Posted on 05/14/2006 3:55:05 AM PDT by RWR8189
The U.S. Air Force is surging ahead with plans to revitalize its bases on Guam from which to project power into the skies over the western Pacific and the islands and continent of Asia.
Bombers are already stationed regularly at Andersen Air Force Base on rotation from the United States, as are aerial tankers essential to long range operations. A wing of 48 fighters is on the way. Perhaps most critical will be unmanned surveillance and intelligence aircraft known as Global Hawk that can remain on station for 24 hours at a range of 1200 miles from base.
Reconstruction of runways from which bombing runs were flown over Vietnam 35 years ago has started. A new hanger has been built and more are on the drawing board; they will be typhoon-proof so that aircraft need not be flown out to escape the storms to which Guam is prone.
Housing for air and base crews and support facilities must be built. Altogether, says General Paul Hester, who commands the Pacific Air Forces from its headquarters at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, executing Air Force plans alone will cost "well over $2-billion."
The Marine Corps, under a new U.S.-Japan agreement, will move 8000 Marines including the III Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters and a brigade of combat troops from Okinawa to Guam. The Navy has based three attack submarines at Guam and is planning to send two more but the repair and maintenance facilities must be refurbished.
To support this military buildup, Guam's electrical grid, its roads, and water and sewage systems need to be refurbished after years of neglect. Schools must be expanded. The bill for these plans will probably come close to $10 billion over ten years.
Guam has become a focus for U.S. military planners for three reasons:
* American control: Guam is U.S. territory so the forces don't need permission from a foreign government to go into action. Nationalistic pressures drove U.S. forces from the Philippines in 1992. South Korea says it would restrict U.S. forces seeking to deploy from there. Even Japan, considered a solid ally, must take into account local political pressures that may affect U.S. deployments.
* What planners call "backfilling." As ground troops from South Korea, Japan, Alaska, and Hawaii and aircraft carriers, surface warships, and submarines have deployed to Iraq, other forces, particularly warplanes, have been realigned in the Pacific to maintain deterrence against North Korea and China.
* The "tyranny of distance," another military term describing the long distances forces must travel across the Pacific from the U.S. to reach operational targets. Bases in Guam will put air power within striking range of targets in North Korea, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea.
Guam was acquired from Spain in 1898 after the Spanish-American war. The island was captured by Japan early World War II, then retaken in 1944. In the war in Vietnam, Andersen was a huge base for B-52 bombers attacking North Vietnam in 14 hour flights during which American aviators flew into the fiercest anti-aircraft fire since World War II.
Some of those same B-52's, modernized with advanced sensors and armed with missiles that can be fired many miles from targets, are rotating through Guam, as are B-1 and B-2 bombers. Despite its age, General Hester said in an interview, "the B-52 is a great truck." He said a wing of 48 F-15 fighters and their replacements, F-22 Raptors, would go to Guam on similar rotations.
Three of the Global Hawk surveillance aircraft, which look like small, blind Boeing 747 passenger planes, will be based at Andersen, with three more coming later. The Global Hawk, packed with radar, optical, and infrared sensors, flies at 65,000 feet and can cover 40,000 square miles in 24 hours and relay its findings quickly to operational commanders.
Beyond acquiring intelligence on troop and weapon movements, Hester said, Global Hawks will be able to track terrorists such as those infiltrating Indonesia and Malaysia through island chains after being trained in the southern Philippines.
Further, the reconnaissance aircraft could track ships in a maritime security regime, a U.S. effort to encourage Asian nations to account for merchant ships the way they track nearly every airplane. The objective is to detect illicit drug smugglers, dealers in human trafficking, pirates, and terrorists.
"We must have the ability," Hester said of the ships, "to know who you are, where you are going, and what cargo you're carrying."
"LET'S ROLL!"- T. BEAMER, 9-11-2001.
"Rotating through".
Until Clinton, we had bombers PERMANENTLY STATIONED on Guam. . .
Guam bump
"South Korea says it would restrict U.S. forces seeking to deploy from there"
Maybe the US should restrict its response to a North Korean attack?
President Clinton will announce the following --
The intent to transfer the 3,213 acres covered by the 1994 law as soon as possible.
The intent to try to transfer another 2,366 acres of Air Force land, including 561 on which 360 housing units are located.
The intent to try to transfer another 2,779 acres of Navy land.
The immediate availability of 44 acres worth $4.5 million.
An effort to expedite the transfer of 2,031 acres at the former Naval Air Station adjacent to the commercial airport, including a 92 acre officer's family housing parcel. Economic Development Administration serious consideration of $1 million to develop the property.
An effort to expedite the transfer of the 100 acre former Navy Ship Repair Facility.
http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/Pacific/fact.html
Is Guam worth visiting as a tourist or is most of the good things to see require military privledges?
Isn't there a brown snake problem on Guam?
Guam is a great place to go to dive. The water is very clear and vis. is over 100'.
The Japanese love the place because its so cheap for them and there places they can go to shoot all kinds of guns.
Oh yes, and lots of massage parlors
Having recently lived on Guam I will try to gie you my 2 cents.
Brown snake does exist but only when someone needs some cash to abate them. They really are pretty rare in populated areas and they are also the #1 excuse as to why the power goes out on Guam. Actually no other excuse is ever given.
That land mentioned that was given back was really dilapidated and would have cost a lot to maintain or make habitable.
It is a great place to visit and a pretty good place to live. Just about 90 degrees and about 95% humidity. Diving is great and fish are plenty.
Guam also boasts the tallest place on earth(measured hill top to bottom of the ocean.
Government corruption was high and I have no reason to believe it got any better since I left.
Typhoons and Super-typhoons visit regularly. Normally killing no one or maybe a couple of people caught out in the open doing stupid things.
Massive, Massive, Massive FEMA fraud on the part of the people there. They took money (in the form of checks)to fix problems caused by typhoons cashed them at the jewelry store and never spent the money on fixing the damage only to re-claim that damage the next typhoon.
I would live there on a part time basis and have a great time. I would not work there again.
Barely. All support units of the 43d Bomb Wing were inactivated on 30 September 1989. The 43d Bomb Wing itself inactivated on 26 March 1990. The 60th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), of the Strategic Air Command inactivated at Andersen AFB on 30 April 1990. All while Bush senior was president.
I flew out of Anderson AFB back in the early 70's. I remember eating breakfast looking out over the Pacific watching small rain squalls moving over an endless ocean. It was beautiful. The Japanese pear-apples were juicy and delicious. It was a beautiful tropical place with jungle so thick that a Imperial Japanese Soldier hid out for 25 years after WWII had ended. We used to sit on the beach below a 100 foot cliff at the end of the runway and watch aircraft leap out over the Pacific. If they had problems it could be a long drop, because the Marianas Trench ran off short. It is one of the deepest places in the world.
I spent all my Naval service on the east coast and as a result am totally unfamiliar with U.S. bases in the western Pacifi. So maybe a west coast grunt can answer this. If Guam is one tenth the size of Okinawa then is there room enough on the island to station a brigade of marines and have room for their training?
"Isn't there a brown snake problem on Guam?"
Only if you let your young daughter date a Guamanian local.
;-)
I recommend a trip to Barney's Beach hut on the beach on hotel row if it's still there.
Two past Miss World's have come from Guam and the food is great.
I knew it went away, but thought it was later than that.
I was IN the 43rd Strat Wing, in the 60th Bomb Squardron.
Rotated out in Nov. '86 for Loring and the 42nd Bomb Wing and 69th Bomb Squadron. . . .
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