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Fort Dix, the common name for the Army Support Activity (ASA) located at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, is a United States Army post. It is located 16.1 miles south-southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. Fort Dix is under the jurisdiction of the Air Force Air Mobility Command. As of the 2010 United States Census, Fort Dix census-designated place (CDP) had a total population of 7,716, of which 5,951 were in New Hanover Township, 1,765 were in Pemberton Township and none were in Springfield Township (though portions of the CDP are included there).
Established in 1917, Fort Dix was in 2009 combined with adjoining U.S. Air Force and Navy facilities to become Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL) in 2009. However, it remains commonly known as "Fort Dix", "ASA Dix", or "Dix".
Fort Dix was established on 16 July 1917, as Camp Dix, named in honor of Major General John Adams Dix, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the American Civil War, and a former U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and Governor of New York. Camp Dix was home to the 153rd Depot Brigade. The role of World War I depot brigades was to receive recruits and draftees, then organize them and provide them with uniforms, equipment, and initial military training. Depot brigades also received soldiers returning home at the end of the war and carried out their mustering out and discharges.
Dix has a history of mobilizing, training, and demobilizing soldiers from as early as World War I through April 2015, when Fort Bliss and Fort Hood in Texas assumed full responsibility for that mission. In 1978, the first female recruits entered basic training at Fort Dix. In 1991, Dix trained Kuwaiti civilians in basic military skills so they could take part in their country's liberation.
Dix ended its active U.S. Army training mission in 1991 due to Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommendations, which ended its command by a two-star general. Presently, it serves as a joint training site for all military components and all services.
In 2009, Fort Dix and the adjacent Air Force and Naval facilities were consolidated into a single secure facility, called Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. The supporting component is the U.S. Air Force, and base operations are executed by the 87th Air Base Wing, which provides installation management to all of the joint base while both the Navy and Army retain command and control of their missions, personnel, equipment, and component-specific services. Neither the Navy nor the Army base is subordinate to the Joint Base; each is simply supported by the joint base in base operations such as utilities, child-care centers, gyms, and other services, but each one reports through its own service-specific command chain and has its own commander (the Navy a captain and the Army a colonel). The commanders of both Fort Dix and Lakehurst serve also as deputy joint base commanders.
During 2015 to 2016, Colonel Shelley Balderson was commander, making her the first female commander of Fort Dix in the base's century-long history.