Approximately 1,050 additional soldiers are projected to come to Hawai'i over the next five years as part of an Army plan to "grow the force" by 74,200 troops.

The expansion — largely expected to be carried out over the next three years — was unveiled yesterday and includes adding six new brigade combat teams and eight support units around the country.

Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort Carson in Colorado and Fort Stewart in Georgia each are receiving approximately 7,000 more soldiers and their families.

But every Army installation across the country is getting more soldiers — from a few to thousands — as the military moves to relieve the strain on forces stretched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. troops also are being relocated to the Mainland from bases in Germany.

Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokes-man for U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter, said 650 of the 1,054 soldiers expected in Hawai'i would be part of new units that are being formed up here. Another 404 new soldiers would be added to existing units.

About 150 of the new soldiers would be based at Fort Shafter and the remainder would go to Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Army Airfield. The Army had about 18,000 soldiers based on O'ahu in 2006.

New units will include an engineer brigade headquarters, a military police company, a criminal investigation battalion headquarters and an engineer company, Shanks said.

Two units slated for inactivation — a military police brigade headquarters and a truck company — will be kept on active duty.

The Hawai'i increases are slightly less than the 1,438 projected in a recent Army environmental impact statement.

Army officials said one possible explanation for the change in the complicated movement troop plan is that a "maneuver enhancement brigade" of 549 soldiers previously identified to be at Schofield now is tentatively slated to go to Fort Drum in New York.

The planned unit changes are not final and will have to go through environmental reviews. Shanks said future force requirements also may change in Hawai'i and Alaska, which are positioned strategically for rapid deployment into the Pacific.

"As the threat changes, there are going to have to be adjustments to the particular units," Shanks said.

The new Army plan excludes an ongoing environmental study on where to permanently post the 4,000-soldier Stryker bri-gade, with Alaska and Colorado as possible alternative locations to Hawai'i. A final environmental impact statement on the alternatives is due out this month.

More than 1,000 extra soldiers were brought to Schofield Barracks in the past couple of years for the Stryker brigade, which recently deployed to Iraq.

The latest expansion follows other announcements of military growth here.

An environmental assessment in 2006 said there would be a 1,650-soldier increase at Fort Shafter as part of a reorganization to a war-fighting headquarters.

Additionally, a top-ranking Marine commander in the Pacific earlier this year said the Marine contingent on O'ahu could grow by up to 1,000 to a total of 7,500 at Kane'ohe Bay.

The Army worldwide is expected to grow to 547,000 soldiers, and the Marine Corps is being expanded from 180,000 to 202,000 to meet war needs in Iraq and Afghanistan and other global requirements.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Make a difference. Donate to The Advertiser Christmas Fund.