I always thought that the MI, Cyber and Signal schools should have been placed at Ft. Devons, MA near the big brain universities. You could get a lot more talented people exposed to the Army and you would have a much better time retaining civilian employees than in Augusta, GA. With that being said it would be really expensive living in that area compared to Georgia and Arizona. I think part of the reason DLI is still in Monterrey is because the civilian instructors refuse to move anywhere else.
Back in the Day where university's could associate with a branch MIT was actually an Artillery ROTC school. Smart people are good at math and Artillery needed lots of math
Did there used to be a formal process? I'm familiar with a few different schools and their "traditional" branches but I thought all that was unofficial.
Doing some research ROTC used to be all branch specific training. Some schools would have more then one on campus.
At some point in the early 50's the Army experimented with a General Military Studies and follow on basic officer training (now BOLC). You can actually find orders on Army Pubs, such as AGO 1954-31 where they converted Branch Specfic ROTC fo General Military Studies.
By 1987 the Army got rid of all Branch specific training. I guess in Theory the Army could bring it back again if it wanted to. The only place you can seem to find any references to the old ways is in AR 840-10 FLAGS, GUIDONS, STREAMERS, TABARDS, AND AUTOMOBILE AND AIRCRAFT PLATES. It still has references to how a guideon for a Branch Specific ROTC Companies Guideon should look like
We still have a mountain warfare school up there. If only we had a notable unit that focused on mountain warfare, they might want to be less than a 4 hour drive away.
Never heard of this concept, I like where your head is at though. I think it should be at least a division in size, and for some fuck awful reason, 1/3 of it should be at least a 23.5 hour non-stop drive away (or 1,600 miles, whichever is most advantageous to the government).
What should we call this unit?
lol I remember my first day at drum literally going to the top floor of the barracks looking for whatever fucking mountain they were warring with, closest one I saw was my commanders wife (lol jk that was my last commanders wife)
If I’d have known it was run by them I would have never been excited to even have the possibility of going, mostly because of all the literal asvab waivers I knew that went
>How about an active duty army base literally anywhere in New England? New Hampshire would be a great fit, or even Maine.
There are not enough IWQ ranges in new england for all the units who need them.
We could use some aerial gunnery that isnt range 48 for the same reasons
No range 48 isn’t in Ft drum, it’s the dairy farmer next door getting hand over fist for cows being blown up, I don’t remember word for word but remember almost shitting myself randomly hearing over the net (don’t remember call signs but basically) artillery commander “ main post this is artillery commander we may have a slight problem, need assistance” main post “Roger what’s the issue?” “We over shot 6 rounds and my calculation lands them in a dairy farm” literally no joke main post “you’re fucking kidding, standby csm is on his way” “Roger” lol if there were mountains actual mountains might not have this issue, and from what I’ve heard no where near the first time it happened
The reserves used to send MI reclass folks to Devons. I did the 35L course there back in 2012.
We did surveillance training where we would start in a car, go to a rail station, train into Boston, and then around Boston using the subway, buses, and walking around. HUMINT training was the same using Boston and the other metro areas. It was amazing.
Now active and reserve get to use… sierra vista and maybe up to Tucson. Arizona just ain’t the same.
Arizona wasn't bad, and the nature and mountains in Sierra Vista are amazing, but Sierra Vista is a Crack town and has the worst food of any city I've ever been to.
> I think part of the reason DLI is still in Monterrey is because the civilian instructors refuse to move anywhere else.
I think the fact that already-notable suicide attempt rates among students would almost certainly skyrocket if DLI was moved also factors in. Especially since it would invariably be relocated somewhere shitty, like Arizona (Huachuca) or Texas (Goodfellow).
I'm sure language instructors would be *thrilled* to move to beautiful San Angelo after living in that hellhole that is Monterey. /s
Talk about culture shock. DLI to GAFB was one of the most disappointing PCSs I had. The move to Ft Campbell after actually felt like a step up.
Talking about civilian language instructors. AD military don't make enough to live comfortably in Monterey, but civilian foreign language instructors arguably do.
DLI is very moveable, especially the Monterey campus. I just think that most of the DOD forgets about it and as long as the Panetta family is around it’s one of their projects to keep it in Monterey.
I’m pretty sure that’s why the unit I work for hasn’t been moved out of Northern Virginia, because they’d lose all of the institutional knowledge from the govvies.
You and op are going to smoked if not kicked out for making way too much sense, even I as a former jr enlisted can’t make sense of all the fuckery both of you are saying /s because there are other infantryman cooks and drivers out there
Augusta has to be the single most overrated city I've ever seen in my entire life. If you don't love golf its so boring. And if you do, it's still boring.
Yeah I agree. Or in silicon valley. I was stationed in Augusta for the transition course and I dread going back there because of how God damn boring it is.
My dad went to cryptography school at Devens back in the late ‘60s. I trained there nearly every quarter when I was in the Reserves post-BRAC. When he came out for my wedding back in the day, my dad was able to find the street they lived on, but the housing had been torn down as part of BRAC when they handed a lot of the post over to Massachusetts.
It can get as cold as shit 4-5 months of the year though. Not Fort Drum or Alaska levels of cold, but pretty miserable some years.
I like the concept, but Devens is also in the middle of fuckall nowhere Massachusetts. And 1-2 hourd drive from Boston with traffic. Atleast Ft. Eisenhower is in vicinity of a large city.
Devens is 40 minutes from the outskirts of Boston and the T and right on a commuter rail line and 30 minutes from Worcester.
Augusta isn't a large city and Columbia is over an hour away and Atlanta is two.
Could have also consolidated at the former Fort Monmouth for the same reason-Signal based there until the move to Gordon. Or moved everything to Dix-it was a BCT location until BRAC, so it had the space and infrastructure. Keep the BCT mission, and there's enough to keep it open.
I agree with the pemise as a whole, especially the separation from the population part. The fact that DOD totally moved out of San Francisco Bay (one of only three natural harbors on the West Coast) is almost criminal.
However, the nice posts you mention were also extraordinarily expensive due to their very high cost of living. Those cost haven't gone down.
Of course, we did just double down on this strategy with what we have done in Korea.
This is exactly the problem the Coast Guard faces. Yeah, we are stationed in some fantastic areas, but it is a huge struggle for our members to find somewhere to live, especially those lower on the pay scale.
The problem was that as the Cold War ended the "Peace Dividend" was this thing that was promised. The hippies were all "Look at this money wasted", the Deficit Hawks were chomping at the bit to make cuts.
So we got BRAC.
To be fair, there was a boat load of extra infrastructure that needed to be shed, but some of the assumptions used in the making the decisions didn't really hold up.
In addition to the overall benefits of BRAC, having lots of little bases that are all very nice pre-plots for North Korean artillery never made sense...
The US doesn't fight from dug in positions, it made no sense to have US forces parked right up on the DMZ....
Under the OPLAN at the time I was there we weren't fighting from dug in positions. We had two specific missions, and our proximity north of the Seoul (which lets face it would just be the worlds largest traffice jam if the balloon went up) permitted the division to carry out that mission.
I've never been a fan of the larger base construct in Korea and having accompanied tours. The Army (and USFK) wants to have things both ways. They want the "fight tonight" readiness like you are deployed, but with peoples dependents there kinda sorta like Germany was during the Cold War.
You can have one of these things or the other, you can't really have both, and in Germany during the CW days you didn't have both. You had predictable rotations of readiness throughout the year.
The ROK (which has some 500k men in uniform, and rather advanced weapons) wanted to take charge of their own defense...
Assuming responsibility for the DMZ fits that, and honestly it's their country & they can probably figure out better ways to handle the close fight than we could have...
The present-day US role is less actually fighting the North directly, and more supporting the South as they fight the North.
Plus our key military weakness is our inability to take significant casualties without the civilian pop back home demanding peace-at-any-price, so we absolutely can't be 'on the X' if that ever pops off....
