Does anybody know anything about the recent round of U.S. military base closings?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

anyhow everyone round here saw that coming, georgia's gotten off ridiculously easy in previous rounds of closings thanks to superpowerful congressman, we got nobodies in dc now so i'm surprised we didn't get hit worse, good timing i supposed. i do wonder what they're going to do with that land, the part of town the school's in is gorgeous i'd hate to see it get filled in with sprawl. i'm gonna have to get a new bank, which is very annoying.

California, for those who care:

Armed Forces Reserve Center Bell

Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Oakland

Defense Finance and Accounting Service, San Bernardino

Defense Finance and Accounting Service, San Diego

Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Seaside

Naval Support Activity Corona

Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, Detachment Concord

Navy-Marine Corps Reserve Center, Encino

Navy-Marine Corps Reserve Center, Los Angeles

Onizuka Air Force Station

Riverbank Army Ammunition Plant

I have nothing to say about any of these.

What has REALLY made me angry, though, is the decision by BRAC to turn Wilford Hall Medical Center into an ambulatory care-only site, totally shutting down its Level 1 Trauma Center operations. I'm, like, DUDE, that's the only way people in the southern half of the S.A. metropolitain area (as well as people from parts south of that) are able to receive Level 1 care! If the BRAC people do this, they will endanger countless lives, forced to travel way the hell and gone to a Level 1 center on the completely opposite end of town. Plus, the indigent care Wilford Hall provides is REALLY helping out our local tax base from feeling the strain of additional people who rely on that service. If Wilford Hall gets massively scaled-back, I hope to God all those accident victims who would've ended up there who have to go all the way to Brooke Army or University Hospital end up suing the asses off every single one of the people in the committee, for undue pain and suffering and a lack of an ability to get treated in the prompt manner they are SUPPOSED to get treated.

Also: I'm incredibly surprised Lackland got on the list for "streamlining". Incredibly. Because, as Tombot knows, Lackland is THE place to go to if you're doing basic training in the AF. I would've thought that that position, as the "Gateway To The AF", would've made it untouchable. I hope hope hope nothing is done to it. (An aside -- Mom started off her civil service career there! She spent, like, five years there, and learned all about military inspections and the "white glove test" while she was there.)

Oh, and I know of a really good way for the military to save bigtime on funds -- just get out of Iraq (I can't believe I'm saying this), then bomb the hell out of that place. Bomb it off the map. Because, according to what I hear day in and day out about soldier after soldier being killed "by insurgents", apparently these people don't want any help. So bye bye, sayonara, farewell. BLAM BLAM BLAM, in blasts that would make what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like child's play. No more Iraq.

Anyway, Brooks needs to be kept open and Lackland needs to be kept at approximately the same level of operation as it is right now, so that the syndrome of decay can start to be tackled and dealt with. That way, the onus of having to carry the vast bulk of the tax burden for local services won't be as strong on the people on the northern part of the city as it is, and maybe we won't have to grow as rapidly outward as we feel the need to right now, and maybe the next generation of locals won't return to the first homes they ever lived in when they're in their twenties and wonder what the hell happened to the neighborhood they used to adore.

ah, my dear Dee, you still have much to learn...

"They've tak'n urr juuurbs"

Base closings could add 760 jobs to Washington state

By Al3x Fry3r

Seattle Times staff reporter

There are two reasons Washington is one of 20 states to gain military jobs in the latest round of base closures proposed by the Pentagon yesterday.

One is location, which makes it easier to launch strikes to potential hot spots in Asia, lawmakers from the state said.

The other is the $2.2 billion lawmakers steered to local bases over two decades.

But while the state's political leaders took a victory lap yesterday to celebrate the possible addition of 760 defense jobs, representatives in other parts of the country vowed to fight the proposed changes.

Yesterday, the Pentagon said it wants to shutter five reserve centers in Washington state, including historic Fort Lawton in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood.

Fort Lewis, south of Tacoma, the largest Army base on the West Coast, will be merged with nearby McChord Air Force Base and renamed Joint Base Lewis-McChord under the command of an Army general. The realignment is expected to cost 567 military and civilian jobs.

Naval Station Everett, homeport of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, withstood a concerted lobbying effort by Hawaiian political and business leaders to bring a carrier to Pearl Harbor. Everett was one of the bases that could have lost that carrier.

By far the biggest winner in the state is the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, which would gain 1,401 civilian jobs, mostly in submarine maintenance.

The Pentagon said it wanted to close one of the nation's four shipyards and selected Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. More than 4,510 jobs will disappear there.

Defense planners noted Portsmouth had "low military value."

Some shipyard workers there would be offered transfers to Bremerton. But Bremerton officials said that even if no jobs go to locals, the heftier military payroll would have a positive impact on the city's real-estate development and local businesses.

"This will be a big boost to our economy," said Daren Nygren, president of the Bremerton City Council.

News of the potential closure at Portsmouth hit New England hard.

The New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper in Manchester referred to yesterday as "Black Friday."

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch told the newspaper he spoke with Maine officials after the announcement.

"Make no mistake," Lynch said. "We are united in our determination to fight to keep the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard open."

That kind of language stood in sharp contrast to the happy talk from Washington state lawmakers.

"We've put a lot of miles into ensuring [the base remains open]," Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson said. "We understand the value of the base, and we clearly communicated that message."

Washington's congressional delegation and local officials traveled to the Pentagon in recent months to tout Naval Station Everett and other bases.

