Fort Greely, Alaska

Fort Greely is a launch site for anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs), designed to shoot down enemy missiles that might be coming over the arctic to bomb the USA. It is a component of the national Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). The only other fixed battery of ABMs is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Fort Greely is also home to the Cold Regions Test Center (CRTC). In 2001, as mandated by the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC), 652,000 acres of ranges and training grounds were rechristened as the Donnelley Training Area, and placed under the command of Fort Wainwright, significantly reducing the size of the base. Chemical and biological weapons training and testing was conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, on a 19,000-acre plot of land called the Gerstle River Test Site (GRTS). By 1970, all known contaminated material  had been removed and detoxified under "Operation Cleanup Alaska." Fort Greely was also the site of the first compact, field nuclear power plant developed under the Army Nuclear Power Program. The Stationary Medium Power Plant (SM-1A) was in operation from 1962 until its closure in 1972.