Military Bases

With the recent announcement by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of the next round of military bases to be closed under the Base Realignment and Closure Act, commonly known as BRAC, communities that surround these military bases are panicked about the loss of revenue resulting from base closures. In our backyard, residents of Horsham Township, home to the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, are looking with anxiety to the actions of the President and Congress regarding the base closure recommendations.

Willow Grove Naval Air Station emerged yesterday as Pennsylvania's hardest-hit military installation, with the Pentagon recommending to close the Montgomery County base. More than 1,200 civilian and military jobs could leave the base if the closing is approved, potentially bruising a community that has become intertwined with the 62-year-old institution. After the list of recommended base closings - the fifth round since 1988 - was released nationally yesterday morning, Gov. Rendell called the statewide picture a "mixed bag. " Some sites, including a Philadelphia Navy support center, would add jobs, but Willow Grove and more than a dozen smaller installations could shed positions for a net loss of 1,878 jobs in Pennsylvania.

Tom Harper was delighted yesterday at news that South Jersey's military bases would remain open, not only because he's a local businessman but also because he's Wrightstown's mayor. "It's a good thing for McGuire and Fort Dix and definitely for Wrightstown," said Harper, whose 1.8-square-mile borough sits at the entrance to the bases. "If they had closed Dix and McGuire, the town would have been gone," said Harper, standing at the pumps of his Wrightstown gas station, Tom's Service Center, less than a block from the main gate of Fort Dix. "We would have been a bedroom community instead of a retail community.

Thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in investment hang in the balance this week as New Jersey's seven military bases wait to find out whether they've been targeted for closure. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to make the announcement at 8:30 a.m. Friday before sending the list to Congress and the President. Ninety-seven bases were closed in the last four rounds of the Pentagon's BRAC (base realignment and closure) process. New Jersey bases were affected by each round.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday scaled back the projected impact of closing and consolidating military bases, saying the United States may have much less excess capacity at its domestic installations than previously thought. "Without final figures, I would say the percent will be less than half of the 20 to 25 percent that has been characterized previously," Rumsfeld said in a conference call with newspaper editorial writers days before releasing a list of recommended base closings and consolidations.

The economic effects of closing U.S. military bases can hit nearby cities and towns like a tsunami, the chairman of the Base Closure and Realignment Commission said yesterday as the commission began a four-month review to determine the future of scores of bases. The nine-member commission's heavy lifting starts after the Pentagon submits its recommendations for closing or restructuring bases that it has decided no longer meet the nation's long-term military needs. The deadline for the Pentagon report is May 16, but it could be released by early next week.

On May 16, the Pentagon will release a list of bases it intends to close in its fifth round of base realignments and closures since the end of the Cold War. Already, President Bush has nominated nine Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commissioners, who will meet for the first time Monday. As the process of studying bases nears completion, the Garden State has cause to be concerned. Every list since the first one in 1988 has included at least one New Jersey bases: McGuire Air Force Base in 1993, Fort Dix in 1988 and 1991, Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station in 1995, and Fort Monmouth in 1993.

Iraqis grab own guns, kill three insurgents Shopkeepers and residents on one of Baghdad's main streets pulled out their own guns yesterday and killed three insurgents when hooded men began shooting at passers-by, giving a rare victory to frustrated civilians. The clash erupted when militants in three cars sprayed bullets at shoppers. A man, a woman and a child - were wounded. Earlier in the day, gunmen in the same ethnically mixed quarter killed a policeman as he drove to work.

In an effort to make Valentine's Day more meaningful, the Sixers and Liberty USO yesterday gave spouses and friends of military personnel an opportunity to create personal video mail messages. The technology was provided by Comcast's built-for-broadband video mail application. Liberty USO is the greater Philadelphia area's chartered affiliate in the worldwide USO organization. Comcast Corp. owns the Sixers. The messages were e-mailed overseas to military bases from the Sixers' press room at the Wachovia Center.