Yuma Test Center Commander reprises keynote role at Camp Bouse Days ceremony | Article

U.S. Army Yuma Test Center (YTC) Commander Lt. Col. Kevin Hicks served as keynote speaker at the 30th annual Camp Bouse Commemoration Ceremony in the La Paz County town of Bouse on Saturday, Feb. 14.

Hicks returned in the role for the second consecutive year. YTC is the last active Army installation within the World War II-era Arizona Desert Maneuver Area, of which Camp Bouse was a part.

The modern-day mission of YTC has a direct lineage with the Soldiers of the World War II-era ‘Greatest Generation’ who in the 1940s tested the Canal Defense Light, a 13 million candlepower arc searchlight mounted in the turret of an M3 tank at Camp Bouse. The system was never fielded, but at the time the project constituted the second-most secret Army program after the Manhattan Project.

Hicks mentioned that since the establishment of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth last August, YTC was tapped to serve as the effort’s home base for testing and training. The designation means specifically that YTC will primarily focus on Class I and II small unmanned aerial systems (UAS), while larger Class III through V systems will continue to primarily be tested at White Sands Missile Range, U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground’s larger sister installation.

“I’m proud that the work done at Yuma Test Center today is at the forefront of current Army modernization efforts,” he said. “The Secretary of War recently designated Yuma Test Center as the primary, dedicated interagency Counter-small Unmanned Aerial Systems test and training range. It is an effort that I feel is in keeping with the spirit of each generation of Soldiers that has served, from those of ‘The Greatest Generation’ who saved the world during World War II, to all that served in the following decades.”