President Obama Coming to Fort Lee Sept. 28

President Barack Obama will visit Fort Lee on Sept. 28 to meet with service members and the post community “to thank them for their outstanding service to the nation,” a White House official said.

While at the installation in Prince George County the president will tape a CNN Town Hall meeting with Jake Tapper and take questions from the military community. Topic areas for the one-hour, 9 p.m. event will include “veterans, national security and foreign policy issues impacting the U.S. military,” according to CNN.

The invitation-only event will not be open to the public, said Amy Perry, a spokeswoman for Fort Lee. The visit will be Obama’s first to the installation as president.

Fort Lee, home of the Combined Arms Support Command, is situated along the Tri-Cities of Petersburg, Colonial Heights and Hopewell.

The installation has seen a large population increase in recent years as part of military base closure and realignment.

Fort Lee calls itself “The Home of Army Sustainment,” and has a primary mission as “a focused training base for military supply, subsistence, maintenance, munitions, transportation and more.” It trains as many as 70,000 troops a year, which makes Fort Lee the Army’s third-largest training site, according to the installation’s website. Its daily population averages more than 26,000.

Next year Fort Lee marks the 100th anniversary of its founding as Camp Lee during World War I.

Fort Lee has seen its share of celebrity visitors over the years. For instance, in June 1994, Academy Award-winning actor Paul Newman peddled his Newman’s Own products to Defense Commissary Agency officials at Fort Lee.

Story by Andrew Cain, Richmond Times Dispatch
Source: http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/article_1778776f-910f-5dda-8432-06427db866cf.html