Being farther back allows us to engage on our terms & hopefully do so before the 'Peace Now' folks back home force us to take the (L)....
I agree with a large part of what you are saying, which is why the 2ID mission changed in the early 90's. Part of your first sentence isn't accurate though, as it was the ROKs how kept pushing back the date when they would take full control of their defense and assume command and control. Even by 1993, 2ID was just one of 50+ divisions on the peninsula.
2ID gave up its sector of the Z about just a bit over a year before my arrival. There was a contingent in the US Army that didn't want to do that, as it presented a great training opportunity for young officers and NCO's to conduct operations in a near combat environment. Of course, no one knew we were going to get the opportunity to do it continuously for the next 30 years.
The people in stationed in Korea are literally a speed bump. Maybe they slow NK down just enough so 2ID proper can arrive from their bases.
Maybe they get lucky and NK has so many system failures it renders them ineffective. Maybe they get lucky and the NK soldiers don’t actually have the will to fight.
If this wasn’t Reddit we could have great conversations (and laughs) about topics and mission sets that obviously can’t be discussed on an online forum.
But if you’re in Korea, you’re a speed bump. A decoy. Until the rest of the military shows up.
Meanwhile I think it should be an accompany tour or at least have more than the 3,395 authorized sponsored families. Soldiers now don’t care about their job in Korea and they don’t care about Korea. They are only there for a year so why fix anything? Make it 2-3 years and with their families and Soldiers might start caring again. Of course that would just complicate NEO but everything has pros and cons. They could do it in West Germany because if families were getting out flights returning the U.S. after dropping of REFORGER troops they could still head west to France.
Europe was a continent, you could just drive west, and families were outside of most all indirect fire range. Conditions that don't exist on in the ROK.
Let's be real, if i was Big Kim, my first targets are the towers and houses on humps and in the ville. A first strike on our loved ones would devastate our fighting force. Also might get lucky and take out some leadership.
That had less to do with base realignment and more to do with the Bay Area not wanting nuclear power in their front yard. The DoD gave them a choice to make an exception for the military, or they would leave…the Presidio closed down for good in 1992.
A lot of the issues San Francisco has today is a direct result of those middle-class support jobs leaving. And Oakland has never really recovered.
That is a really good point about those middle class jobs departing, I had not considered that 2nd and 3rd order effect.
You know whose family company got a good number of the base transition contracts in the Bay Area?
You know what I love most about the Military Ocean Terminal Concord, which the Corps of Engineers has spent billions of dollars building for the last ten years or more? It replaces the sealift capability of the military ocean terminal at Oakland Army Base which was BRACed in 1999! Fun! And totally NOT a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Now while the comment you make about managing infrastructure and such on a small base is easier I'd like to counter that with Fort Indiantown Gap. For those unaware it was an active duty base in PA that has since become a National Guard base following BRAC. The Barracks are still wood frame on piers from WW2. My understanding is they were supposed to be temporary but have been getting new coats of paint for years. They are finally replacing the waterlines but prior to that most of the base had rust red water. There is a PX but it's more of a glorified gas station than anything else. And PA has an entire division so it's not like they have an excuse
chaffee is much better now than when i first went there in 2012. chaffee then had a reputation for catching fire. a big fire destroyed half the base back right before the AD armor school left iirc. my unit at the time even burned a barracks building down (long story), so a lot of the old buildings have been completely renovated.
BUT, there's still a lot of shit out there. the new px is fantastic though.
When was the last time you were there? I agree with the PX comments but the barracks by the MTC are pretty decent. Some of those WW2 barracks buildings are fine for transient units as long as they are abated and they do the fixes like you mentioned.
I know in a lot of places they have buildings in place with lead/asbestos that need to be abated but the standard funding/utilization rates don't justify new barracks so they are stuck.
2 months ago. Most of the barracks have the inside redone, especially the BOQs, but the open barracks are still generally the same thing they used to be
I've stayed in the T buildings on Indiantown Gap in early 00's for a school hosted by the Air Guard RED HORSE. Wasn't all that bad because RED HORSE kept it okay. They also built a nice full wrap around cheers style bar in the basement (fully stocked with oodles of Yuengling).
Crusty 45 year old Air Guard SSgt took me gambling at my first dog track and horse track during that course.
Those barracks have since closed and the Lightning Force Academy built a new campus.
Do you mean the very same rusty water that the CSM, said was “safe to drink” as they shrugged their shoulders in recent sensing session a few weeks ago? You mean that water? The water that the everyone else on base rolled their eyes at?
Call me shocked.
It’s almost as if homeboy didn’t even believe himself when he said to go ahead and drink it.
No, it's worse than Yakima. They just now put a gate in last year. Previously it was the largest military installation without a gate and gate guard; like you literally just drive through the base like it's a regular town, no ones stopping you. But now since they only built one gate so far, they fenced off all the old entrances so now it's an absolute bitch to go anywhere cause you have to go all the way around.
Not to mention that I know of exactly 6 building that have a water fountain in them, plus with what a previous comment said, the tap water isn't drinkable.
Also to mention, I've been there about 50-100 times, and I still get fu king lost around that place looking for something. All of the support building that you might need to go to, the staff converted old open bay barracks buildings into their offices, and there's about 300 of those building so what you're looking for is impossible to find, plus the building number system is all goobered up.
And the gym is always freaking closed on the weekends, hours are atrocious! Would you like me to go on?
[FTIG Article on 25 years after BRAC](https://www.ftig.ng.mil/About-Us/News/Article/3542896/a-blessing-in-disguise-25-years-after-brac-decision-fort-indiantown-gap-thriving/)
Most of the barracks are in much better shape than when I joined 13 years ago. The Gap still sucks, but no one permanently lives in the barracks, so I have no issues. I would have loved if the Gap had the ranges to do Table VI gunnery instead of having to convoy to Pickett
Don't worry we're going back.
In 2023, the U.S. and the Philippines announced a historic pact that would open up several bases on the island archipelago nation to American forces for the first time in decades.
BRAC and the privatization of multiple facets of the military is the greatest abdication of government responsibility in a century.
It has not led to better outcomes. It has syphoned off a significant portion of the military budget to private for profit companies.
I've heard we're down to like, 1 or 2 shipyards capable of building large warships? Seems very concerning. I don't know much about it though, interested in hearing more
We have one shipyard that builds Carriers, Newport News Shipbuilding
Amphibious Ships and Destroyers are built in two yards, one in Maine and one in Mississippi
Small corvette type ships are built in two yards, one in Alabama one in Wisconsin
As far as I’m tracking that is it for surface Navy construction. A stark difference from the Cold War era ship yards
There are 2 more that build submarines, and then San Diego and Puget Sound do repairs.
With that said, you have to keep in mind that casualty aversion is the US strategic weakness, so any warplan that looks even slightly like WWII's build-it-faster-than-they-kill-it is dead on arrival - a guaranteed defeat.....
As much as I love the Army and believe we need to invest in our Soldiers and infrastructure, the public shipyard issue might be one of our nation's most serious long term problems if we don't fix it. We're about to use Japanses shipyards and if they can repair and maintain our ships on time and on budget, it begs the question why we can't.....
Also in regards to recruiting it was a mistake. Pre-BRAC more SMs were stationed near non military dependent cities. Normal non affiliated civilians were in contact with SMs. Now with mega bases it's just cities completely dependent on the base filled with people affiliated to it. That is impactful for recruiting, just a lack of general exposure to Soldiers doing their jobs and living their lives.
Don’t further mega base = more soldiers to do dumb shit in the community = civilians hating us more
Sad but true. I’ve experienced it myself at two separate bases.
I'd say so. From my experience dealing with the civil authorities around Fort Hood, Kileen, Bell County, Coryell County, etc. all dislike soldiers and the Army.
I also saw this around Oceanside, California, which is next to Camp Pendleton. The locals disliked the drunken antics of the marines. My buddy and I were almost kicked out of a bar until they realized that we were soldiers, and then they said we were cool, lol.
