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Been scanning appendix C of the list (out today) and a couple of items on the Navy side:
1) A majority of the Navy Reserve activities and recruiting sites are closing. No surprise here. Vice Admiral Cotton told us a year ago in a brief to all hands that he didn't want any buildings anymore, and wanted all Navy reservists to be drilling and living on active duty installations.
2) A huge suprise is the closing of Naval Station Pascagoula, Mississippi, one of the Navy's remaining two major shipbuilding sites. I was in D.C. at a Georgetown seminar, and heard from the Navy congressional liaison there that Navy shipbuilding sustainment was a significant issue for Congress. Simply put, there aren't enough ships being built to justify two shipyards anymore, but how do you maintain redundancy and competition in the market? From this list, it appears that Mississippi (and its political leadership) lost that fight. As did over 1000 folks who made a living there.
Posted by Commander Don at May 13, 2005 05:16 PM
15,000 guys coming back from Germany and Korea too.
Posted by Commander Don at May 13, 2005 05:37 PM
My home town (Texarkana, TX) is very hard hit. TWO closures, Red River Army Depot and Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant. Our diversified economy does no service here--timber industry has been hurt by a 4+ year slump in prices, tire factory (largest private employer) just went through long strike, and now two closures, with 2500 civilian jobs lost at one place alone. I don't know how our little local economy is going to cope with this... Speaking of surprising closures, if I'm not mistaken, RRAD is the only place capable of 'up-armoring' humvees, as they handle the bulk of military recapitalization. After the big media fit over up-armoring, this???
The entire state of Texas is really hard hit by base closures. Gained a lot at one or two bases, lots of closures elsewhere.
Posted by Max at May 13, 2005 09:36 PM
I just read the medical impact of the BRAC closings. They are going to close and combine differing services' hospitals and realign training nodes. IMHO it's about frickin' time. We DID NOT need 2 major military medical centers (Walter Reed and Bathesda in DC, and BAMC and WIlford Hall in San Antonio) literally across town from each other.
Posted by armynurseboy at May 13, 2005 10:08 PM
Many of us in my area have been concerned that the 183rd Air Fighter Wing would be one of those that would be closed down - something that would have a negative impact on central Illinois. This is an issue that I had wanted for our CR organization to get involved with. I have not looked at the list yet, but I hope that our city's base is not on it. If it is, there may still be things that we can do...
Posted by Aakash at May 13, 2005 11:51 PM
Things here in Fayetteville, NC have been interesting since friday. Everyone is talking about the Bragg/Pope situation. Has the AF ever given a base to another service?? I don't know how to post a proper link here but here is the url
http://www.fayettevillenc.com/story.php?Template=local&Story=7007208#previous
Posted by Scott at May 16, 2005 12:47 AM
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