Regarding “bases in garden spots.”
1. Ft. Sill was established by Gen Phil Sheridan in 1869-70 in the “Indian Territory” of Oklahoma, thus on the ‘frontier’ where a military presence was needed, Lawton grew up around it. (I spent time there as a field artilleryman.)
2. Ft. Polk, LA, was established in 1941 as part of the expansion of the US Army prior to WWII, and its remote area was for training purposes for divisional size forces.
3. The Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake, CA, was established in 1943, because the Navy needed a facility to test its aerial delivered weapons that was far from civilians. It would not have been too popular for the Navy to use downtown LA or Berkeley as their bombing ranges during WWII.
4. Bergstrom AFB use to be located in Austin, TX until it was closed in 1993. It was created in 1942 as Del Valle Army Air Field when land was leased from the city of Austin to build the facility.
Thanks for the history lesson. I strongly suspect that this will quickly evolve into another waste of time/money and is really simply some DoD big wigs setting themselves up in a sweet gig at a sweet place to waste more time and money. I envision this as a kind of “rewards” program for SES types before they retire. This is 2018 and we have some fairly advanced coms now. There is no reason the command couldn’t be placed on an existing, secure base and communicate with industry partners as needed and even travel to their locations as we now have cool and efficient transportation systems now too. I expect this will cost a lot and will work out about the same as the McNamara whiz kids thing did back in the 60s. I think this is a mistake but on the bright side, it does create another 4 star slot and all the staff slots that go with that. This is exactly what is needed as we don’t have enough Generals now.