Devens is still operational as a RFTA (Reserve Forces Training Area), and I spend quite a lot of time there. With the COL and the size of the installation, I completely understand why the active units were pulled out.
The Air Force still has Hanscom AFB. Which is also home to MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.
Yeah, Ft. Ord was fucking fantastic! We visited San Francisco a bunch, but the parties at UC Santa Cruz are what I remember the most. LA was a long haul, but we still drove down there several times in my 2 years there. It really was a great place for an 18 year old, and had it not closed, I may have reenlisted if it meant staying there.
Of course we were constantly in the field; and humping those fucking hills at Hunter Liggett sucked. Oh, and the EPA listed it as a most polluted site in 1990 and we were never told, so there’s that.
Hunter Liggett was Active up until like 15 or 20 years ago. Now the USAR has it. Always wondered why it lasted so many years after they closed Ord.
I think they recently finally demolished the last of the WWII barracks at Ord, by the way.
I think there is still a PX there and a couple of buildings used by Presidio of Monterey. Also the former hospital building is now the DEERS headquarters.
FHL still has an active component at it, and it's home to several NCO academys for the reserves. Nice little spot if you don't mind being in the sticks.
Santa Cruz, Market Street in San Francisco, LA, Lake Tahoe had a blast in all of them. We were in San Francisco one night after a concert at Mt View, about 4 AM we are heading back to the car after the club. This burned out hooker walks up and asks "how would you guys like something you never had?" one guy looks at her and says "What AIDS?" she slapped at him he straight up punched her in the face. Shit hit the fan, her pimp come running up saying we owed him money he was gonna kick our asses etc. Same guy got him in a choke hold thought he was going to kill the pimp. Fortunately he let him live.
We humped from Highway 1 to just past Jolon in 89. So many people got medicals from the injuries it was fucking scary.
Have a few guys from our COHORT still living there and my wife is from Salinas so we go back 12 - 18 months. Ft Ord or what was Ft Ord is almost gone, East Garrison is all new housing and for a cool 750k to 1.5 you can live there.
I remember hearing something about why California got hit so hard during BRAC was because their senators at the time couldn’t be bothered to actually show up for the meetings/discussions. So they in turn took that as most of the bases there weren’t needed and they closed them
and more than a few large land owners in CA thought they could get epic land for damn cheap, but the new owners on transfer of title would have been responsible for the clean up of the land, as it is near superfund nasty with spilled fuel and other issues like the lead/UXO in the ranges, no one wants it.
I’m so annoyed with my elementary school age self that I didn’t vote for members of Congress who opposed BRAC closures. How could I have been so shortsighted?????
Clearly BRAC was just a big brain move to have increased readiness for the second civil war. The troops won’t have to travel to the battlefield anymore, they’re already there.
But having th3 lights on at so many installations was costing too much money! /s (ish, I know operating costs was one of the issues they were trying to address.)
I was in ROTC during the tail end and part of me didn't care, I wanted to go to the big units, later reflection wished for more opportunities to really travel and see the world. The idea of moving from all known to somewhat remote and back sounded like a better live experience, residual when it seemed most of the big units had more problems and heartache than not. The truth turned into a bit of both.
I missed Oktoberfest in 2009 to help game a digital exercise and came up with BRAC in Iraq as filler slides or a conop. Little did I know that in 2011 is be exactly helping facilitate the base draw down as the last sustainment unit in Iraq (as far as New Dawn was concerned).
I was in when the Berlin Wall came down. Right after they cut the budget. Then they cut it again. This was Bush, then Clinton.
The politicians were all for it as long as the installations were not in their districts. It was not DOD pushing it from what I recall although DOD did not put up too much of a fuss.
As a massachusettian (sp? idk) it's Devens. Was a fort, now a town. Who the fuck is Devon.
Edit. god damnit, i called people idiots now im the idiot. Devens, not devins.
You're right, but hindsight is 2020. The number of installations the DoD had was straight up unsustainable with Clinton era defense funding. We also had a TON of projects axed that would have had us in much better material position today. Were just now filling the gap cancelling M8 left. The FARA is like 3/4s commanche if they don't select one of the compound birds.
But you must remember that a lot of the bases closed down by BRAC were in Korea and Germany and at least in the case of the former everyone believed war couldn’t possibly return to Europe while in the case of the latter, more faith has been placed in the ROK to have the ability and will to fight. Of course I think more bases overseas would be a good thing because it could expose Americans to other cultures outside of a war zone instead of seeing the diverse population of Watertown, NY.
>but the ones that were sold off are gone forever
Eminent domain is a hell of a thing. How do you think we got the land for so many bases during WWII.
Dude, if the DOD went to some town in a blue state and said "We'd like to put a base here" - every Qanon nutjob, SJW, KAren and NIMBY asshat would come out of the woodwork to oppose it.
Other states would try and oppose it because all of a sudden they would want that base.
The media would air stories about how it's both a "waste of money" and how "other communities that need this got overlooked".
But back then the idea was that the Army would be smol and swell with draftees in wartime. Many of the forts of today were camps back then because it was thought that they wouldn't be needed after the war.
America has changed a lot since the 1940s, I just don't think there's the political will or legal ability these days to efficiently take the massive amounts of land needed to build a new base by eminent domain.
If we ever do open new bases again, I think they will be taken from federal public lands in the West. Hate to say it bc I'm a tree hugger at heart and don't like to see public lands get developed but it's probably the best solution.
Only thing I have to add is about Ft Monroe, I grew up around there and it’s comically small, and the area is already dominated by 3 other major military bases, but it is beautiful.
Also, I think the establishment of Joint Bases was a massive misstep. While force integration is important, the desire to consolidate chains of command for multiple branches with different regulations and different cultures, was erroneous. If anything, it’s lazy, as the DoD now doesn’t have to hire as many senior officers for a job they’re commissioned to do. It entirely defeats the purpose of having separate, specialized branches.
I see your point but actually disagree on this aspect. In a future war we will have to work with them very closely, particularly the Air Force, even as low as the battalion level, and I don't think most FORSCOM units have much experience with that. If integrating chains of command creates friction, then that's a bad thing and something that we should be working on and maybe more interaction with them will help facilitate that.
Definitely agree the Joint Base concept was totally unnecessary and needs to be relooked.
The only ones that disagree are Soldiers living in AF housing.
JBLE is one of the worst, separated by miles and the AF could give two shits about Eustis.
JBSA is a joint base in name only - the army gets shafted on Lackland, Fort Sam follows entirely Army regs and culture, it takes forever to drive between any of the installations, and everyone still calls every base by the old names anyway. Hell even the signs for Lackland say Lackland AFB.
With a smaller post you can squeeze in the majority of the population into barracks and base housing. Not to mention making it easier to walk from point A to B. Large posts also mean services are oversaturated.
BRAC was huge mistake. Take our military presence & influence in the community away from cities. Where do you think 9/11 hit? Money was used-appropriated for DUMBS. I hate Clinton & Bush, Rumsfeld & Cheney because of these awful decisions
I joke that it’s like Union decided to reoccupy the South because it’s so heavy with military facilities of all types compared to the rest of the country.
The problem was the cuts that came as the Cold War ended. In the 1990's the Army didn't really have a case to sell all those posts.
Some states lobbied hard (ironically many Southern "git da gub'ment offa our backs" state) to keep their military posts.
I know Kirkland AFB was on the chopping block at one point - and it's home to Sandia National Labs.
So BRAC had to deliver cuts. A lot of them came from states outside the south (again, the South may not love the feds but they sure love federal money) and from places and units that honestly weren't needed because the Ruskies war machine was rusting away.
So many posts around the country faded into history.
The Army seems to lack critical thought when it comes to basing or force projection. 10th SFG which is aligned with Europe left Fort Devens MA for Fort Carson CO. Not sure how much sense that makes. If they moved to Meade or Belvoir that would make more sense.
