The U.S. Army Garrison manages installation functions and services at Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem. As it facilitates everything from infrastructure to air space and Army family team building, the garrison works to ensure military activities can focus on their individual missions.

Garrison Soldiers and civilian employees provide cradle-to-grave support to the more than 126,000 active duty and reserve component military personnel, retirees, civilian employees and families served by Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem.

Garrison employees provide health, police and fire protection and personal and installation security at Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem. Along with personnel services, the garrison maintains buildings and grounds, buys and distributes supplies, operates the commissaries and assigns real estate and family housing. The garrison provides legal, financial and social services support, facilitates chapels and religious services and administers youth and family activities.

Garrison employees provide information services and administer recreational and leisure services to active duty Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, reserve component service personnel, DoD civilian employees, military retirees and the family members of each.

Today Fort McPherson and its satellite installation, Fort Gillem, provide administrative and logistical support to the Installation Management Command, Southeast Region; U.S. Army Forces Command; U.S. Army Central; First Army; U.S. Army Reserve Command and many other military- and Atlanta-based activities. A total force-sustaining installation that is customer focused and business based, Headquarters, U.S. Army Garrison, is always first in support, proudly serving today's Army. Army activities that depend on Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem for support can be found throughout the Atlanta metropolitan area and beyond. Those activities include:

• The American Red Cross Armed Forces Emergency Service Center provides a network of emergency services, available 24 hours a day, for military personnel and their families assigned to Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem and for other military activities in the Atlanta area. Services include verification and rapid communication of family emergencies and access to financial assistance from the military aid societies. The center's toll-free number is (877) 272-7337.

• The Army Research Laboratory Software Technology Branch, located on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) in Atlanta, was established in 1992. In 2000, the branch was renamed the Tactical Collaboration and Data Fusion Branch and reorganized under the Computational and Information Sciences Directorate (CISD). The CISC is located with the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), which is headquartered in Adelphi, Md. The staff of five scientists and engineers located at GIT, along with other members of CISD, plays a key role in information and technology research within the Army and the DoD. With a research mission focused on battlefield communications and networks, data fusion and knowledge management, battlespace weather and environmental effects, and computational science and engineering, CISD is poised to provide the Army with the necessary advances in information technology to transition the Army Objective Force. The CISD mission areas include the operation of the ARL DoD Major Shared Resource Center and the ARL Collaborative Technology Alliance for Communications and Networks. The directorate works closely with many academic, industry and government partners to accomplish its mission responsibility of operating and maintaining the ARL technological infrastructure.

• The Atlanta Personnel Assistance Point (PAP) operates at Hartsfield International Airport. The only facility of its kind in the nation, the PAP provides command and control for Soldiers and their families en route on permanent change of station to and from locations overseas; supports contingency operations; coordinates aerial port operations; and provides on-the-spot help to military travelers, their family members and DoD civilian employees. The staff is trained to help with problems associated with emergency leave, temporary billeting, non-sufficient funds, lost orders and leave papers, missed port calls, flight delays and reschedules. The PAP issues provisional passes for stranded Soldiers, administers leave extensions, coordinates billeting and messing, resolves administrative and logistical impediments to onward movements, provides port call support, assists in the reception and processing of noncombatant evacuees and resolves passport and visa problems.

• The DA regional representative for the Federal Aviation Administration is a joint military services activity located in Atlanta. This activity serves as the executive agent for the U.S. Army regarding air space, aeronautical information, air traffic control, flight procedures policy and obstruction evaluation. It provides community liaison support, responding to community aeronautical concerns and requests for assistance. The activity is the southern regional satellite of the U.S. Aeronautical Services Agency at Fort Belvoir, Va.

• The U.S. Army Audit Agency moved to downtown Atlanta in 1948 with the mission of ensuring accountability in both the active Army and reserve components in the southeastern portion of the United States. A few years ago the agency moved from Atlanta to Fort McPherson. It serves America's Army by providing objective and independent auditing and consulting services. These services help the Army make informed decisions, resolve issues, use resources effectively and satisfy statutory and fiduciary responsibilities.

• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, South Atlantic Division, established in Atlanta in 1943, is the southeast regional office for the corps. It is responsible for military and civil planning, design and construction for eight southeastern states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and for an extensive overseas program in Central and South America. The corps designed and built or supervised the construction of many Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem facilities, including Marshall Hall. In its historic role as a constructor of major water projects, the corps built local landmarks Lake Lanier, located northeast of Atlanta, and Lake Allatoona, an almost 12,000-acre Corps of Engineers reservoir located northwest of the city. Fort McPherson's U.S. Army Recreation Area is located on this lake. Among its current projects, the South Atlantic Division is managing the world's largest environmental restoration project in the Everglades in South Florida. This division serves the Army in Atlanta and the nation through engineering support to the Army and Air Force in the southeast and through the operation, maintenance and improvement of waterways, harbors, hydroelectric dams and other facilities.

• The U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion-Atlanta is located in Smyrna and oversees five companies and 33 recruiting stations in the northern two-thirds of Georgia. The organization is located at 2400 Herodian Way, Suite 490. To contact the U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion-Atlanta staff, call (770) 951-0898 or (770) 951-0899 or send an e-mail message to 3abn-apa@usarec.army.mil.