RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – The Nevada Army National Guard hosted their groundbreaking ceremony to begin construction on the Nevada Army National Guard qualification training range.

When completed, the range will become the only department of the army approved qualification range in the state of Nevada.

The project has been in the works for years, and those who have had a hand in it say this has been a long time coming.

“I’ve been working on it for about eight years myself. And there’s a couple of the other individuals that are standing around in the background over here that have been working on it even longer. So, it’s been about 10, 12 years that we’ve been trying to get this thing together,” says Major Jacob Sanford, Deputy G3 with the NV Army National Guard.

The new range will allow Nevada soldiers to meet military marksmanship standards without having to leave the state

Since 2019, the Nevada army guard has sent more than 1,000 soldiers to neighboring states annually for marksmanship qualifying.

Which is an expensive task and keeping this in state will create economic benefits for Nevada.

“So we’re very much looking forward to what we’re gonna be able to do out here and be able to train about 12,000 soldiers a year out here. Economically, it’s gonna be a great boon for the state. We’re gonna be able to embolden the Mineral County and the Hawthorne community out here,” says Sanford.

“They’re working together, training together. It’s only going to just benefit our community of Hawthorne, our service community, our National Guard, but I would say our entire country,” says Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen, who NV Army National Guard personnel say had a major role in getting the funding necessary for this range.

Units spend up to four training days annually and. The four days equated to more than 15 percent of the unit’s allocated training days and significantly impacted on the soldiers’ ability to train on other tasks.

The new $20 million Hawthorne Army Depot Record Fire Range facility will include 16 lanes for rifle training, 15 for pistol, four machine gun lanes (up to M240) and seven buildings. Four full-time U.S. Army, federal employees will maintain operations at the range.

“It’s just one of those things that Nevadans have known, but the fact that other people are figuring it out is like, hey, we can do that out there, let’s do that,” says Congressman Mark Amodei.

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