Bases Recommended for Closure and Realignment

May 12, 2005

Comments

Navy SEALs.com has what purports to be an early view of the BRAC recommendations scheduled for tomorrow.

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
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 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, 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 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, Califirnia Marine
Reserve Support Unit, Kansas City Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego,
California (realign or close)

Some really big names on this one. I’ve been saying for some time that Fort Belvoir and Carlisle Barracks are too small to justify operations but both have strong institutional backing. Belvoir is in a stone’s thrown from D.C. and generations of Army officers have gone to the War College at Carlisle. The latter is smaller than your average college campus, though.

I was born on Fort Monroe and my dad grew up right outside it. It’s the headquarters of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) but there’s really no reason its functions couldn’t be handled on a large maneuver base.

Redstone Arsenal is a bit of a stunner, simply because so much is headquartered there and there is significant synergy with several prominent engineering schools within driving distance. I’d be surprised to see it actually closed.

Link via Jeff Quinton

UPDATE (1034, May 13): The list was highly inaccurate. See, Official Military Base Closure List for the actual proposals.

10 responses to “Bases Recommended for Closure and Realignment”

Kent

May 12, 2005 at 11:33 pm

No doubt many of the bases on the list are bargaining chips. They’ve taken a page from the “meet my demands, or I’ll blow my head off” school of politics.
reliapundit

May 12, 2005 at 11:40 pm

which of these can be most easily privatized and transformed into refineries?
Christopher Cross

May 13, 2005 at 1:16 am

Good thing I was rejectecd by AF JAG then…
dw

May 13, 2005 at 3:38 am

which of these can be most easily privatized and transformed into refineries?

Well, both the Oklahoma AFBs would be good candidates. Enid is on a pipeline, and I think Altus is as well.

Yet again, Oklahoma gets screwed by these Texans in the White House. OTOH, my current home state of Washington looks to be making out pretty well. There was a strong feeling that Everett was going to shut down and the Stennis shifted to Pearl, but according to this Everett won’t be closed or merged with Kitsap.
DC Loser

May 13, 2005 at 5:35 am

It’s the usual “I dare you to close these bases” being put up by the services. James is right about Redstone Arsenal, it’s one of the most important R&D facilities in the Army, the Army’s version of Wright-Patterson AFB. Not to mention NASA Marshall Flight Center is there also. Too much activity is going on there and they’ve just spent millions or maybe even billions upgrading the buildings and facilities. And Los Angeles AFB has been threatened by BRAC as long as I can remember, there’s no reason for me to believe it’ll close anytime soon. Again, too critical a facility to Air Force space programs to lose.
jen

May 13, 2005 at 9:52 am

I’m curious where they would move the Naval Postgraduate School to because I can’t imagine they would shut that down all together. That it’s not far from the Defense Language Institute, which isn’t on the list, makes me wonder if they’ll be integrated to one location.
Juan

May 13, 2005 at 10:14 am

Lakehurst, NJ seems odd. The Navy recently began the testing and reengineering of linear induction catapults there. They have carrier mockups for flight=ops testing. Also, Ft Monmouth is home to CECOM for years. Hard to believe they would move a mission like that with the giant existing infrastructure to another base.

Jersey deserves it though. The Democratic congressional delegation just keeps getting re-elected. Useless pieces of crap that they are.