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Dugway Proving Ground • U.S. Army Col. William E. King said he was stunned to learn, as he prepared to deploy to Baghdad three years ago, that his next assignment would be as commander of Utah's Dugway Proving Ground.
"I knew enough to know that the Area 51 alien station was fiction and that the mishap with local sheep was exaggerated, but that was about it," King said Thursday during a traditional change of command ceremony, in which he turned over responsibility for the Army post to Col. A. Scott Estes.
"I had no idea that this place was such a hidden treasure," King told some 250 Army and civilian employees, along with area dignitaries. The mission of the post, 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City in Skull Valley, is often secret, he said, and "appallingly underrated."
The Army and civilian employees at Dugway conduct tests on systems to defend against chemical and biological weapons, as well as tests on smoke and obscurants. They also test meteorological devices. Several thousand sheep mysteriously died in Skull Valley in 1968, with nerve gas from Dugway the suspected culprit.
Flags from all the states formed a half-circle around Dugway's parade grounds, and the Utah National Guard's 23rd Army Band played and marched. Roses were given to the wives and daughters of both commanders. A ceremony in which a rifle is passed among the two commanders, their general and the post's Sgt. Maj. Stanley D. Morton Jr., the top non-commissioned officer, signified the change in command.
Leon Hadley of Grantsville, a 37-year employee at Dugway, said people like to gather for such ceremonies. "It's a matter of showing respect for the outgoing and the incoming (commander)."
That sentiment was echoed by Estes and Maj. Gen. Genaro J. Dellarocco, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. He's the two-star general for the post.
Estes said commanding Dugway is a dream come true.
"It is indeed humbling to have the honor to be part of and lead a team that has arguably done more to protect our nation and our forces from the threats posted by weapons of mass destruction than any other," Estes said.
During King's two-year tenure, the Army post took on two major new programs: testing of the nation's first cruise missile defense program and the Army's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program. Both have driven new construction, King said, with four new hangars at the airfield and hundreds more civil service and contractor jobs. Dugway is also now home to the Army's first dedicated Cruise Missile Defense Unit, Alpha Battery, 3rd Air Defense Artillery.
King is moving to Edgewood, Md., where he will be chief of staff for operations, plans and training for the 20th Support Command of Chemical Biological Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives (CBRNE).
Estes, a native of Norfolk, Va., has been in the Army's chemical corps throughout his career. He has a master's degree in environmental management and served two stints at the Pentagon. Most recently, he was the CBRNE division chief in the Deputy Directorate for Anti-terrorism and Homeland Defense.
About the Dugway Proving Ground
Dugway was created in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the then-Chemical Warfare Service. It was mothballed after World War II but reactivated during the Korean War.
It occupies about 800,000 acres, about the size of Rhode Island, 85 miles southeast of Salt Lake City in Tooele County.
The Department of Defense has classified much of what goes on in Dugway's testing areas as top secret.