Recently elected to serve District 11 in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman August Pfluger made his first visit to Camp Bowie in Brownwood Tuesday morning.  Now the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, Representative Pfluger was an F-22 Raptor fighter pilot during his military career.

“It’s my first time here (Camp Bowie) and it’s just absolutely incredible to see the capability and the amount of training that happens.  One unique thing all Texans can be proud of, and especially right here in Brownwood, a Texas Guardsman that is going to deploy overseas somewhere, comes through Camp Bowie before they deploy.  That makes me incredibly proud and I know that everyone here in Brownwood will be proud of that as well,” Congressman Pfluger said.

Congressman Pfluger toured the entire Camp Bowie facility from the engineering unit to stops at each of several firing ranges which are tucked away among trees and hills throughout the almost 9,000 acres that make up Camp Bowie.  Hosting the tour was Major General Gregory Chaney from the Texas Military Department in Austin. (shown at right in the photo below with Congressman Pfluger in the white shirt)

“Camp Bowie is a critical training site for the Texas Army National Guard.  Located strategically close to Fort Hood and to West Texas, we train all of our soldiers that are mobilizing to go overseas, and for a lot of our domestic missions, plus our sustainment training happens right here on Camp Bowie.  If we didn’t have this training site, our readiness would certainly suffer,” Major General Chaney said.

Firing ranges include the 1,000 meter Known Distance Range, the CPQCrange for combat pistol qualification, the Mark 19 Range for machine guns and Modified Record Fire Range where soldiers qualify their M-4 and M-16 weapons.