Despite the cake, speeches from dignitaries, and 47 cannon firings, many of the officers and veterans attending Saturday’s Fort Lawton closing ceremonies found the occasion a sad one.
The ceremony on Feb. 25 marked the closing of the Army Reserve Center along the area’s Northeastern border. It is the last remnant of what once was a sprawling military base for much of the 20th Century.
The area that is now known as Discovery Park, encompassing Magnolia Bluff, was first selected as a site for an artillery battery in 1896. The area became Fort Lawton in 1900 to honor Maj. Gen. Henry Ware Lawton. The vast majority of that area officially became Discovery Park in 1973.
Col. Dwight Thompson fought back tears while talking about how he had come to Fort Lawton after enlisting in 1982. As he stood in the Daybreak Center after the closing ceremonies he talked about how he had spent nearly 80 percent of his military career on the base.
“This is a sad day,” said the medical officer with the 364th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, his voice cracking as he remembered his experiences at Fort Lawton. “This is literally almost the same spot I came to when I arrived here back in the 1980s.”
It was at Fort Lawton that he gathered in 1990 for the mobilization of medical personnel to Riad, Saudi Arabia, during Operation Desert Storm. It was the largest mobilization of its kind at the time.
While Thompson remembers the camaraderie with his fellow soldiers, he also remembered how the Magnolia community embraced the soldiers and the reservists who made Fort Lawton their home away from home. He said not only was it a great location, but the soldiers and reservists were always treated so well when they were in the community or out for dinner.
“People here are phenomenally supportive of our troops,” Thompson said. “We’d go out for dinner in the community and people would take our check away from us and say, ‘We’ll take care of it.’ ”
Fond memories and even some ironic twists were part of many of the speeches given during Saturday’s closing ceremonies. Congressman Jim McDermott mentioned how the military actually tried to give Fort Lawton to Seattle in the 1930s for $1. But the mayor at the time turned the deal down because he worried about the maintenance costs.
McDermott and other speakers also talked about how Fort Lawton reflected many of the trends in the country and the army during the past 100 years. The site had been involved in most of the country’s military actions of the last century, including being one of the largest staging areas for World War II recruits. It was also the site of the largest court martial in U.S. Army history during World War II when Italian prisoners of war rioted and one was killed. It had been involved with Cold War activities and in recent years had been involved in many of the deployments to the Middle East.
In the 1970s, the property had also been claimed and occupied by Native tribes, led by activist Bernie Whitebear. The protesters were even visited by actress Jane Fonda. That was the reason, McDermott commented, why the ceremonies were being held in the Daybreak Start Indian Cultural Center that very day.
“Magnolia always supported and in some cased endured our activities on the base,” said former base commander Gen. James Collins.
Collins said that the history of Fort Lawton will “remain a proud legacy” for the army and the tens of thousands of soldiers who served there.
“When we were called, we were always ready to serve,” Collins said.
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