Weed Army Community Hospital

Our Story

On January 27, 1967, the ground breaking ceremony for W**d Army Hospital was held and the facility was dedicated by the Army Surgeon General LTG Leonard D. Heaton on April 24th, 1968. The need for a hospital was identified following the establishment of the United States Army Armor and Desert Training Center as Camp Irwin became Fort Irwin. The facility was dedicated in honor of BG Frank Watkins W**d (1881-1945), a Medical Officer and Surgeon that distinguished himself thru service in WWI and WWII. With overseas tours in France, China and the Philippines, he was be recognized for his advances in hygiene and sanitation within detention facilities, the medical evacuation of over 100,000 American wounded in France, and his authoring and editing “The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War”, a 16 volume history of Army Medicine.

The 34-bed W**d Army Hospital was completed was originally built at a cost of $2 million dollars and served a population of 1,000 personnel, it contained the most modern equipment available, to include televisions, radio, staff paging and public address system. The hospital remained in operation for two years until it was mothballed due to the deactivation of Fort Irwin in December 1970.

On October 26, 1980, after taking two years to become fully functional, the now 24 bed hospital was reactivated and became the W**d Army Community Hospital (WACH). At that time, WACH took care of 7, 000 beneficiaries with an estimated 3,000 Soldiers rotating thru the National Training Center for two weeks at a time.

Between 1980 and 2006 the hospital experienced multiple changes, enabling the medical teams to consistently meet the demands of the community. Separate from the hospital but vital to the healthcare mission on Fort Irwin, the Mary E. Walker Center was built in the mid 90s and began seeing primary care patients in 1997.

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