FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (May 12, 2011) - On May 18, 2010 the Battle Command Training Program lost Colonel John McHugh, then the Chief of Operations Group Alpha, to a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. This month, the newly renamed Mission Command Training Program has changed the designation of one of its key facilities to honor one of its own.
Townsend Hall, home of the former Battle Seminar Facility, will now serve as the host to the Col. John M. McHugh Training Center. The training center is a first-class instruction facility, utilizing the latest information technology to conduct conferences and seminars in support of MCTP exercises. It has also been utilized when needed for public events such as the 2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance. It was a building familiar to McHugh before his departure for Afghanistan.
The hall itself is named after Edwin Franklin Townsend, a U.S. Army officer who joined in 1854. He was assigned to the western frontier where he explored newly acquired territory. Later he served during the Civil War, gaining recognition for his courage through brevet promotions. In 1890 he became the commandant of the School of Application for Cavalry and Infantry, the predecessor of the Command and General Staff College.
Like Townsend, McHugh was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. In 1986, he was commissioned into the Aviation Branch and was soon flying UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. He flew in Operation Desert Storm with a cavalry squadron and would later command several units and serve as a trainer in others, including the National Training Center and BCTP. Before being assigned to BCTP a second time he was deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Following his graduation from the U.S. Army War College, McHugh became the chief of Operations Group Alpha. As part of his duties he went to Afghanistan in 2010 to assess training needs in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. While traveling in a convoy on May 18, 2010, he was killed in Kabul when a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. The explosion was indiscriminate, killing several Afghan civilians and a Canadian officer in addition to the U.S. casualties.
McHugh became one of the most senior-ranking U.S. officers to die in Operation Enduring Freedom and the only member of BCTP to die in combat.
Fort Leavenworth has commemorated many of the U.S. Army's heroes since its establishment - great explorers like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, determined generals such as Ulysses S. Grant, military educators such as James Franklin Bell and two-time Medal of Honor recipient Thomas Custer. Now another great officer has been recognized for his role as a trainer of senior officers.
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