With more than 6,700 workers, Naval Station Everett is the second-largest employer in Snohomish County, contributing more than $431 million to the county's economy. Many families linked to the base live in Everett, Marysville and surrounding areas.

There may be some changes by the time commissioners refer the list to the White House, but Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, said yesterday's announcement should give Washingtonians confidence about the military's long-term plans.

Dicks, a defense expert first elected in 1976, said the geopolitical importance of Asia was key.

"In my discussions with the top people [at the Pentagon], all they talk about is the Pacific, Pacific, Pacific," Dicks said. "They are worried about North Korea and an emerging China."

Dicks, a member of the military-construction-spending subcommittee, has a long history of advocating for Washington bases.

In the past two decades, billions of dollars were spent on new hangars and runways at McChord Air Force Base, equipment at Fort Lewis and retrofitting Trident submarines with conventional instead of nuclear warheads at Naval Submarine Base Bangor.

In last year's spending bill, for example, Dicks helped secure $34 million for bachelor enlisted quarters at Everett and $35 million for a new storage complex at Bangor.

As for a possible confrontation with Maine and New Hampshire over the fate of 1,400 shipyard jobs, Sen. Maria Cantwell's spokeswoman Charla Neuman said the hot rhetoric was part of the process. "Talk like that is only to be expected," she said. "If roles were reversed, we'd be saying the same thing. We'll see how successful they are, but our biggest concern is making sure our bases stay off the list."

Half of me: "um.... yay?"
Other half of me: "um.... shit?"

While I disagree with you know, the whole "bomb and kill everyone in Iraq" thing, yeah, this is pretty damn stupid. What are they gonna do on Mondays, for godsakes? Triage is gonna be a nightmare.

This part of that Seattle Times article is alarming, because it's the first time I've heard about the U.S. actually indirectly commenting about North Korea being a threat. It always seemed the U.S. just backhandedly laughed at North Korea going "Oh, those wacky starving Stalinists? A threat? Bah! I mean they're an axis of evil and all. But they're not something to really worry about.. we think."

The subtle mention of a threat from "an emerging China" was more interesting, though. I don't know where to begin.

what? we have 38,000 troops in South Korea but we didn't consider them a threat?

china is a threat because we have vowed to defend taiwan and because their natural rivalry with japan for influence in the region. wasn't aware that this is all news. china's window is limited, it is soon going to have developed world problems due to it's aging population but won't have the resources or infrastructure to deal with them.

as for military bases, denver was hit hard the last time but now Lowry is one of the poshest areas of town. colorado actually gains jobs in this round.

Navy Reserve Center, St. Petersburg

I didn't think they would close much of anything down here. We're loaded with bases and I'm sure we always will be. They've been remodelling Tyndall (near Panama City) and the only base that really seemed to worry about whether it might close or not was Mayport NAS in Jacksonville. They've already got the larger Jacksonville NAS inland on the St. Johns River but Mayport's pretty strategic since it's at the mouth of the St. Johns and so I can't imagine it closing. They did close Cecil Field on the west side of the city years ago, though.

I guess though that the people who hate me will have to put up with me a bit longer, though, because the people who like me might not want me to leave.

yeah, also Ellsworth is a superfund site (i believe). perhaps all those base-related jobs can now be base-cleanup-related jobs? *groan*

I could be mistaken, but I assumed having troops there was more for the purpose of defending South Korea's soil than defending our own soil. An attack on either one would be bad (especially given that Seoul is just an hour south of the border) obviously... and having troops there would help either case, true. But I was addressing the concern about North Korea only being a threat to our own soil, and that's it -- no other soil. I should have been more clear.

Like, when news of a possible missile hitting the west coast came up a couple of years ago, it was as if the Bush administration was just poo-pooing the idea of it happening because, you know, IRAQ war was just gearing up, and they were obviously more dangerous to us then. (They did eventually send people over to North Korea much later afterwards, and KJ2 shut up for a little while, from what I recall.. but talk about a delayed reaction, as perceived from a joe-shmoe like me)

They're moving the capital to a new locale. Not immediately, of course:

South Korea is following Brazil’s example by planning to build itself a new capital city. The government announced on 11 August 2004, that it had chosen a site of some 7,130 hectares in the Yeongi-Gongju region, 150 kilometres south-east of Seoul. A government spokesman told City Mayors that construction would start in 2007 and that by 2012 the first government departments would be operating in the new city. The final replacement of Seoul as the South Korea’s seat of parliament and government is not expected before 2020.

well, that too, but i meant it's not bizarre that the White House would want to try to punish him, given his off-the-reservation tendencies. yes, he's a definite partisan with a fair amount of ideological kinship, but Lott a) is not a fundie, b) has no love for these people after what they did to him, c) is a little too willing to speak out of school, and d) just might now fall in the camp that puts the Senate as institution above the GOP as party. this is intended to encourage him to retire, such that Haley Barbour or the voters can install a more compliant tool. I don't suppose Gene Taylor would want to try for higher office.

this is all political, as is true of almost everything the Bush administration does as a matter of policy. they can afford cuts in San Antonio, because there's a big enough GOP cushion in TX that they can fuck all they want with the swing areas. not like Virginia, home of a supposed 2008 contender.

i'd find the combination of their tribute to "the troops" and their closing of Walter Reed (and other major metro VA hospitals around the country) sickening if it weren't so unsurprising. if they want to live in a pure political state, they should get the hell out of America and move to North Korea.

though the CT closings probably have more to do with the simple fact that it is a blue state.

well, ok, neither are most Republicans. he just has less interest in playing one on tv.