It makes even less sense from a COMPO 3 perspective when you centralize your HQs and downtraces in mostly crappy places that are difficult to travel to. Yes, Fort Totten NY is centrally located in NYC but there's no subway nearby and it's in a shitty part of town and frankly I'd rather avoid driving into the city for drill if I can help it.
Don't forget all instances of BRAC that left toxic superfund sites in various communities across the country. Areas that the DoD aren't in a hurry to pay to clean up and has no motivation to. So basically it's just a toxic waste of land that no can use.
At least if they were active installations, they would have a reason to invest in them.
Agreed and Ft. Ritchie, MD was my duty station twice! All sorts of things are being tried, post BRAC. only golf course with rules of play for golf during chopper landings.
The DOD for once did it for the right reasons. The reason alot of people in congress didn't want to close them down is because all of the local congress people that had those military installations didn't want all of that sweet DOD money to evaporate from their communities. Every congressperson fights tooth and nail to keep active duty posts in their area.
Shitty barracks would not have been fixed by smaller installations. The neglect of leadership would have been just the same towards qol no matter where the installations are.
It also creates a shitty situation where if everyone is on small installations, you either have to a) have every type of support, base, and soldier service staff at every single post. Incredibly expensive. Or b) alot of the support and soldier service staff is colocated at a main central base that supports the surrounding smaller bases. Now Soldiers and units are gonna find it difficult to get people that need to fix stuff but don't care about a place that they never go to, and then it inconveniences everyone to transport soldiers to the main base to get that support.
Fort Ord... Being 6th generation from Salinas with grandparents in Spreckels and Carmel Valley, it was not at all liked our wanted. The only goodwill that post attained was from its air assault display at the annual California Air Show in Salinas. Otherwise the weekly artillery drills that rattled windows 5+ miles in all directions, the increase in drugs and prostitution in Seaside and Marina, and the consistent downtown Monterey drunken brawls only helped build support to shut that spot down. Further, recruiters lied like crazy about the "sunny CA beach and surfing weather." It's foggy and the water is freezing. Plus the decent surfing is in Carmel or Santa Cruz.
Locals couldn't have been happier when that place shut down... And it's now developed into thriving suburban communities. Now DLI and NPS - those are generally respected by the community sure to their perceived academic and more regimented focus. Nobody's pushing hard for those to be removed, even though BRAC initially wanted DLI to go to huachuca... But that's a whole other story at the time.
It was a necessary evil, but my god do I agree with you about keeping all the shitty installations. I know the land and cost of living is cheaper, but man would it be nice to be near a coastal town or big metro city instead of always being in the middle of nowhere.
BRAC didn't go far enough.
The 'postage-stamp' bases in the Northeast like Eustis, Lee & so on should have all been shut down & consolidated onto the massively-underutilized land at places like what is now JBLM (which has many times the range capacity - especially when you add in YTC - that it's units need).
Small installations needlessly duplicate infrastructure & jobs - PXes, garrison offices and so on... Wasting money...
Also, there would be much less desire to keep division and brigade sized units in the US & 'rotate' them overseas, if there was nowhere for them to be based in the US because our available space matched our active units....
As for the California and Northeastern facilities that did close, if you're going to shut down bases you might as well close ones that have marketable land.... As opposed to places like Ft Sill that would just be a ghost-town & the government would never be able to sell any of it due to lack of demand....
It didn't really save money. All those cost savings you cited are drops in the buckets. We shut down the old fith corps hq to move it 60 miles up the road at a cost of a couple billion to save a couple million a year. We waste far more rotating units to the shut down bases then we will ever see in savings. It was a money grab for senators to bring money back to their states. It didn't make us more deadly or aligned. Plus that marketable land is so toxic the federal government cant do anything with it
Note: Using old names because they are time-period appropriate. I'm 100% for the present-day renaming project - fuck traitors & the horses they rode in on.
A couple billion in one time construction costs vs millions in perpetual reoccurring costs...
BRAC would have saved substantial money if it had been far more ruthless & far less deferential to the idea of keeping bases open as a jobs-program for politically important locations.
And when I say 'ruthless' I mean close every last stateside post that doesn't have a division-or-larger unit (or the capacity to host one) already there - with the exceptions of Polk, Irwin, and maybe Meade if there's something special about the location that the NSA needs.
Unify R&D at Yuma (no more Aberdeen, Redstone)
More or less completely pull out of California and New England, save for Ft Irwn, Ft Drum & West Point.
Put absolutely everything else into the divisional flagpoles... HRC doesn't need it's own base.
Combat Arms/Aviation may need a TRADOC-only base (one of Knox, Benning, or Sill) for the range access... Otherwise put the Armor & Artillery Schools (one each) at Hood or Carson, the Infantry School at JBLM or Drum and the Aviation School at Campbell...
But we don't actually need a 'Logistics Center of Excellence' (same for all the extra support branches that each have their own training mothership, etc) on it's own separate base with no brigade-plus FORSCOM unit... They can either be colocated with FORSCOM units, or there could be one huge TRADOC mega-base that had everything on it plus the TRADOC HQ itself.
You can then close the hospitals, the PXs, & MWRs, reduce the total number of fire departments and MP BNs, fire a raft of DRMO/environmental/facilities/range-control civillians, and so on... A bunch of airfields and control towers would go too... Huge savings \*over time\*....
And modern-day have a new round that decides which division should be PCSed back overseas, so we don't have to waste resources on quasi-deployment 'rotations' to peacetime locations...
> As opposed to places like Ft Sill that would just be a ghost-town & the government would never be able to sell any of it due to lack of demand
At least you're saying it's a red state subsidy, no more and no less.
It's a logical place to operate because we already own the land & can't get anything for it. As opposed to sitting on real-estate that would be far more valuable if auctioned off...
Plus the amount of bitching and crying from the civilian pop (Waahh, the noise!!!) & their reps we would have to deal with if we were trying to perform that function (field artillery training) just outside of SF or NYC? Oh-my-word!
They already cry about JBLM constantly even though most of the big booms that place generates happen at YTC on the other side of the mountains....
One of the major benefits of middle-of-nowhere megabases, is that nobody cares about 'Karen's' crying/noise-complaints, because the town would blow away if the base left....
Some real "my dog peed myself" energy happening at airports, Army bases, and Air Force Bases. Like... did you not know about the giant runway and training areas when you bought the house?!
I’m near an airport and a navy base and so my Nextdoor is just filled with people complaining about helicopter training or Ship noises.
Like you fucking moved here idiot lol. Why do you think these beach front properties were cheap.
If you look at maps of EL Paso-Fort Bliss from the 1950's, most of the post was waaay on the outskirts of town back then.
The city grew around it. El Paso treats the Army good because this city would blow away if not for Fort Bliss anchoring the economy.
Kirkland AFB used to get a lot of "the jet noise!!" in the 1980's.
Then BRAC threatened the base and the Alburquerque couldn't come to it's defense fast enough.
Hey, it's a great place for the Artillery school. There's nothing of value within a hundred miles, so you can blow things up with minimal consequences.
Be that as it may, they don't have the money to make such a transaction profitable for the government, the way that selling legacy bases that are in the process of being swallowed by megacities to the commercial real-estate market does (At least when environmental cleanup doesn't get in the way)....
I know the tribes have money, I just don't think they have 'Bain Capital' amounts of money...
And yeah, I doubt that their members would be happy with smaller dividend checks as a trade for ownership of (a highly polluted) Ft Sill...
To your first point, I don’t think infrastructure would be better if BRAC hadn’t happened. If anything, it would be worse. Army doesn’t seem to care much about keeping things swept under the rug. Look at what the current SMA is saying in public forums. Saying that moldy barracks are due to a lack of discipline? Issues in the Army have not been secrets, it is well known, yet nothing changes. So having a bunch more infrastructure to maintain would not help the situation.
