Fort Lewis is a United States Army base located 9.1 miles (14.6 km) south-southwest of Tacoma, Washington.

Fort Lewis's geographic location provides rapid access to the deep-water ports of Tacoma, Olympia, and Seattle for deploying equipment.

Units can be deployed from McChord Field, and individuals and small groups can also use the nearby Sea-Tac Airport.

The strategic location of the base provides Air Force units with the ability to conduct combat and humanitarian airlifts with the C-17 Globemaster III.

[2] The Joint Base Garrison operates the installation on behalf of the warfighting units, families, and extended military community who depend on JBLM for support.

[2] With an Army joint base commander and an Air Force deputy joint base commander, the garrison supports the installation through directorates and agencies that provide a full range of city services and quality-of-life functions, everything from facility maintenance, recreation, and family programs to training support and emergency services.

JBLM Main & North have abundant, high-quality, close-in training areas, including 115 live fire ranges.

Fort Lewis was originally established in 1917 with the passage of a Pierce County bond measure to purchase 70,000 acres (280 km2) of land to donate to the federal government for permanent use as a military installation.

)[4] In 1927, Pierce County passed another bond measure to establish a military airfield just north of Fort Lewis.

Captain David L. Stone and his staff arrived at the camp site on May 26, 1917, and a few days later the initial construction began.

The arch was built of fieldstone and squared logs, resembling the old blockhouses that stood in the northwest as forts.

The following two years saw tremendous activity at Camp Lewis as men mobilized and trained for war service.

From 1942 to 1943, 42 Japanese, German, and Italian Americans were held at Fort Lewis as part of the government's "enemy alien" internment program during World War II.

[6] At the conclusion of World War II, the northwest staging area of Fort Lewis became a separation center and discharged its first soldiers in October 1945.

With the departure of the 4th Infantry Division (United States) for Vietnam in 1966, Fort Lewis once again became a personnel transfer and training center.

David H. Hackworth described his service commanding a training battalion at the Fort during the Vietnam War in his memoir "About Face".

The base received much media attention in the wake of the Kandahar massacre, committed by a Fort Lewis soldier in March 2012.

I Corps stays prepared to deploy on short notice worldwide to command up to five divisions or a joint task force.

[9] On February 5, 2004, Task Force Olympia was activated as a sub-element of I Corps headquarters with the mission to command forward-deployed units in Iraq.

Task Force Olympia included units from all three components of the Army (Active, Reserve, and National Guard) as well as Marine and Australian officers.

Task Force Olympia's subordinate units included the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, which deployed for Iraq on November 8, 2003, and returned to Fort Lewis after one year of combat duty, and the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, which departed Fort Lewis on September 15, 2004, for one year, and returned in September 2005.

JBLM Main & North have abundant, high-quality, close-in training areas, including 115 live fire ranges.

[2] The training center is in the high desert and is covered with sagebrush, volcanic formations, dry gulches, and large rock outcroppings.

YTC has vast flat valleys separated by intervening ridges that are suited to large-scale mechanized or motorized forces.

Military organizations in the Pacific Northwest used the center for range firing and small unit tests.

[2] Gray Army Airfield (IATA: GRF, ICAO: KGRF) is a military airport located within Fort Lewis.

[10] Helicopters based at the airfield assisted with medical evacuations at Mount Rainier National Park on numerous occasions in the 1970s.

Army helicopters were also used to insert search-and-rescue [SAR] teams into inaccessible areas on the east, north, and west sides of the mountain, lowering rangers to the ground by a cable device known as a "jungle penetrator".

Fort Lewis' terrain is primarily a mixture of dense conifer woods and open Puget prairie-garry oak woodlands.

Fort Lewis, due to its size and reserved land, serves as an important habitat for amphibian development and study.