[12] Established in 1917, Fort Dix was in 2009 combined with adjoining U.S. Air Force and Navy facilities to become Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL) in 2009.

The role of World War I depot brigades was to receive recruits and draftees, then organize them and provide them with uniforms, equipment, and initial military training.

Depot brigades also received soldiers returning home at the end of the war and carried out their mustering out and discharges.

In 1991, Dix trained Kuwaiti civilians in basic military skills so they could take part in their country's liberation.

Between the World Wars, Camp Dix was a reception, training, and discharge center for the Civilian Conservation Corps.

154 Soviet citizens who had been captured in German uniform were brought from Camp Ruston in Louisiana to Fort Dix in preparation for their return.

As part of the Department of Homeland Security, the AST is responsible for responding to oil-pollution and hazardous-materials release incidents to protect public health and the environment.

[20] Knowing that Fort Dix was on a base closure list, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) attempted to save the U.S. Army post during 1987.

The USAF moved the Security Police (SP) Air Base Ground Defense school from Camp Bullis, Texas, to Dix in fall 1987.

Putting 50–100 SP trainees on a commercial flight from San Antonio, Texas, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, every few weeks was eventually realized to be not cost effective, so the school was later moved back to Camp Bullis.

As many as 15,000 troops train there on weekends, and the post has been a major mobilization point for reserve and National Guard troops since the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. Fort Dix has completed its realignment from an individual training center to a FORSCOM Power Projection Platform for the Northeastern United States under the command and control of the Army's Installation Management Command.

Primary missions include training and providing regional base operations support to on-post and off-post active component and U.S. Army Reserve units, soldiers, families, and retirees.

The prisoners called it a rebellion and cited grievances including "unsanitary conditions", overcrowding, starvation, beatings, being chained to chairs, forced confessions and participation in an unjust war.

The antiwar movement, which had been increasingly recognizing and supporting resistance to the war within the military, quickly moved to defend the rebels/rioters and those the Army singled out for punishment.

Soon the slogan "Free the Fort Dix 38" was heard in antiwar speeches, written about in underground newspapers and leaflets, and demonstrations were planned.

[28][29] Of the five singled out for general courts-martial, one was acquitted completely while four were discharged with varying sentences including hard labor.

[26][30] In 1957, during their leisure hours, Specialist 4 Steven Goodman, assisted by PFC Stuart Scherr, made a small clay model of a charging infantryman.

Their tabletop model was spotted by a public-relations officer, who brought it to the attention of Deputy Post Commander Bruce Clarke, who suggested the construction of a larger statue to serve as a symbol of Fort Dix.

[31] Goodman and Scherr, who had studied industrial arts together in New York City and were classified by the Army as illustrators, undertook the project under the management of Sergeant Major Bill Wright.

Operating on a limited budget, and using old railroad track, Bondo, and other available items, they created a 12-foot figure of a charging infantryman in full battle dress,[31] representing no particular race or ethnicity.

Under the auspices of Goodman and the Fort Dix chapter of the Association of the United States Army, the statue was recast in bronze and its concrete base was replaced by black granite.

[43] Fort Dix is the home base setting in Cinemaware's 1988 C64 and Nintendo video game Rocket Ranger; the game is based on an alternate World War II scenario, wherein the Nazis discover lunarium, which could allow them to win the war unless a young American scientist stops them.