USACAPOC dedicates new headquarters to fallen N.C. trooper

The US Army’s Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command is set to open a new headquarters on Ft. Bragg, NC and they will be naming it after one of their own who fell in combat.

Alan H. Newton was a North Carolina native who had a great love for his family and animals and was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. Now the command will honor his memory by naming their new HQs building, set to open soon after Newton.

The center is the future home of U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. Officials expect to move into the new headquarters in the near future.

The $22-million facility was recently completed on Pratt Street, near the Fort Bragg Noncommissioned Officer Academy.

It will allow USACAPOC to consolidate its Fort Bragg facilities. The U.S. Army Reserve Command oversees more than 90 units in 34 states across the nation and Puerto Rico.

The command’s nearly 13,500 soldiers make up the vast majority of the nation’s conventional civil affairs, psychological operations and theater information operations soldiers.

Newton – a North Carolina native and soldier with USACAPOC’s Greensboro-based 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion – is one of 49 soldiers who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan while serving with the command.

In addition to dedicating the building for Newton, officials also unveiled a memorial stone featuring the names of all of the soldiers who have been killed while deployed with USACAPOC units. The command of Maj. Gen. Daniel R. Ammerman and Command Sgt. Maj. Peter Running also added a streamer denoting the unit’s Global War on Terror service to the USACAPOC colors.

Speaking to members of the Newton family, Ammerman said the fallen soldier was trying to “do good” when he and Capt. Benjamin A. Sklaver – another USACAPOC soldier – were killed by an Afghan police officer wearing a suicide vest on Oct. 2, 2009.

“That’s really what we all try to do,” Ammerman said.

He related how Newton – a 26-year-old who graduated from Southwestern Randolph High School in 2002 – joined the North Carolina National Guard in 2003.

When Newton learned his unit wasn’t set to deploy in the near future, he transferred to the Army Reserve and became a civil affairs specialist.

Newton’s parents were on-hand to dedicate the 111,000-square-foot headquarters, which will eventually replace an older building on Butner Road being used by the command.

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Photo courtesy The Fayetteville Observer