Louisiana Military Bases

Louisiana is known for southern hospitality and the famous Mardi Gras celebration. Louisiana is also an important state for our national defense. Below are the military bases in Louisiana and their locations.

 

Map of Military Bases in Louisiana

Camp Beauregard

The Louisiana National Guard uses Camp Beauregard as its primary training platform for annual and pre-mobilization trainings. The camp also supports Department of Defense and LANG training. It’s even a staging area for personnel involved in emergency response during State and Federal Emergencies. The base is located in Pineville and is very near two other Louisiana National Guard posts. The hot, muggy weather and deforested area became the ideal location to train troops for war efforts in East-Asia during WWII. In fact, Camp Beauregard played a part in the Louisiana Maneuvers, which were exercises meant to prepare troops for WWII battles.

 

Fort Polk

This U.S. Army installation was established in 1941 and is located in Vernon Parish. It primarily serves as a training post for the Joint Readiness Training Center. This base encompases around 198,000 acres of land, 100,000 of which are owned by the Army and 98,000 of which are owned by the U.S. Forest Service. Fort Polk trains and deploys combat units—the only Combat Training Center to do so. In the 1940s, Fort Polk took part in the Louisiana Maneuvers and during the Vietnam war became a basic training post. Over the remaining decades, it has hosted a variety of divisions, regiments, and brigades.

Interestingly, Fort Polk is also home to two hospitals: the U.S. Army Garrison and Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital and the 115th Combat Support Hospital. This Combat Support Hospital is a deployable unit that has essentially been in operation since WWI and goes precisely where its medical expertise is needed. When it isn’t deployed, the hospital trains at Fort Polk.

 

Barksdale Air Force Base

The Barksdale AFB is hosted by the 2d Bomb Wing, which is the oldest in the Air Force. It’s equipped with about 44 B-52H Stratofortress bombers, and it provides combat capability that is flexible and responsive. Barksdale employs over 15,000 active-duty members, reservists, and civilians and sits on just 225 acres of land.

Barksdale has been home to dozens of military units over the course of its life and often served as the training and staging area that would then send troops off to the frontlines during wartime. During WWII, it even hosted Nationalist Chinese Aircrews and a contingent of the Free French Air Forces. The base also played a crucial role in Operation Just Cause, Operation Desert Shield, and Operation Desert Storm. During the Persian Gulf War, planes from Barksdale contributed to around 10 percent of all bombs dropped by the U.S. Air Force.

 

New Orleans Joint Reserve Base

It took about three years to build this base, (from 1954 to 1957) but since its opening in 1958, it has been in constant use. It’s operated by the U.S. Navy and is located in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. Alvin Callender Field military airport is located here just a few miles south of New Orleans. This joint reserve base also supports the missions for search and rescue, port security, and law enforcement for the Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans as well as the homeland defense and air sovereignty requirements for the 159 FW’s NORAD.

 

Coast Guard Stations

The Grand Isle Coast Guard Station is located about two and a half hours away from New Orleans. It is the only Louisiana barrier island that is inhabited, and this station is one of three small boat priority stations within the Coast Guard.