thedrifter
09-28-03, 06:34 AM
09-26-2003
From the Editor:
When Johnny (And His Family) Come Marching Home
The Marines are coming to Santa Rosa County.
That was the gist of a local news article on the Florida panhandle this week: Pentagon officials are considering building a multi-million dollar urban combat and anti-terrorism training center at Eglin Air Force Base to prepare Marines for building-by-building combat similar to current operations in Iraq.
The proposed MOUT (for Military Operations on Urban Terrain) facility will be “very high-tech with instrumentation, cameras, lasers and sensors to track where your Marines are and where shots are fired,” said an aide to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-FL.
Local government officials from Pensacola to Panama City are gleefully wringing their hands in anticipation of the proposal, which is in its very earliest stage. Local officials are, understandably, thinking locally: The capital investment is anticipated to be between $50-100 million, and local chamber of commerce officials point out that such a valuable facility will protect Eglin from the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process.
What few local officials seem to appreciate is that this one isolated incident is a small ripple of what may become a literal tidal wave in the years ahead. The Marine MOUT facility is one harbinger of unprecedented change in overseas U.S. military basing from Kuwait to the Korean DMZ.
Eglin’s prospects are up because the U.S. Navy is reportedly preparing to close Naval Air Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico. The naval air station has lost its military value as a result of Puerto Rico’s victory in forcing the closure of the combined-arms training facility on Vieques Island.
Obscured by the war in Iraq and ongoing operations against al Qaeda terrorists, the Defense Department for months has been preparing for a comprehensive review of U.S. military bases overseas. Indeed, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had plans for changing deployments under development even before he was sworn in at the Pentagon in early 2001. Events stemming from 9/11 and the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have obscured this initiative from public sight, but have not sidelined it.
Based on several public statements and news stories, the broad outline of Rumsfeld’s plan is “to dramatically change the shape of U.S. military basing abroad toward a less static structure relying more on temporary forward deployments to Spartan bases,” analyst Colin Robinson wrote in a report for the nonprofit Center for Defense Information on Sept. 19, 2003.
If carried out to its full measure, the overseas basing initiative will have a profound effect on just about every man and woman serving in uniform today. Robinson noted:
“The Bush administration’s new intent for U.S. basing is to create a web of far-flung, austere forward operating bases, maintained normally only by small permanent support units, with the fighting forces deploying from the United States when necessary. The resulting footprint of U.S. military presence would be much less, giving up the paraphernalia of welfare and family support arrangements that have marked overseas basing since the end of World War II. Troops would deploy to these bare bases leaving their families behind, instead of serving accompanied tours.”
The future is becoming clear: The “American community abroad” template for military bases in Europe, Asia and Latin America is drawing to an end, replaced by ad hoc facilities operated by military personnel working thousands of miles from their families left behind in the United States.
We have already seen a glimpse of this in the run-up to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. A number of “bare bones” bases went up in Central Asian republics for the air campaign in Afghanistan. The Pentagon sent its new Joint Task Force/Horn of Africa to a former French Foreign Legion base in Djbouti. The Pentagon secured basing rights in Romania and Bulgaria to support aerial and logistics efforts in support of the Iraqi campaign.
The other side of the coin has also turned up: After a decade of sustained “no fly” missions against Iraq ended with the invasion, the Pentagon has all but ceased operations at Incirlik Airbase in Turkey and Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Unconfirmed reports have it that both the Germany-based 1st Infantry Division and 1st Armored Division may return from deployment in Iraq not to the Vaterland but to Fort Riley, Kans. or Fort Hood, Tex.
As the Pentagon begins re-examining its basing commitments throughout the world, the issues of cost, mobility, logistical support, overflight rights and force protection will naturally define the debates – internal and congressional – that are inevitable.
One issue that merits equal attention is not so statistically measurable. As of Dec. 31, 2000, there were 183,144 active-duty military dependents residing at U.S. bases overseas (the largest chunks of which are 131,573 in Europe and 49,401 in East Asia). They live in government-provided housing (or off-base thanks to LQA allowances) and are supported by a complex array of programs including medical-dental facilities, DoD schools and MWR programs.
It will behoove the Pentagon – if it hasn’t already done so – to convene a task force to anticipate the unintended consequences that such a massive realignment may have on the service personnel and their families.
The Pentagon no doubt will be able to justify the necessity of ending nearly 60 years of overseas basing and “little America” communities from Kadena Air Force Base to Weisbaden, Germany. But that’s no carte blanche to triple or quadruple the uncertainty and stress that every American military family is already dealing with today.
Let’s see some plans and proposals to ease their way into this uncertain new world.
Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=FTE.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=6&rnd=250.89132108489252
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
From the Editor:
When Johnny (And His Family) Come Marching Home
The Marines are coming to Santa Rosa County.
That was the gist of a local news article on the Florida panhandle this week: Pentagon officials are considering building a multi-million dollar urban combat and anti-terrorism training center at Eglin Air Force Base to prepare Marines for building-by-building combat similar to current operations in Iraq.
The proposed MOUT (for Military Operations on Urban Terrain) facility will be “very high-tech with instrumentation, cameras, lasers and sensors to track where your Marines are and where shots are fired,” said an aide to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-FL.
Local government officials from Pensacola to Panama City are gleefully wringing their hands in anticipation of the proposal, which is in its very earliest stage. Local officials are, understandably, thinking locally: The capital investment is anticipated to be between $50-100 million, and local chamber of commerce officials point out that such a valuable facility will protect Eglin from the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process.
What few local officials seem to appreciate is that this one isolated incident is a small ripple of what may become a literal tidal wave in the years ahead. The Marine MOUT facility is one harbinger of unprecedented change in overseas U.S. military basing from Kuwait to the Korean DMZ.
Eglin’s prospects are up because the U.S. Navy is reportedly preparing to close Naval Air Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico. The naval air station has lost its military value as a result of Puerto Rico’s victory in forcing the closure of the combined-arms training facility on Vieques Island.
Obscured by the war in Iraq and ongoing operations against al Qaeda terrorists, the Defense Department for months has been preparing for a comprehensive review of U.S. military bases overseas. Indeed, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had plans for changing deployments under development even before he was sworn in at the Pentagon in early 2001. Events stemming from 9/11 and the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have obscured this initiative from public sight, but have not sidelined it.
Based on several public statements and news stories, the broad outline of Rumsfeld’s plan is “to dramatically change the shape of U.S. military basing abroad toward a less static structure relying more on temporary forward deployments to Spartan bases,” analyst Colin Robinson wrote in a report for the nonprofit Center for Defense Information on Sept. 19, 2003.
If carried out to its full measure, the overseas basing initiative will have a profound effect on just about every man and woman serving in uniform today. Robinson noted:
“The Bush administration’s new intent for U.S. basing is to create a web of far-flung, austere forward operating bases, maintained normally only by small permanent support units, with the fighting forces deploying from the United States when necessary. The resulting footprint of U.S. military presence would be much less, giving up the paraphernalia of welfare and family support arrangements that have marked overseas basing since the end of World War II. Troops would deploy to these bare bases leaving their families behind, instead of serving accompanied tours.”
The future is becoming clear: The “American community abroad” template for military bases in Europe, Asia and Latin America is drawing to an end, replaced by ad hoc facilities operated by military personnel working thousands of miles from their families left behind in the United States.
We have already seen a glimpse of this in the run-up to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. A number of “bare bones” bases went up in Central Asian republics for the air campaign in Afghanistan. The Pentagon sent its new Joint Task Force/Horn of Africa to a former French Foreign Legion base in Djbouti. The Pentagon secured basing rights in Romania and Bulgaria to support aerial and logistics efforts in support of the Iraqi campaign.
The other side of the coin has also turned up: After a decade of sustained “no fly” missions against Iraq ended with the invasion, the Pentagon has all but ceased operations at Incirlik Airbase in Turkey and Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Unconfirmed reports have it that both the Germany-based 1st Infantry Division and 1st Armored Division may return from deployment in Iraq not to the Vaterland but to Fort Riley, Kans. or Fort Hood, Tex.
As the Pentagon begins re-examining its basing commitments throughout the world, the issues of cost, mobility, logistical support, overflight rights and force protection will naturally define the debates – internal and congressional – that are inevitable.
One issue that merits equal attention is not so statistically measurable. As of Dec. 31, 2000, there were 183,144 active-duty military dependents residing at U.S. bases overseas (the largest chunks of which are 131,573 in Europe and 49,401 in East Asia). They live in government-provided housing (or off-base thanks to LQA allowances) and are supported by a complex array of programs including medical-dental facilities, DoD schools and MWR programs.
It will behoove the Pentagon – if it hasn’t already done so – to convene a task force to anticipate the unintended consequences that such a massive realignment may have on the service personnel and their families.
The Pentagon no doubt will be able to justify the necessity of ending nearly 60 years of overseas basing and “little America” communities from Kadena Air Force Base to Weisbaden, Germany. But that’s no carte blanche to triple or quadruple the uncertainty and stress that every American military family is already dealing with today.
Let’s see some plans and proposals to ease their way into this uncertain new world.
Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=FTE.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=6&rnd=250.89132108489252
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: