U.S. Army Yuma Test Center (YTC) Commander Lt. Col. Kevin Hicks served as keynote speaker at the 28th annual Camp Bouse Commemoration Ceremony in the La Paz County town of Bouse on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025.

The modern-day mission of YPG has a direct lineage with the Soldiers of the World War II-era ‘Greatest Generation’ who in the 1940s tested the Canal Defense Light, a 13 million candlepower arc searchlight mounted in the turret of an M3 tank at Camp Bouse. The system was never fielded, but at the time the project constituted the second-most secret Army program after the Manhattan Project.

YPG is the last active Army installation within the World War II-era California-Arizona Desert Maneuver Area, of which Camp Bouse was a part.

“I’m proud that the work done at Yuma Test Center today is at the forefront of current Army transformation efforts,” said Hicks. “For as long as the United States has a military, the Soldiers and civilians of Yuma Test Center will ensure that those who put themselves in harm’s way do so with equipment that works exactly as it is supposed to and is superior to that of our nation’s adversaries.”