Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Close unneeded bases

Thursday, March 4, 2004 | 8:27 a.m.

TWO MEN WEARING hats and ties coming to our farm any day but Sunday had to be bad news. There they were talking to my parents and delivering their message in the middle of the week. A shiver ran down my back because this had to be what my father had predicted would happen as our country edged closer to entering World War II.

The thought of leaving the farm brought all kinds of terrible thoughts and feelings to me. What about my dogs and cats? Where would old Jess the mare go? What would happen to the cows we had raised from birth and were now producing milk? Would we have to move to town and buy our food at stores? Would I be able to come back to my favorite fishing holes on Ranch and Clear creeks? Lots of questions but few immediate answers.

The summer of 1939 we noticed that Army maneuvers at nearby Camp McCoy had more men and horses than in previous summers. During the summer of 1940 the military training forces increased in numbers and lasted even longer than the year before. That's when rumors about Camp McCoy expanding and taking a large number of farms and wild land began to become a threat to my way of life. My father, an Army veteran of World War I, told me that if our country needed our land we should get ready to move. The spring of 1941 the men in hats and ties came and later that year Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The move from our farm was completed during the next several months.

This activity was experienced in scores of rural areas and also near cities during those hectic years. Today a large number of those military installations are still open and functioning to some degree. Many of them have lost their value to the Department of Defense but remain open and are draining valuable dollars from our military forces. During the past two decades, efforts to close these bases has become much more difficult than opening them 60 years ago. They have become a reliable cash cow for several communities and politicians aren't about to let them be closed quietly. The local Chamber of Commerce, civic clubs and even churches become involved in efforts to protect "their" base, no matter how useless it has become in the overall picture of national defense.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it best in 1999 when the Senate, by a 60-40 vote, stopped the closing of military bases. The senator told the Associated Press, "We should be ashamed, or a little ashamed. Find me one military expert who says we don't have to close bases." The failure to close the bases that year has cost taxpayers an extra $2 billion to $3 billion yearly for their upkeep.

What has happened is the abuse of political power to keep unnecessary bases open. The next closure isn't scheduled until May 2005, but the scramble to keep open unneeded bases is already going full blast.

According to the State Legislatures magazine, the city of San Diego has hired a Washington defense consultant to fight any closing of its several bases. The magazine goes on to report:

"In Alabama, which has four major military bases within its borders, the Legislature appointed a committee to find ways the state can protect its military presence.

"Communities also have pitched in, wining and dining key military officials, forming booster clubs, lobbying for new weapons programs and even building homes for generals to keep bases alive and revenue flowing. About 45,000 soldiers and civilians work for the military in Alabama. The armed forces spend approximately $14 billion a year in the state.

"Hawaii Representative Cynthia Thielen recently introduced five bills trying to protect that state's bases from closure in 2005. Defense spending in Hawaii amounted to $3.47 billion in 2000."

This battle to continue spending needed defense funds where they aren't needed doesn't say much for the support Americans claim they give our men and women in uniform. It makes my generation wonder if the same depth of patriotism exists today that was so prevalent among Americans during WW II. Hundreds of our military people are dying and being wounded while the large majority of us continue enjoying comfortable lives. Was it WW I and the Great Depression that made a society strong enough to sacrifice and join together to win WW II? Well, believe it or not, we are again in a war.

We have obligations to those people we expect to fight the war and this includes giving them the best of training and equipment needed to win. Keeping open unneeded bases has become a drain on the funds that should be used for this training and equipment.