Fort Jackson has cancelled its popular “Meet Your Neighbors” night, scheduled for April 23, as a result of ongoing budget cuts in the Army.

Fort officials said they did not know whether other outreach programs, such as the Fourth of July fireworks display and celebration, would go on. The fort will continue to plan those events until told by commanders to cancel them.

“Things change day to day,” Fort spokesman Mike Pond said.

The cuts are due both to cuts already made to the military, and cuts that might result from automatic budget reductions from “sequestration.”

The annual Meet Your Neighbors night was a tour of the fort, including visitors with night vision equipment watching soldiers crawl under live machine gun fire, an exercise called “night infiltration.”

The exercise will continue as part of the soldiers’ training, Pond said, but the invitation to civilians has been cancelled.

-- Jeff Wilkinson