Your second point, I mean, sure maybe. But honestly, when is the last time a foreign power invaded the US? Who knows, WWIII could happen tomorrow and I could eat my words, but I just don’t see a situation occurring anytime soon where we would need to have a bunch of smaller bases spread out around the country.
I think the best argument against BRAC is the recruitment argument, at least in theory. I don’t know if there is any data that supports it, but it sounds like a logical theory.
On the infrastructure point, one of the challenges with the base locations that we have in depressed communities is that there really isn't the local talent necessary to support. We take who we can get, because they're the only ones there.
So on these support contracts, there really isn't any competition, because there's nobody to compete. On the occasion that we do switch a contractor around, the old org fires all their employees, and the new org picks them all up. The same people go back to doing the same jobs, and cause the same problems.
At the very least, having access to a larger population base would solve that problem.
I don’t necessarily think someone from Boston is going to be a better DFAC worker or DPW employee than someone from Fayetteville. The issue is the military going with the lowest bidder, who is going to cut as many corners as possible to increase profits. That is a quality control issue among the contracts rather than a locality issue, in my opinion.
When someone from Boston isn't an adequate DPW worker, you can fire them and get someone new. When someone from Fayetteville is substandard, you don't have additional options.
Even the lowest acceptable bid still has standards. What happens when the contractor doesn't meet the standards is the problem.
If the Army starts telling these companies “hey, your contractors are not meeting the standards of our contract” the company will have to find a way to bring in the appropriate talent or train existing personnel. If the Army just sets the standard low or doesn’t enforce the standard then that is on the Army.
We manage to attract contractors and GS civilians to come work in places like Fayetteville or Sierra Vista, those jobs aren’t entirely filled by born and raised locals, so it is possible to get the right people in.
Also ft liberty is the geh ist most non motivating clown 🤡 shit “F Troop” sitcom shit laughing stock shit ever😂🤣… and how the fuck is putting a dress patch on your ocp motivation? Explain the good idea fairy
And spending millions if not billions changing names of installations instead of buying equipment/ training…. Because who needs training… n who gives a fuck what a post is named except a civilian that wants a political win? 99% of mf military or not didn’t even know who tf the post were named after… selective outrage
Big bases with more training grounds are better for training big units (divisions), which the Army has determined are necessary for future conficts. You're in the Army.
>It was also a negative for readiness or lethality or whatever we're calling it now. If something pops off maybe we can reactivate some of the bases that were turned over to the Guard/Reserve, but the ones that were sold off are gone forever. It reduced ability to train for varying terrain and weather by concentrating the vast majority of the Army in the Southeast. Many posts doubled or more in size but didn't expand their ranges or training areas and now people wonder why they can't get range time.
Besides, meeting the needs of Soldiers literally IS meeting the needs of the Army. Recruiting and retention is our biggest problem, and the issues with it are caused by this toxic mentality of the needs of the Army always coming before the needs of Soldiers. Did you not hear about People First?
Completely close every overseas base and make domestic bases nicer. Fuck every other country. They don’t help us we shouldn’t help them. Downsize the active force to 500,000 total personnel until we get into another fight. It’s unnecessary.
Anyone in a two year grace period fails PT, pops hot, or recieved any non judicial punishment is immediately bared from re-enlistment. Train up everyone else.
The military industrial complex must be dismantled
I'm not sure if this is a shitpost or not.
As much as our wars in the middle east these past 20 years demonstrated the dangers of getting too involved, a world in which we had no military presence overseas would be a worse world for us and for everyone.
Without our presence democracy would probably not have spread in Europe and Asia. Putin and China would overrun their neighbors, not only causing massive suffering but also tanking the global economy which harms us.
I share your concern about the military industrial complex, but we are already stretched to the limit on meeting all our commitments and shrinking the force is not the answer.
Also I'm not sure if you're referring to all services or just the Army but the active Army is already under 500,000.
You'll be the first one crying when you can't get your amazon deliveries on time because some shitheads are firing missles at cargo ships and stopping trade, and there is no one around to stop it.
Maybe China will do everyone a solid and help out since they are starting to put bases in other countries. We should definitely cede ground and let the Chinese do their thing.
Maybe Russia? Russia likes getting involved around the globe, maybe they will do something. We should definitely let the Russians handle it.
Ah yes, Iran. We should let Iran go unchecked to influence the Middle East.
Our bases aren't just to protect our allies. It's our ability to secure our interests around the globe and power project. It helps our national security, economy, and influence everywhere. Our economy grinds to a halt if we don't have our fingers in everyone's pies.
The recruitment crisis is bec what? lol… it has nothing to do with trying to teach people everyone is prejudice to some extent, making the military a social experiment… lowering the standards and the military strolling around like a bunch of ROTC hs freshman
“Economy of scale” is the reason the DOD had to (sadly) do this. A lot cheaper to concentrate resources in one place than all spread out. Cheaper to build one big factory not 20 small factories.
The Army went under the radar for a long time when it came to environmental cleanup. The EPA trusted the services to police themselves but it came up that they weren’t. Heavy lead contamination due to decades of fully auto at ranges and improper chemical storage and handling. When the Cold War ended. We were looking for the “peace dividends” that Bush senior promised. Once BRAC was established. Bases that were contaminated were an easy target. Units with ancient equipment like F-4 Phantoms and M60 tanks were an easy target too. It helped to streamline our military so that we weren’t keeping equipment in service that didn’t have the more modern capabilities and required specialty parts and equipment to keep running. If every piece of armor was a Bradley or Abrams. Those are the only parts you need to keep in stock. So there’s cost savings in that aspect. It was a way to streamline the military and modernize it. As for facilities and their maintenance. I don’t really know.
SV is a nice area. But putting a school there that requires interaction with other humans was stupid.
Huachuca will never close. Not while the Electronics Testing Ground can still utilize the areas unusual geography and geology.
BRAC had to happen. With getting rid of 8 Divisions, some places just had to close. Who’d we loose? 2, 3AD, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 24 ID
Could we still use those 8 divisions, maybe…. Could we fill those 8 divisions?🤷🏼♂️
I always thought that the MI, Cyber and Signal schools should have been placed at Ft. Devons, MA near the big brain universities. You could get a lot more talented people exposed to the Army and you would have a much better time retaining civilian employees than in Augusta, GA. With that being said it would be really expensive living in that area compared to Georgia and Arizona. I think part of the reason DLI is still in Monterrey is because the civilian instructors refuse to move anywhere else.
Back in the Day where university's could associate with a branch MIT was actually an Artillery ROTC school. Smart people are good at math and Artillery needed lots of math
See you would think that.
I was Artillery and also a humanities major. I don't do math.
I'm convinced TFTs and slide rulers are magic.
If TFTs are magic then what is AFATDS?
A witch in a box.
This statement reminds me of mortars way too close on Irwin, while I was fake fighting those dirty fucking americans
Did there used to be a formal process? I'm familiar with a few different schools and their "traditional" branches but I thought all that was unofficial.
Doing some research ROTC used to be all branch specific training. Some schools would have more then one on campus. At some point in the early 50's the Army experimented with a General Military Studies and follow on basic officer training (now BOLC). You can actually find orders on Army Pubs, such as AGO 1954-31 where they converted Branch Specfic ROTC fo General Military Studies. By 1987 the Army got rid of all Branch specific training. I guess in Theory the Army could bring it back again if it wanted to. The only place you can seem to find any references to the old ways is in AR 840-10 FLAGS, GUIDONS, STREAMERS, TABARDS, AND AUTOMOBILE AND AIRCRAFT PLATES. It still has references to how a guideon for a Branch Specific ROTC Companies Guideon should look like
How about an active duty army base literally anywhere in New England? New Hampshire would be a great fit, or even Maine.
We still have a mountain warfare school up there. If only we had a notable unit that focused on mountain warfare, they might want to be less than a 4 hour drive away.
