The United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) is a specialized major command within the United States Army. The command was established in 1997. The SMDC is an organization composed of several components:
- SMDC Headquarters and the Force Development Integration Center in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama
- 1st Space Brigade, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado – consists of 1st Space Battalion, 117th Space Battalion (Colorado Army National Guard) and 53rd Signal Battalion (SATCOM)
- 100th Missile Defense Brigade (GMD), Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado
- 49th Missile Defense Battalion, Alaska Army National Guard, Fort Greely, Alaska
- U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command / U.S. Army Strategic Command (Forward) located in Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Space and Missile Defense Technical Center (SMDTC)
- Space and Missile Defense Battle Lab (SMDBL)
- Space and Missile Defense Acquisition Center (SMDAC) based in Huntsville, Alabama; the SMDAC comprises:
- High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF), at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
- U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll/Reagan Test Site (USAKA/RTS), in the Republic of the Marshall Islands
- Army Space Program Office (ASPO) in Alexandria, Virginia
- Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensors Project Office (JLENS) based in Huntsville, Alabama
- Ballistic Missile Targets Joint Project Office (BMTJPO) based in Huntsville, Alabama
The current commander is Lieutenant General Richard P. Formica., with Senior Enlisted Advisor Command Sergeant Major Larry S. Turner.
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“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“We can beat all Europe with United States soldiers. Give me a thousand Tennesseans, and I’ll whip any other thousand men on the globe!”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“It may be said that the elegant Swann’s simplicity was but another, more refined form of vanity and that, like other Israelites, my parents’ old friend could present, one by one, the succession of states through which had passed his race, from the most naive snobbishness to the worst coarseness to the finest politeness.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The army is always the same. The sun and the moon change. The army knows no seasons.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“To play is nothing but the imitative substitution of a pleasurable, superfluous and voluntary action for a serious, necessary, imperative and difficult one. At the cradle of play as well as of artistic activity there stood leisure, tedium entailed by increased spiritual mobility, a horror vacui, the need of letting forms no longer imprisoned move freely, of filling empty time with sequences of notes, empty space with sequences of form.”
—Max J. Friedländer (1867–1958)
“... the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Though a censure lies against those who are poor and proud, yet is Pride sooner to be forgiven in a poor person than in a rich one; since in the latter it is insult and arrogance; in the former, it may be a defense against temptations to dishonesty; and, if manifested on proper occasions, may indicate a natural bravery of mind, which the frowns of fortune cannot depress.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 4:3.
Tempter to Jesus.