With demand for Special Forces Soldiers at an all-time high, Joint Base Lewis-McChord's 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) officially welcomed a fourth battalion during a ceremony Aug. 26 at the unit's headquarters building.

The additional battalion and its 400 to 500 troops come as part of a 2006 plan set in motion by military officials at the Pentagon to increase the ranks of Special Forces Soldiers by 15 percent. JBLM's 1st SFG (A) is one of five SF groups to add a fourth battalion.

The 4th Battalion is already in motion, with deployed forces in the Philippines and Thailand and others training with partner nation forces in Hawaii.

"The global demand for Special Forces is so great that we don't have the luxury of isolating this battalion and letting them train (together) and then moving them downrange," said Col. Brian Vines, deputy commander of 1st SFG (A). "We call it ‘building an airplane while in flight.'"

In addition to creating more career opportunities for troops in the SF ranks, the additional battalion will help take some of the strain off current Soldiers and their families by creating more dwell time at home between deployments.

"If everything remains constant, and there is no increased demand upon us, then we think it should give us about 33 percent more dwell time at home of our teams," Vines said. "Right now the ratio of deployments to being home is about one year deployed and they're home for about six months before they're deployed again. That's one of the highest op tempos in the military."

The 4th Battalion has an opportunity to set great standards coming in that will guide future Soldiers, said Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Steven Warman.

"It's not too often you get the chance to really set the baseline for an element coming in," Warman said. "The guys that I've got here are the ones that are able to set the future. They're able to establish all the standard operating procedures. The things that we do here in the next year are going to set ourselves up for success in the future."

After the activation ceremony, the group also dedicated several buildings in the complex to the memory of fallen SF Soldiers.

The Group Support Battalion (GSB) compound was dedicated in memory of Sgt. Maj. Bradly Conner, who died May 9, 2007 from fatal wounds sustained when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device outside of Al-Hillah, Iraq.

The 41-year-old Conner, a Tacoma native, was a Special Forces company sergeant major assigned to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st SFG (A). It was Conner's fourth deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.