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254th Base Support Battalion

In 2005, an official ceremony in Heidelberg, Germany marked the reflagging of the Installation Management Agency - Europe's Area Support Groups, Base Support Battalions, and Area Support Teams into 21 US Army Garrisons to align with the common US Army installation management structure worldwide, known as Standard Garrison Organization. As a result, the 254th Base Support Battalion was inactivated and reflagged as the US Army Garrison Schinnen.

The 254th Base Support Battalion was located in Schinnen, the Netherlands. Tucked away in the southeastern province of Limburg, it was a 20-minute driving distance from Belgium and Germany. The 254th Base Support Battalion provided quality-of-life support to US military personnel, Defense Department civilians, and their families. That support was extended to some 6,500 people in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, northwestern Germany, and a small portion of Belgium. It was a big job for the Battalion's 265 employees, with fewer than 50 soliders among them, half of whom were military police.

As the most widely dispersed base support battalion in US Army Europe (USAREUR), the 254th Base Support Battalion provided logistical support over no less than 139,000 square kilometers for personnel spread across 17 seperate locations. North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a major influence in the region, with Allied Forces Central, Europe located in Brunssum, the Netherlands. AFCENT was a 20-minute drive from Schinnen, and Geilenkirchen NATO Air Base was located in Germany, approximately 20-minutes from AFCENT.

Basic community support for the region was provided by the 254th Base Support Battalion, while many of the soldier support services are provided by military (Army and Air Force) personnel at AFCENT and Geilenkirchen. Coevorden and Rotterdam were remote locations in the Netherlands, which both received base operations support from the 254th Base Support Battalion.

The peacetime mission of the 254th Base Support Battalion was to provide basic quality of life support to the units within the Battalion's footprint. In time of conflict or war, the mission was to open and operate a Line of Communication (LOC) in the Netherlands. The Battalion was responsible for the reception, processing and deployment of forces and equipment through the Netherlands, Germany, and other locations. Since the closure of the Rheinberg community, and the redesignation of US Military Communities to Area Support Groups, the 254th Base Support Battalion had been involved in the drawdown of communities in Northern Germany and the United Kingdom.