The young men of the Choctaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America may or may not know just how hallowed the ground is in which they now sleep, eat and conduct their scouting activities.

    Ever since World War II, soldiers of the United States have trained on the 60,000 acres of Caroline County, Virginia situated between the Potomac River and upper Chesapeake Bay. On June 1, 1941, the U.S. War Department established the base, named after Virginia native and Confederate commander Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill, to be used as a maneuver area for the II Army Corps and for three activated National Guard divisions from Mid-Atlantic states. The base was the staging area for the headquarters and corps troops of Maj. Gen. George S. Patton’s Task Force A, which invaded French Morocco in North Africa in 1942 during Operation Torch.

    Officials at Fort A.P. Hill have been preparing for this Boy Scout event since the last jamboree, which was held in 2005. Hank Hanrahan, directorate of plans, training, mobilization and security, was in charge of heading the jamboree support operations at the installation. In the years leading up to this event, which is especially big considering this is the 100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America, Hanrahan said the base had to juggle the tens of thousands of scouts, visitors and support personnel with the military units training nearby.

    “This is the first time the base has not shut down training to support the jamboree,” Hanrahan said.

    It has been a monumental task considering about 45,000 scouts, 8,000 members of the support staff and 2,200 military personnel will be on the base during the 10-day period. That is not counting the thousands of military personnel who are conducting training operations. Hanrahan said this undertaking has been closely related to building an entire city complete with food, shelter, communications, public transportation, latrine/shower facilities, trash collection, security and medical facilities. The community also boasts a bank, post office, radio station and newspaper, Hanrahan said.

    The installation has also hosted the Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree in 1981, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001 and 2005.

    Rising from colonel to major general in three months, Hill took command of one of Gen Robert E. Lee’s three corps in 1863. Two years later, as Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s forces laid siege to Petersburg, Va., Hill was mortally wounded as he rode his stallion, Champ, to the front. He had not yet reached his 40th birthday.

    One week later, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. A fortnight later, John Wilkes Booth was killed at the Garrett farmhouse, which was situated just beyond the present boundaries of the fort.