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New military-only resort opens on Virginia coast

The military is adding Virginia’s oceanfront to destinations like Hawaii and Florida where service members and their families can get some affordable rest and relaxation.

The Armed Forces Recreation Center in Virginia Beach joins other locations in Orlando, Fla., Germany, Hawaii and Korea that have been getaway destinations for military families and Defense Department civilians since 1946.

The Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command assumed responsibility of a 93-room set of cabins and bungalows at Fort Story in April, but plans to expand the property over the next two years with additional rooms and conference facilities. Just feet from the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay, the Virginia Beach resort called Cape Henry Inn has been open for about 12 years under local management.

“The reason for operating these places was for rest and recuperation for war-weary soldiers and that really continues to be the focus today,” said Rich Gorman, chief operating officer for the command. “We have to do things necessary to recruit and retain a high quality all-volunteer force who deserve the same quality of life that they are pledged to defend with their very lives.”

Each year, about 750,000 people visit the resorts, maintaining a collective occupancy rate of 94 percent and serving up 3.2 million meals, officials said. The resorts are open to active-duty and retired military, current and retired Department of Defense civilians, reservists, delayed-entry recruits and family members.

And like any other commercial resort, these military-only destinations are more than just a room to sleep and food from a mess hall. Each of the resorts features gourmet restaurants, guest services, pool and fitness centers, and other organized activities.

“These are places that have the look and feel of resorts as opposed to motels we might have on all of our installations for official travelers and a little bit of recreational lodging that we have here and there,” Gorman said.

Prices range from $59 to $273 per night based on the resort, rank, pay grade, duty status, room size and location. Special discounts also are available for those coming back from deployment or on leave.

But Gorman said what makes the resorts unique is that they are operated with self-generated funds and only about 3 percent of taxpayer money.

Adding the new resort is part of the adaptation to an “increasingly continental United States based” military that is bringing back significant numbers of soldiers from Germany and Korea, Gorman said.

The first resorts were opened in Germany in December 1945 using what Gorman said was a “very unique method” of negotiation — the tip of an M-1 rifle. Forces mostly from the 101st Airborne confiscated hotels that were then used for military R&R.

In 1995, the privately owned hotels were returned. A new facility in the Bavarian Alps called the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort opened in 2004.

The program’s other resorts include the Hale Koa Hotel, which was built in Honolulu in 1975; Orlando’s Shades of Green, which opened in the mid-1990s; and Dragon Hill Lodge in Seoul, South Korea.

— The Associated Press