FORT WADSWORTH. A United States Army base located in a suburban neighborhood in Staten Island, New York. The fort is just beneath the Verranzano-Narrows Bridge leading to Manhattan. The base was home to The Pit -- G.I. Joe headquarters. Located underneath the Motor Pool of the Chaplain's Assistants School, The Pit's existence was known to very few people Apparently, most of the personnel at Fort Wadsworth was unaware of the Pit's existence, believing that the Joe team members were just motor pool staff. Fort Wadsworth withstood two Cobra attacks on The Pit, the second of which destroyed the Joes' headquarters and revealed the Joes' presence to all personnel. The base's gymnasium served as a temporary base of operations before the Joes moved to a new base in Utah. Years after the Joes left, Fort Wadsworth was one of the many military bases closed down in the past decade. (GI 1, 19, 53, et. al.)

Fort Wadsworth actually exists on Staten Island. According to the series' writer, Larry Hama, it was easy to use the Army base as a reference for the comic book because of its closeness to Marvel's Manhattan offices. It did house the Chaplain's Assistants School for a time, though only up until 1979, three years before G.I. JOE #1 was published.