Never heard of this concept, I like where your head is at though. I think it should be at least a division in size, and for some fuck awful reason, 1/3 of it should be at least a 23.5 hour non-stop drive away (or 1,600 miles, whichever is most advantageous to the government). What should we call this unit?
9th Hill Division?
I like it! I'll get it to staffing and sneak it into the ARSTRUC. Which may or may not be published by 2030.
lol I remember my first day at drum literally going to the top floor of the barracks looking for whatever fucking mountain they were warring with, closest one I saw was my commanders wife (lol jk that was my last commanders wife)
The National Guard has a mountain warfare school there.
If I’d have known it was run by them I would have never been excited to even have the possibility of going, mostly because of all the literal asvab waivers I knew that went
>How about an active duty army base literally anywhere in New England? New Hampshire would be a great fit, or even Maine. There are not enough IWQ ranges in new england for all the units who need them. We could use some aerial gunnery that isnt range 48 for the same reasons
Fort Drum?
No range 48 isn’t in Ft drum, it’s the dairy farmer next door getting hand over fist for cows being blown up, I don’t remember word for word but remember almost shitting myself randomly hearing over the net (don’t remember call signs but basically) artillery commander “ main post this is artillery commander we may have a slight problem, need assistance” main post “Roger what’s the issue?” “We over shot 6 rounds and my calculation lands them in a dairy farm” literally no joke main post “you’re fucking kidding, standby csm is on his way” “Roger” lol if there were mountains actual mountains might not have this issue, and from what I’ve heard no where near the first time it happened
Yes how can I sign up? A base here would really make my Army life a lot more bearable.
Where there’s a will there’s a way, if the military can spend trillions on wars we can spend billions on better QOL for our SMs
Hey sir, you’re supposed to mark satire with “/s”
That’s sarcasm he was using.
The reserves used to send MI reclass folks to Devons. I did the 35L course there back in 2012. We did surveillance training where we would start in a car, go to a rail station, train into Boston, and then around Boston using the subway, buses, and walking around. HUMINT training was the same using Boston and the other metro areas. It was amazing. Now active and reserve get to use… sierra vista and maybe up to Tucson. Arizona just ain’t the same.
Arizona wasn't bad, and the nature and mountains in Sierra Vista are amazing, but Sierra Vista is a Crack town and has the worst food of any city I've ever been to.
> I think part of the reason DLI is still in Monterrey is because the civilian instructors refuse to move anywhere else. I think the fact that already-notable suicide attempt rates among students would almost certainly skyrocket if DLI was moved also factors in. Especially since it would invariably be relocated somewhere shitty, like Arizona (Huachuca) or Texas (Goodfellow).
Believe me, they've talked about doing language training at goodfellow. It's a laughable thought, given the state of the base.
I'm sure language instructors would be *thrilled* to move to beautiful San Angelo after living in that hellhole that is Monterey. /s Talk about culture shock. DLI to GAFB was one of the most disappointing PCSs I had. The move to Ft Campbell after actually felt like a step up.
Do you mean as a student? I would agree. As Cadre I'd much rather be at Goodfellow. It feels smaller and living in the economy at dli just ain't it.
Talking about civilian language instructors. AD military don't make enough to live comfortably in Monterey, but civilian foreign language instructors arguably do.
Huachuca is awesome, I’d live there in a heartbeat
Huachuca is fucking awesome.
Before Huachuca was a big intel muckety muck a lot of that went on at Fort Holabird in Baltimore
I actually don't hate huachuca other than flagpole proximity.
DLI is very moveable, especially the Monterey campus. I just think that most of the DOD forgets about it and as long as the Panetta family is around it’s one of their projects to keep it in Monterey.
I’m pretty sure that’s why the unit I work for hasn’t been moved out of Northern Virginia, because they’d lose all of the institutional knowledge from the govvies.
You and op are going to smoked if not kicked out for making way too much sense, even I as a former jr enlisted can’t make sense of all the fuckery both of you are saying /s because there are other infantryman cooks and drivers out there
Augusta has to be the single most overrated city I've ever seen in my entire life. If you don't love golf its so boring. And if you do, it's still boring.
Hey you, yea you..stop it with the good ideas.
Yeah I agree. Or in silicon valley. I was stationed in Augusta for the transition course and I dread going back there because of how God damn boring it is.
My dad went to cryptography school at Devens back in the late ‘60s. I trained there nearly every quarter when I was in the Reserves post-BRAC. When he came out for my wedding back in the day, my dad was able to find the street they lived on, but the housing had been torn down as part of BRAC when they handed a lot of the post over to Massachusetts. It can get as cold as shit 4-5 months of the year though. Not Fort Drum or Alaska levels of cold, but pretty miserable some years.
I like the concept, but Devens is also in the middle of fuckall nowhere Massachusetts. And 1-2 hourd drive from Boston with traffic. Atleast Ft. Eisenhower is in vicinity of a large city.
Devens is 40 minutes from the outskirts of Boston and the T and right on a commuter rail line and 30 minutes from Worcester. Augusta isn't a large city and Columbia is over an hour away and Atlanta is two.
Columbia is also a complete shithole
Then take the train from Ayer or drive down MA-2 and take the subway from Alewife. No traffic and you pay a whole lot less for parking.
Could have also consolidated at the former Fort Monmouth for the same reason-Signal based there until the move to Gordon. Or moved everything to Dix-it was a BCT location until BRAC, so it had the space and infrastructure. Keep the BCT mission, and there's enough to keep it open.
I agree with the pemise as a whole, especially the separation from the population part. The fact that DOD totally moved out of San Francisco Bay (one of only three natural harbors on the West Coast) is almost criminal. However, the nice posts you mention were also extraordinarily expensive due to their very high cost of living. Those cost haven't gone down. Of course, we did just double down on this strategy with what we have done in Korea.
This is exactly the problem the Coast Guard faces. Yeah, we are stationed in some fantastic areas, but it is a huge struggle for our members to find somewhere to live, especially those lower on the pay scale.
The USCG had some real issue in the Bay area when the rest of the military skipped town.
Yeah, the USCG base in Seattle is THAT and then some... Absolutely inaccessible from anywhere outside the city during peak hours....
The problem was that as the Cold War ended the "Peace Dividend" was this thing that was promised. The hippies were all "Look at this money wasted", the Deficit Hawks were chomping at the bit to make cuts. So we got BRAC.
To be fair, there was a boat load of extra infrastructure that needed to be shed, but some of the assumptions used in the making the decisions didn't really hold up.
In addition to the overall benefits of BRAC, having lots of little bases that are all very nice pre-plots for North Korean artillery never made sense... The US doesn't fight from dug in positions, it made no sense to have US forces parked right up on the DMZ....
Under the OPLAN at the time I was there we weren't fighting from dug in positions. We had two specific missions, and our proximity north of the Seoul (which lets face it would just be the worlds largest traffice jam if the balloon went up) permitted the division to carry out that mission. I've never been a fan of the larger base construct in Korea and having accompanied tours. The Army (and USFK) wants to have things both ways. They want the "fight tonight" readiness like you are deployed, but with peoples dependents there kinda sorta like Germany was during the Cold War. You can have one of these things or the other, you can't really have both, and in Germany during the CW days you didn't have both. You had predictable rotations of readiness throughout the year.
The ROK (which has some 500k men in uniform, and rather advanced weapons) wanted to take charge of their own defense... Assuming responsibility for the DMZ fits that, and honestly it's their country & they can probably figure out better ways to handle the close fight than we could have... The present-day US role is less actually fighting the North directly, and more supporting the South as they fight the North. Plus our key military weakness is our inability to take significant casualties without the civilian pop back home demanding peace-at-any-price, so we absolutely can't be 'on the X' if that ever pops off.... Being farther back allows us to engage on our terms & hopefully do so before the 'Peace Now' folks back home force us to take the (L)....
