Oklahoma!

I shook my head when I heard that we would take a month to deploy Patriot air defense missiles to Turkey along with our NATO allies Germany and the Netherlands. I wondered if we were taking so long to avoid making our allies look bad, since there is no way that we couldn't move units to Turkey from Germany in way less time than that.

But my assumption was wrong. I assumed we'd use Europe-based Patriot units, which we possess. We sent them from the heart of the continental United States:

The Stuttgart, Germany-based U.S. European Command said in a statement that U.S. personnel and equipment had started arriving at Turkey's southern Incirlik Air Base. Some 400 personnel and equipment from the U.S. military's Fort Sill, Oklahoma-based 3rd Battalion were to be airlifted to Turkey over the coming days, while additional equipment was expected to reach Turkey by sea later in January, the Command said.

Huh. Equipment coming by sea certainly explains the time frame.

Why Oklahoma? Yes, our Air Defense Artillery school is there, but why not use units in NATO territory already? Are we practicing being expeditionary from the continental United States? Do we want to keep our Europe-based units intact in case more are needed fast? Is this a way to make it obvious we don't want to deploy faster than our allies?

So Oklahoma it is.

I guess we figure if you can make it from there, you can make it from anywhere.