Posted on 09/02/2003 9:21:06 AM PDT by SLB
For Your Info. The Army bases currently proposed for closure or realignment in 2005 include: Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Detroit Arsenal, Michigan; Fort Belvoir, Virginia; Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico; Fort McPherson/Gillem, Georgia; Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Fort Polk, Louisiana (to realign); Fort Richardson, Alaska; Fort Sam Houston, Texas; Fort Shafter, Hawaii; Lima Army Tank Plant, Ohio; Natick Soldier Center, Massachusetts; Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey; Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois; Sierra Army Depot, California; and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.
Air Force base closures and realignments include: Altus AFB, Oklahoma; Beale AFB, California; Brooks AFB, Texas; Cannon AFB, New Mexico; Columbus AFB, Mississippi; Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota; Goodfellow AFB, Texas; Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota; Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts; Kirtland AFB, New Mexico; Los Angeles AFB, California; McConnell AFB, Kansas; Nellis AFB, Nevada (to realign); Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina (to realign); Shaw AFB, South Carolina; and Vance AFB, Oklahoma.
The Air Force will lose 2,260 military and 2,839 civilian manpower positions, and 1,055 reserve drill authorizations next year, according to the 2004 force-structure announcement released July 23.
Many bases, both active duty and reserve component, are affected by the realignment. In many cases, units will gain aircraft and missions, while others will pare down.
Besides manpower reductions, the realignment formally announces the retirement of the C-9A Nightingale and KC-135E Stratotanker aircraft. According to Air Force officials, the 20 C-9s are being retired because of reduced-patient movement, range limitations and increasing maintenance and upgrade costs. The aeromedical-evacuation mission will become a requirements-based system using all passenger-capable aircraft.
The service will retire 44 of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command's 43-year-old KC-135Es next year, replacing them with 24 KC-135Rs from the active-duty fleet. By the end of fiscal 2006, the Air Force will have retired 68 of the KC-135Es.
Naval base closures and realignments include: Ingleside Naval Station, Texas; Naval Postgraduate School, California; Naval Air Station Meridian, Mississippi; Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, New Jersey; Naval Recreation Station Solomons Island, Maryland; Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane, Indiana; Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Virginia; Navy Supply Corps School, Georgia; New Orleans Naval Support Activity, Louisiana; Pascagoula Naval Station, Mississippi; Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, New Hampshire; and Saratoga Springs Naval Support Unit, New York.
Marine base closures and realignments include: Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia; Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California (realignment); Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California; Marine Corps Mountain Warfare School, California; Marine Reserve Support Unit, Kansas City; and Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California (realign or close).
I caught that about the unit from PR going to Ft. Sam. Was that a Div. or Brigade?
Oh, and good luck with your plans!
The reason for the upgrade is the acquisition of a new mission, as the HQ U.S. Army South (USARSO), which moved from Puerto Rico.
The locals have been bitching about the noisy helocopters since the Marines reclaimed the base in 2000. The 12000 foot runways have been eyed by the politicians as a replacement for the crappy airport in downtown San Diego. My old house in Mira Mesa was a mile north of the runway. If it becomes the regional airport, the traffic and noise will go way beyond the current unbearable levels. My new house is 912 miles north of the runway, so I won't notice :-)
I wonder of my son's assignment to the reserve unit at the east end of the airfield will be impacted by the closing. If so, he would probably have to drive to Pendleton for his reserve weekends.
Several of the other AF bases are used for the undergraduate pilot training programs. These programs were merged during the last BRAC and it would be very difficult to combine them with another base's flying mission. There already having problems with available airspace during the daylight hours. This problem would be pretty difficult to manage.
The government never realized a lot of the savings from the first round of closures. Some of the bases that they expected to become regional airports are still vacant - George AFB in California and England AFB in LA are two that I can think of.
The closures left the military with critical shortages in the medical fields.
Placing all of a single mission at one base is poor stategy. Not only do you have to worry about man-made problems like an attack, you have to consider what would happen if the only logistics facility had a tornado, flood, or hurricane that shut it down.
Now that we're shutting down a lot of our overseas bases the military needs bases in the US to put the people. Cutting troop strengths is no longer a good option because the military mission continues to grow. The cutbacks in the late 80's and early 90's have left the military with too few people. Some stateside units spend at least six months a year overseas. They rotate to Bosnia for three months and then come home just long enough to fix the broken equipment before going to Saudi to provide air cover.
Maybe HHS, Education, State, Commerce and all the rest of the parasites ought to follow suit? Who knows, if they did, we might someday get our budget back in the black and these crushing taxes and useless programs off our necks!
Not hardly, the airframes are good to at least 2040. Howver the engines on the -Es are about shot. -R's F-108 engines are still plenty good to go. Some or all -Es could be converted to Rs and even with the addition of some 767 tankers, which is still being fought by the DemoRats and some RINOs, we'd still be short of tankers. Lack of tankers slows deployments, and may impact in theater operations as well, although the actual ops get priority of course, supplying those needs may really impact things elsewhere.
While they are the same Airframe, they have different engines. The AWACS guys *wish* they had the engines that the E-6 has. Tinker is full to the gills, both the AWACS and the E-6s are new since I was stationed there (many, many moons ago) as you point out, they are tearing down commerical buildings and houses on the other side of I-40 from the base, (have torn down would be a better way to say it) to provide expanded space for the base. Yet someone wants to move the ANG C-130s from Will Rodgers to Tinker, I wonder where he thinks they'd put them, and their required facilities? A drive around Tinker at this time last year revealed very little space, especially space with access to the airfield.
Actually they (-135s) are not modified 707s. They derive from the same Boeing prototype as the 707, but they have smaller diameter fuselodges and many other differences. Not nearly as much commonality as you might think. Boeing model number for the -135 seres was 717.
Rode a KC-135E down to the PI once.
Engines aren't supposed to wobble on their pylons, are they? :o)
Current SECDEF's orientation should have been a warning.
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