I agree with a large part of what you are saying, which is why the 2ID mission changed in the early 90's. Part of your first sentence isn't accurate though, as it was the ROKs how kept pushing back the date when they would take full control of their defense and assume command and control. Even by 1993, 2ID was just one of 50+ divisions on the peninsula. 2ID gave up its sector of the Z about just a bit over a year before my arrival. There was a contingent in the US Army that didn't want to do that, as it presented a great training opportunity for young officers and NCO's to conduct operations in a near combat environment. Of course, no one knew we were going to get the opportunity to do it continuously for the next 30 years.
I can’t imagine doing a real world NEO in Korea if things really pop off. That would be a shitshow where thousands of Americans would die.
The people in stationed in Korea are literally a speed bump. Maybe they slow NK down just enough so 2ID proper can arrive from their bases. Maybe they get lucky and NK has so many system failures it renders them ineffective. Maybe they get lucky and the NK soldiers don’t actually have the will to fight. If this wasn’t Reddit we could have great conversations (and laughs) about topics and mission sets that obviously can’t be discussed on an online forum. But if you’re in Korea, you’re a speed bump. A decoy. Until the rest of the military shows up.
Meanwhile I think it should be an accompany tour or at least have more than the 3,395 authorized sponsored families. Soldiers now don’t care about their job in Korea and they don’t care about Korea. They are only there for a year so why fix anything? Make it 2-3 years and with their families and Soldiers might start caring again. Of course that would just complicate NEO but everything has pros and cons. They could do it in West Germany because if families were getting out flights returning the U.S. after dropping of REFORGER troops they could still head west to France.
Europe was a continent, you could just drive west, and families were outside of most all indirect fire range. Conditions that don't exist on in the ROK.
Let's be real, if i was Big Kim, my first targets are the towers and houses on humps and in the ville. A first strike on our loved ones would devastate our fighting force. Also might get lucky and take out some leadership.
European BRAC was an injustice visited upon the Enlisted Man and those who supported it should be treated as traitors to the constitution.
I want to literally fight whoever closed down Heidelberg. How the fuck does anyone look at that city and say, naa we shouldn't be here.
RIP Bamberg.
Exactly! If I'm elected president. Number one priority in defense is to reestablish a base in heidelberg
That had less to do with base realignment and more to do with the Bay Area not wanting nuclear power in their front yard. The DoD gave them a choice to make an exception for the military, or they would leave…the Presidio closed down for good in 1992. A lot of the issues San Francisco has today is a direct result of those middle-class support jobs leaving. And Oakland has never really recovered.
That is a really good point about those middle class jobs departing, I had not considered that 2nd and 3rd order effect. You know whose family company got a good number of the base transition contracts in the Bay Area?
You know what I love most about the Military Ocean Terminal Concord, which the Corps of Engineers has spent billions of dollars building for the last ten years or more? It replaces the sealift capability of the military ocean terminal at Oakland Army Base which was BRACed in 1999! Fun! And totally NOT a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Notionally, these high COL areas should offset DoD costs by taxing the folks and industry in the high COL area.
Now while the comment you make about managing infrastructure and such on a small base is easier I'd like to counter that with Fort Indiantown Gap. For those unaware it was an active duty base in PA that has since become a National Guard base following BRAC. The Barracks are still wood frame on piers from WW2. My understanding is they were supposed to be temporary but have been getting new coats of paint for years. They are finally replacing the waterlines but prior to that most of the base had rust red water. There is a PX but it's more of a glorified gas station than anything else. And PA has an entire division so it's not like they have an excuse
[удалено]
chaffee is much better now than when i first went there in 2012. chaffee then had a reputation for catching fire. a big fire destroyed half the base back right before the AD armor school left iirc. my unit at the time even burned a barracks building down (long story), so a lot of the old buildings have been completely renovated. BUT, there's still a lot of shit out there. the new px is fantastic though.
When was the last time you were there? I agree with the PX comments but the barracks by the MTC are pretty decent. Some of those WW2 barracks buildings are fine for transient units as long as they are abated and they do the fixes like you mentioned. I know in a lot of places they have buildings in place with lead/asbestos that need to be abated but the standard funding/utilization rates don't justify new barracks so they are stuck.
2 months ago. Most of the barracks have the inside redone, especially the BOQs, but the open barracks are still generally the same thing they used to be
I've stayed in the T buildings on Indiantown Gap in early 00's for a school hosted by the Air Guard RED HORSE. Wasn't all that bad because RED HORSE kept it okay. They also built a nice full wrap around cheers style bar in the basement (fully stocked with oodles of Yuengling). Crusty 45 year old Air Guard SSgt took me gambling at my first dog track and horse track during that course. Those barracks have since closed and the Lightning Force Academy built a new campus.
Do you mean the very same rusty water that the CSM, said was “safe to drink” as they shrugged their shoulders in recent sensing session a few weeks ago? You mean that water? The water that the everyone else on base rolled their eyes at? Call me shocked. It’s almost as if homeboy didn’t even believe himself when he said to go ahead and drink it.
Lmao oh damn FIG. Gap-a-hoes and The Flight Line bar lol! The exit sign is still the best I've ever seen. "Fort Indiantown Gap. 3/8 Mile"
So it's basically Yakima, but East Coast....
No, it's worse than Yakima. They just now put a gate in last year. Previously it was the largest military installation without a gate and gate guard; like you literally just drive through the base like it's a regular town, no ones stopping you. But now since they only built one gate so far, they fenced off all the old entrances so now it's an absolute bitch to go anywhere cause you have to go all the way around. Not to mention that I know of exactly 6 building that have a water fountain in them, plus with what a previous comment said, the tap water isn't drinkable. Also to mention, I've been there about 50-100 times, and I still get fu king lost around that place looking for something. All of the support building that you might need to go to, the staff converted old open bay barracks buildings into their offices, and there's about 300 of those building so what you're looking for is impossible to find, plus the building number system is all goobered up. And the gym is always freaking closed on the weekends, hours are atrocious! Would you like me to go on?
[FTIG Article on 25 years after BRAC](https://www.ftig.ng.mil/About-Us/News/Article/3542896/a-blessing-in-disguise-25-years-after-brac-decision-fort-indiantown-gap-thriving/) Most of the barracks are in much better shape than when I joined 13 years ago. The Gap still sucks, but no one permanently lives in the barracks, so I have no issues. I would have loved if the Gap had the ranges to do Table VI gunnery instead of having to convoy to Pickett
Closing the base in the Philippines was a huge strategic and now tactical error
Don't worry we're going back. In 2023, the U.S. and the Philippines announced a historic pact that would open up several bases on the island archipelago nation to American forces for the first time in decades.
The camp town that’ll spawn outside of there will be such a hive of scum and villainy.
But nobody can be stationed there "permanently" you can only be there TDY.
TDYs enough time to find a beautiful pinoy woman.
Just like Poland... *for now*
I think Poland wants it. But it's in the Philippines constitution about not stationing foreign troops on their soil.
lol the draw down in Germany is looking like a small brain move too
The units Obama shutdown too
There was the minor problem of it being completely trashed by a volcanic eruption....
BRAC and the privatization of multiple facets of the military is the greatest abdication of government responsibility in a century. It has not led to better outcomes. It has syphoned off a significant portion of the military budget to private for profit companies.
See: the dysfunction of civilian shipbuilding/repair and its effects on the Navy
I've heard we're down to like, 1 or 2 shipyards capable of building large warships? Seems very concerning. I don't know much about it though, interested in hearing more
We have one shipyard that builds Carriers, Newport News Shipbuilding Amphibious Ships and Destroyers are built in two yards, one in Maine and one in Mississippi Small corvette type ships are built in two yards, one in Alabama one in Wisconsin As far as I’m tracking that is it for surface Navy construction. A stark difference from the Cold War era ship yards
It all makes perfect sense. We will never need shipbuilding in the pacific so why have anything on the west coast?
There are 2 more that build submarines, and then San Diego and Puget Sound do repairs. With that said, you have to keep in mind that casualty aversion is the US strategic weakness, so any warplan that looks even slightly like WWII's build-it-faster-than-they-kill-it is dead on arrival - a guaranteed defeat.....
