Posted on 08/25/2005 3:38:09 PM PDT by Libloather
Commission makes San Antonio's sweet deal even sweeter
By T.A. BADGER
Associated Press Writer
SAN ANTONIO — Things looked sweet for San Antonio under the Pentagon's proposed base-closure plan. This week's voting made it even sweeter.
While the nine-member Base Closure and Realignment Commission voted Thursday to end the military's presence at Brooks City-Base, it overrode the Defense Department's recommendations by keeping one of Brooks' key medical research missions and some 300 jobs in San Antonio.
That vote came a day after the commission opted to keep the 800-job Cryptologic Systems Group, which services communications equipment for federal intelligence agencies, at Lackland Air Force Base. The Pentagon wanted to ship that program to Pennsylvania.
The city — now home to three Air Force installations and an Army post — stands to have a net gain of roughly 4,200 jobs and as much as $1 billion in new construction. It lost some 10,000 positions in the 1995 decision to close Kelly Air Force Base, then the city's largest employer.
"If you took out the cities getting these big Army divisions that are coming home (from overseas bases), I would guess we are the biggest single-city net gainer in the country," said Joe Krier, president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.
The commission will make its final recommendations to President Bush in early September, and the president then decides whether to accept the list by Sept. 23.
The bulk of the job increases and new construction would be at Fort Sam Houston, envisioned as home to the San Antonio Regional Medical Center — one of two military super-hospitals called for in the realignment. The other would be in Bethesda, Md.
"San Antonio has a long tradition as the home of world-class military medicine, and this decision will strengthen its proud history," said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a San Antonio resident.
The commission voted to convert the aging Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland, the Air Force's largest hospital, into an outpatient clinic, with most of the hospital functions moving across town to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston.
Before Thursday's vote, commissioner Sue Turner, a retired brigadier general who headed the Air Force's nursing service, fondly recalled her connections to Wilford Hall. She was once Wilford's chief nurse and now, as a San Antonio resident, gets her medical care there.
Despite her deep ties to Wilford Hall, Turner said consolidating the hospital with Brooke made sense.
Sue Campbell, a Wilford Hall spokeswoman, agreed on the merits.
"Our leadership is all behind this," Campbell said. "It's a good thing."
Fort Sam Houston would also become the military's medical training center for enlisted personnel in the Army, Navy and Air Force. The plan would concentrate training now done at Sheppard Air Force Base, near Wichita Falls, and Navy installations in Illinois, California and Virginia.
Also going to Fort Sam Houston would be the Directed Energy Bioeffects Division, now at Brooks City-Base. That division studies the effects on humans of lasers, radiation and other energy forms that can be used as weapons.
The directed energy division comprises about 300 jobs.
"But it is very high-technology, very well-paid folks," Krier said. "It's a natural complement to our medical industry and the medical research we've already got and to the military medical stuff, and I think that's why it made sense to them to move it to Fort Sam."
San Antonio tried to keep the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks, but the commission endorsed the Pentagon plan to move it to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
The commission, however, agreed with San Antonio's argument against moving the cryptology personnel from Lackland, particularly in light of the National Security Agency's recently announced plans to set up an intelligence analysis operation in San Antonio.
The NSA had said the presence of the Cryptologic Systems Group was an important factor in its decision to locate in San Antonio.
"Staying intact and in San Antonio will allow the (cryptologic group) to continue its intelligence collection, homeland security, counterterrorism, and cybersecurity missions in support of various military and nonmilitary agencies," said U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio.
Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base is seen in San Antonio, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission agreed to move all inpatient care at Wilford Hall to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, where the Defense Department will establish the San Antonio Regional Military Medical Center. Wilford Hall will be converted into an ambulatory care center. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
What's the name of the senator from San Antonio who was a physics major in college and played an important part in bringing the semiconductor industry there. It's Frank Something, but it's not Madla, because this guy's a Republican.
Or it could house them...
2 Illegal Immigrants Win Arizona Ranch in Court
The New York Times | 8/19/2005 | Andrew Pollack
Ariz., Aug. 18 - Spent shells litter the ground at what is left of the firing range, and camouflage outfits still hang in a storeroom. Just a few months ago, this ranch was known as Camp Thunderbird, the headquarters of a paramilitary group that promised to use force to keep illegal immigrants from sneaking across the border with Mexico.
Now, in a turnabout, the 70-acre property about two miles from the border is being given to two immigrants whom the group caught trying to enter the United States illegally. The land transfer is being made to satisfy judgments in a lawsuit in which the immigrants had said that Casey Nethercott, the owner of the ranch and a former leader of the vigilante group Ranch Rescue, had harmed them.
"Certainly it's poetic justice that these undocumented workers own this land," said Morris S. Dees Jr., co-founder and chief trial counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which represented the immigrants in their lawsuit. Mr. Dees said the loss of the ranch would "send a pretty important message to those who come to the border to use violence."
Used to be called Brooke Army Hospital in my day. I has a miscarriage there :( San Antonio holds lots of memories for us as we began our lives together there at Randolph AFB. Nothing is forever......sadly.
Still is. Never visited Brooks AFB - eh? It's the home of aerospace medicine. JFK stopped there on his way to Dallas. The first chimp launched into space came from Brooks. It used to have one of the only WWI landing strips. I believe Hanger 9 still survives. Check it out - if in the neighborhood...
Lets do it!
HOW?
Yes, Hangar 9 is still there. My son visited during a summer program.
MD, who can look out his office door and see Wilford Hall.
The closing of Kelly AFB was payback for the arrogant and nasty Henry B Gonzales (D). It decimated his base of union support.
Kelly AFB has a nice golf course too.
You also have tons of basic training recruits that can serve as guards. This way they will get guard as well as basic firearm training at the same time.
Night-fire training, except this time not with BB guns.
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