Military & Veteran Resources
The Kansas City region's military footprint includes Fort Leavenworth, the second-oldest active U.S. Army post west of Washington, D.C., on the Kansas side, and Whiteman Air Force Base, sole home of the nation's entire B-2 Spirit stealth bomber fleet, roughly 70 miles southeast of downtown Kansas City on the Missouri side.
Fort Leavenworth
Established in 1827, Fort Leavenworth is the second-oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C., and the oldest continuously occupied settlement in Kansas. Long known as the Army's 'Intellectual Center,' it hosts the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, whose graduates include Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Bradley; a 213-acre core of the post was declared a National Historic Landmark District. The installation also contains the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, the Department of Defense's only maximum-security military prison.
Kansas City VA Medical Center
The Kansas City VA Medical Center established the first VICTORS low-vision rehabilitation program in the United States in 1979, a model for helping veterans cope with vision loss that was later replicated at VA facilities nationwide.
Leavenworth National Cemetery
Established in 1886 and folded into the national cemetery system in 1930, Leavenworth National Cemetery is the resting place of eight Medal of Honor recipients, five of them Civil War veterans. Its grounds were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 as part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medical Center Historic District.
Whiteman Air Force Base
Roughly 70 miles southeast of downtown Kansas City, Whiteman Air Force Base is the only operational home of the U.S. Air Force's entire fleet of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. The 509th Bomb Wing based there became the nation's first operational B-2 unit in 1988 and received its first aircraft in 1993.