THE CAMP BLANDING JOINT TRAINING CENTER MUSEUM

Military History of the Sunshine State

- Friedrich Seiltgen

Camp Blanding was constructed on 30,000 acres of pine forest near the city of Starke, Florida, as a Florida National Guard training site. It was first activated in 1939 and, in 1940, as the war threat grew, it was taken over by the federal government. Camp Foster, the previous training site, was located on the St. Johns River and purchased by the U.S. Navy for $400,000 — it’s now part of Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

The camp is named after Lt. Gen Albert Hazen Blanding, a Florida native and commander of the 2nd Florida Infantry during the 1916-17 Pancho Villa Expedition. When World War I broke out, Blanding was called up and served in France with the 185th Infantry Brigade. In 1936, he was appointed Chief of the National Guard Bureau by President Roosevelt until his retirement in 1940.

Currently, Camp Blanding is the primary training site for Florida National Guard units as well as certain non-flying units of the Florida Air National Guard. It’s also home to reserve units, the 111th Aviation Regiment, and the 3-20th Special Forces Group. ROTC cadets as well as State of Florida Emergency Response Teams use the camp for training exercises. Law enforcement from around the state use it for recurrent training as well as hosting advanced, specialized, and basic SWAT schools. The camp is also home to the Combating Transnational Organized Crime Center of Excellence and the Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training schools.

THE MUSEUM