’s about time. It’s going to help us and it’s great news.”
Fort Riley invited officials from local government in the region — including Manhattan and Junction City — and media to hear updates on the post’s Camplan 2020, which began in 2010 and outlines the current state of the fort and its future.
Grigsby, who has four daughters with two of them in the military, said he awaits an implementation plan for integrating women in combat roles, but added that it’s not as if women haven’t been already serving in those ways.
“I think it’s excellent that we made this decision,” he told media later. “My oldest daughter deployed with me in combat in (Operation Iraqi Freedom 2). My youngest daughter is in the Army Reserves. I think it’s wonderful and we will move forward as the Chief of Staff of the Army publishes his implementation plan. We will follow orders and we will implement.
“We’ve been doing this already as we’ve had females in the battle for the last 14 years.”
When it came to Grigsby’s view on today’s Fort Riley and beyond, he said local partnerships have been the engine that has kept the post going.
“Fort Riley is the best place to train, the best place to live, the best place to deploy from and the best place to come home to,” he said. “And we have to continue to improve and get better as we go into the future to keep that right here, at this location. It’s outstanding. I’ve never seen it done better.
“The key is that in the Army we’re communicating very well with our civilian leadership about where we stand, and that’s important.”
Grigsby said sequestration continues to be a concern and the political aspects that drive it.
When asked earlier in the day what the Big Red One’s biggest challenge is, he said, “How to do more with less.”
During the question and answer segment of the day with local leaders and media, the status on the new hospital was asked.
The new hospital, which will replace Irwin Army Community Hospital, was originally scheduled to be open in 2012, has faced delays and funding problems since it broke ground in 2009.
Col. Risa Ware, the commander of Irwin Army Community Hospital, said she expects it to be open in the summer of 2016.
