Food Fight!

Ahhh, the dark under-belly of American politics is once again exposed. The posturing, the anti-military bias, the “give peace a chance” mantras, the “bring our troops home” posters, the “no blood for oil” bumper stickers, the search for the peace dividend so we can stop supporting war and start supporting lazy, ignorant, pregnant welfare-queens. All of that gets put by the wayside when BRAC comes to town.

Suddenly it is revealed, that everyone wants peace and no one wants war, however, everyone wants to have a military base in their backyard so they can have jobs, barbershops, tailor shops, tattoo parlors, pawn-shops and various small occupied-nation-transplant owned ethnic restaurants. Although it would be good to dismantle the military and spend all that money on the “working poor” who don’t work and the less fortunate who are simply lazy, we all would like to retain a monument to the military in our town just for old time’s sake. And the $$$.

The Base Realignment And Closure list was released Friday and now everyone is in maximum palpitation mode demanding that their particular fiefdom be preserved. Congress-critters who yesterday morning were more than happy to vilify the military in general and the war in Iraq in particular are now screaming that they must have their local bases or the entire state which they represent will fall off of the economic precipice and into the nearest ocean, even if the base is in S. Dakota. So, what gives?

When an ox gets gored, the owner gets upset. If the ox is subsidized from afar and the owner reaps considerable economic benefit from the labor of the ox, then the owner will really be mad. The greater good that accrues to the entire village as a result of the goring is going to be overlooked as the ox-owner tallies up the personal costs for that greater good. When the local military establishment gets threatened, neighbors will lose jobs. Shops will close. Home values may slump as the market gets saturated temporarily by military and contractor relocations. It can be traumatic.

But, it has happened before. And, if we take a moment to stand back and see what the outcome was where it previously occurred, we might be reassured. Anyone but me remember places like Lowry AFB, Ent AFB, Williams AFB, Amarillo AFB, Kelly AFB, or Walker AFB? All gone today. But, where each one stood there has been urban, commercial and industrial development that brought new vitality, new jobs, a better environment and incredible community growth.

Certainly the thought of a significant jolt to the local status quo is frightening. Base closures, however, don’t happen overnight. Drawdown and planning take time. As they occur, transition planning and community participation minimizes the impact. The lights don’t go out in an instant, but rather dim slowly over several years. As the lights recede, new lights are installed.

Here in Colorado it’s easy to be smug. We made out well in the new BRAC recommendations. We’ll gain a lot of new jobs and new missions. But, we’ve taken our hits in the past. Here in Colorado Springs, we can still see vestiges of the old Ent AFB. Now, it’s the home of the US Olympic Training Center—a valued community resource and a major tourist attraction. In Denver, the former Lowry AFB now offers beautiful housing sub-divisions, winding streets and parks, a vigorous technical center and a lot of commercial development. In Roswell at the old Walker AFB, they’ve become a major training area for large commercial airliners—plenty of low traffic airspace, great weather, low cost of living, and existing infrastructure made the conversion a win-win situation for everyone.

The fact is that the Cold War is over. The nuclear stand-off with the forces of darkness has transitioned to an unconventional war on terrorism that doesn’t require the same configuration of our military. You don’t hunt down an Al-Qaeda operative with a SLBM loaded nuclear submarine. We need to change our equipment, our organization, our training and our priorities. In doing so, we’re going to save some money, increase our efficiency and necessarily modify our infrastructure.

Are people going to be impacted? Sure. Are congress-critters going to be jeopardized by individuals who lose their jobs and hence blame the local politician? Undoubtedly. Is it necessary? Absolutely!