My Fort Bliss
Welcome to Fort Bliss and Southwest Texas! Located on the largest international border in the United States you will arrive at the corner of Texas, New Mexico, and Old Mexico. We look forward to serving you.
As one of the premier installations in the Department of Defense, our values-based organization focuses on supporting contingency operations while providing high-quality services to a growing and increasingly diverse population of Soldiers, Families, and Civilians. You will also be coming to a warm and hospitable community that welcomes and supports our military.
Since its establishment in 1848, Fort Bliss has been proud of its legacy of service to the Army and the surrounding communities. An infantry and cavalry post prior to World War II, Fort Bliss became the center of Anti-aircraft Artillery training in 1942 and then evolved into the Air Defense Artillery Center. Today, Fort Bliss is a multi-faceted, multi-functional installation serving and supporting all branches of the service as well as other federal agencies. It is home to a diverse listing of organizations such as the 1st Armored Division, the 32d Army Air and Missile Defense Command, the Joint Modernization Command, William Beaumont Army Medical Center, the NCO Leadership Center of Excellence, Joint Task Force North, and the U.S. Army Garrison Command-Fort Bliss.
Significant changes have taken place over the past several years at Fort Bliss transforming it from an institutional training installation into a major mounted maneuver training post. With the arrival of the 1st Armored Division from Germany, a Fires Brigade from Fort Sill, and multiple other units, Fort Bliss has tripled in size. With a $6B expansion, the post is a sprawling mega-complex developed on East Fort Bliss. West Fort Bliss is the historical area first established on La Noria Mesa in 1893. Currently, about 70,000 Soldiers and Family Members call Fort Bliss and El Paso home.
The Fort Bliss cantonment area is in West Texas within the city limits of El Paso. The remainder of its contiguous acreage sprawls across portions of Texas and New Mexico, extending 45 miles north to New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range and 75 miles northeast to New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest. All told, the 1.12 million acres comprising Fort Bliss is larger than the state of Rhode Island.
Fort Bliss has excellent recreation facilities including a community multi-purpose park, a state of the art RV Park, several aquatic centers, a 36-hole golf course, an auto hobby shop, a 52-lane bowling center, plus so much more.
Designed to provide the highest quality training for our Soldiers, the training facilities here make Fort Bliss the Army’s flagship for home station training. State-of-the-art training facilities are available throughout the Fort Bliss complex. These range from the Mission Training Center, Close Combat Tactical Trainer, Simulation Center, Training Support Center, Engagement Skills Trainer, Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer, Medical Support Training Center, Digital Multi-Purpose Range Complex, to the Digital Air and Ground Integrated Range.
In October 2010, the Army Air Force Exchange Service opened a new 500,000 square foot "Freedom Crossing at Fort Bliss." This is a first-of-a-kind Lifestyle Center featuring a large Main Exchange store, sit down casual dining, a 10 multi-screen movie theater with first run movies and a variety of retail offerings similar to any off-installation mall, but with a small town, main street feel. Another new facility is the post Commissary adjacent to Freedom Crossing; it offers a wide variety of food items and other goods which compares with any quality market.
If you have orders for Fort Bliss, be sure to visit the Army Housing Online User Services website for information regarding your housing needs. This link directs you to the numerous housing programs, services and facilities meeting the needs of those who live on Fort Bliss and in the surrounding communities.
The local community also provides Soldiers and Families with a variety of fun activities. Try hiking and camping in the nearby mountains; shopping at local malls; strolling through museums; cheering at the Sun Bowl games or snow skiing in nearby Ruidoso, New Mexico.
There is so much more to Fort Bliss than space here allows, so explore our website, as well as our Facebook page for the information that you are looking for. Fort Bliss is where you want to be; it is a great place to work and live.