JOINT BASE-MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST – New leadership has come to the 99th Readiness Division headquarters at the Joint Base following the retirement of outgoing commander Major General Mark W. Palzer of Jackson.
The 99th RD is responsible to more than 51,000 Army Reserve Soldiers in 454 units at 332 reserve-component facilities and 33 maintenance facilities in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia.
Palzer assumed command in 2018. He told Jersey Shore Online.com at the time that it took him “only 20 years in the Army Reserve to make it where I could commute to work.
“My wife says ‘now, I’m going to be home for the snow storms.’ What’s special about Ocean County and the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst community is – we really do feel the support here is extreme, it goes beyond what you see in other areas, to the point of multiple senior elected officials are frequently there at the base checking to see what can they do to help us be better prepared. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst is the second largest employer in the state of New Jersey,” he added.
Palzer said the communities that surround it “help our soldiers be better soldiers; if I know that my soldier has a full-time job, then, I know I can bring him on when I need him…and I can send him back in and now he’s back at his/her job and that’s what helps keeps us (Army Reserve) healthy. Now that soldier has a steady income, he/she can provide for his/her family, he can do a great job, he continues to learn, and I will tell you that they bring as much to the Army as the Army allows them to bring back to their civilian job.”
He cites a significant financial benefit for employers of military communities like Ocean County or Burlington County, in that the military acts as a training resource which translates into their civilian job.
“They get training on the military side, which the community doesn’t have to pay for.” He learned of a small police department who commended the Army Reserve as the department was “able to go and get the necessary training that the town couldn’t afford to pay for, and so the (Army Reserve Soldiers) were coming back in with all the critical training that they needed and sheriff’s deputies that had the training that all the big cities were getting, and it was all because they were able to be in the Army Reserve and it was free, because obviously it’s something we needed and it’s something that they need,” Palzer added.
Major General Scottie D. Carpenter who officiated that change of command ceremony described Palzer as “one of our most senior commanders, and is the head of our transformation team.”
Palzer was responsible for administrative, logistics and facilities support to more than 42,000 U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers across a region spanning the 13 northeastern states. He served as the senior commander of Army Support Activity-Fort Dix and U.S. Army Base Fort Devens Training Facilities and Training Support in Massachusetts.
He said when taking command 2018 that “as our nation faces increasingly more lethal adversaries on the battlefield, readiness of our personnel and our organizations becomes critical.” Palzer is a distinguished military graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
He held many key positions and nearly a dozen commands throughout his 39-year Army career which include commanding the 79th Theater Sustainment Command and serving as the deputy director for Logistics Operations in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C.
Palzer deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2007-2008 and Operation Enduring Freedom from October 2012-2013.
“The most significant accomplishment I’ll ever have is to enable and support others continuing to grow and make the Army better,” Palzer said.
Lieutenant General Jody Daniels, chief of Army Reserve and commanding general, U.S. Army Reserve Command said Palzer “cares deeply about the force, and has taken the added role of coach and mentor to any soldier of any rank who seeks guidance and counsel. I wish I could keep him for another 40 years.”
Major General Rodney Faulk of Michigan took command of the division from Palzer during a ceremony held in the hot sun recently.
Faulk comes to the 99th RD from his most recent assignment as deputy commanding general-support for First Army at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois. He served as the deputy inspector general for Joint Task Force Guantanamo in Cuba, and deployed twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“Readiness – it’s in our name,” Faulk said. He was commissioned through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in 1986. “Together, let’s seek to build readiness for the fight that we hope never comes.
“Get ready for the most challenging and rewarding experience of your life,” Daniels said to Faulk during the ceremony. “Best wishes as you lead the 99th RD.”
The 99th DIV(R) has more than 40,000 active-duty and reserve-component service members, civilian employees and family members who work and reside on the base.