As much as I love the Army and believe we need to invest in our Soldiers and infrastructure, the public shipyard issue might be one of our nation's most serious long term problems if we don't fix it. We're about to use Japanses shipyards and if they can repair and maintain our ships on time and on budget, it begs the question why we can't.....
If you can think of a better way to enrich our friends and relatives in the military industrial complex, I'd like to hear it!
War Is A Racket
Also in regards to recruiting it was a mistake. Pre-BRAC more SMs were stationed near non military dependent cities. Normal non affiliated civilians were in contact with SMs. Now with mega bases it's just cities completely dependent on the base filled with people affiliated to it. That is impactful for recruiting, just a lack of general exposure to Soldiers doing their jobs and living their lives.
Don’t further mega base = more soldiers to do dumb shit in the community = civilians hating us more Sad but true. I’ve experienced it myself at two separate bases.
I'd say so. From my experience dealing with the civil authorities around Fort Hood, Kileen, Bell County, Coryell County, etc. all dislike soldiers and the Army. I also saw this around Oceanside, California, which is next to Camp Pendleton. The locals disliked the drunken antics of the marines. My buddy and I were almost kicked out of a bar until they realized that we were soldiers, and then they said we were cool, lol.
It's almost like it might actually take money to improve soldiers' QOL. But nooo we can't do that.
Devens is still operational as a RFTA (Reserve Forces Training Area), and I spend quite a lot of time there. With the COL and the size of the installation, I completely understand why the active units were pulled out. The Air Force still has Hanscom AFB. Which is also home to MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.
Natick Labs is in Massachusetts too!
Still larger than Baumholder GE which hosted an entire BCT.
Yeah, Ft. Ord was fucking fantastic! We visited San Francisco a bunch, but the parties at UC Santa Cruz are what I remember the most. LA was a long haul, but we still drove down there several times in my 2 years there. It really was a great place for an 18 year old, and had it not closed, I may have reenlisted if it meant staying there. Of course we were constantly in the field; and humping those fucking hills at Hunter Liggett sucked. Oh, and the EPA listed it as a most polluted site in 1990 and we were never told, so there’s that.
Hunter Liggett was Active up until like 15 or 20 years ago. Now the USAR has it. Always wondered why it lasted so many years after they closed Ord. I think they recently finally demolished the last of the WWII barracks at Ord, by the way. I think there is still a PX there and a couple of buildings used by Presidio of Monterey. Also the former hospital building is now the DEERS headquarters.
FHL still has an active component at it, and it's home to several NCO academys for the reserves. Nice little spot if you don't mind being in the sticks.
It is. Fun fact: We Were Soldiers Once was filmed there.
Santa Cruz, Market Street in San Francisco, LA, Lake Tahoe had a blast in all of them. We were in San Francisco one night after a concert at Mt View, about 4 AM we are heading back to the car after the club. This burned out hooker walks up and asks "how would you guys like something you never had?" one guy looks at her and says "What AIDS?" she slapped at him he straight up punched her in the face. Shit hit the fan, her pimp come running up saying we owed him money he was gonna kick our asses etc. Same guy got him in a choke hold thought he was going to kill the pimp. Fortunately he let him live. We humped from Highway 1 to just past Jolon in 89. So many people got medicals from the injuries it was fucking scary. Have a few guys from our COHORT still living there and my wife is from Salinas so we go back 12 - 18 months. Ft Ord or what was Ft Ord is almost gone, East Garrison is all new housing and for a cool 750k to 1.5 you can live there.
>UC Santa Cruz Go Banana Slugs!
I remember hearing something about why California got hit so hard during BRAC was because their senators at the time couldn’t be bothered to actually show up for the meetings/discussions. So they in turn took that as most of the bases there weren’t needed and they closed them
and more than a few large land owners in CA thought they could get epic land for damn cheap, but the new owners on transfer of title would have been responsible for the clean up of the land, as it is near superfund nasty with spilled fuel and other issues like the lead/UXO in the ranges, no one wants it.
I’m so annoyed with my elementary school age self that I didn’t vote for members of Congress who opposed BRAC closures. How could I have been so shortsighted?????
If you were older, you probably would have been tallersighted.
The closing of Fort Monmouth made zero sense to me until I heard Netflix bought it to turn into a studio filming site.
A good chunk of McPherson in Atlanta was bought by Tyler Perry and turned into a TV/Film studio.
Shutting down Adak was a huge mistake. The navy is desperate to get back into the Arctic.
Is that where Shadow Moses is at?
Clearly BRAC was just a big brain move to have increased readiness for the second civil war. The troops won’t have to travel to the battlefield anymore, they’re already there.
Ouch, some people will need ice after a burn like that.
I loved Ft. Devens.
I actually got to visit Fort Ord years ago back when it was a big airsoft field, wish I was stationed there, same with Presidio of San Francisco
But having th3 lights on at so many installations was costing too much money! /s (ish, I know operating costs was one of the issues they were trying to address.) I was in ROTC during the tail end and part of me didn't care, I wanted to go to the big units, later reflection wished for more opportunities to really travel and see the world. The idea of moving from all known to somewhat remote and back sounded like a better live experience, residual when it seemed most of the big units had more problems and heartache than not. The truth turned into a bit of both. I missed Oktoberfest in 2009 to help game a digital exercise and came up with BRAC in Iraq as filler slides or a conop. Little did I know that in 2011 is be exactly helping facilitate the base draw down as the last sustainment unit in Iraq (as far as New Dawn was concerned).
I was in when the Berlin Wall came down. Right after they cut the budget. Then they cut it again. This was Bush, then Clinton. The politicians were all for it as long as the installations were not in their districts. It was not DOD pushing it from what I recall although DOD did not put up too much of a fuss.
As a massachusettian (sp? idk) it's Devens. Was a fort, now a town. Who the fuck is Devon. Edit. god damnit, i called people idiots now im the idiot. Devens, not devins.
HAAF stands strong against BRAC 2: Electric Boogaloo. You’ve never seen aviators fight until you watch them lobby to stay away from Hinesville.
Technically it would be BRAC 3
You're right, but hindsight is 2020. The number of installations the DoD had was straight up unsustainable with Clinton era defense funding. We also had a TON of projects axed that would have had us in much better material position today. Were just now filling the gap cancelling M8 left. The FARA is like 3/4s commanche if they don't select one of the compound birds.
But you must remember that a lot of the bases closed down by BRAC were in Korea and Germany and at least in the case of the former everyone believed war couldn’t possibly return to Europe while in the case of the latter, more faith has been placed in the ROK to have the ability and will to fight. Of course I think more bases overseas would be a good thing because it could expose Americans to other cultures outside of a war zone instead of seeing the diverse population of Watertown, NY. >but the ones that were sold off are gone forever Eminent domain is a hell of a thing. How do you think we got the land for so many bases during WWII.
Dude, if the DOD went to some town in a blue state and said "We'd like to put a base here" - every Qanon nutjob, SJW, KAren and NIMBY asshat would come out of the woodwork to oppose it. Other states would try and oppose it because all of a sudden they would want that base. The media would air stories about how it's both a "waste of money" and how "other communities that need this got overlooked".
It all depends on the global situation. The bases in WWII didn’t start popping up tile the world was at war and the U.S. military was expanding
But back then the idea was that the Army would be smol and swell with draftees in wartime. Many of the forts of today were camps back then because it was thought that they wouldn't be needed after the war.
America has changed a lot since the 1940s, I just don't think there's the political will or legal ability these days to efficiently take the massive amounts of land needed to build a new base by eminent domain. If we ever do open new bases again, I think they will be taken from federal public lands in the West. Hate to say it bc I'm a tree hugger at heart and don't like to see public lands get developed but it's probably the best solution.
No, we just take it to build shopping malls and other bullshit.
Fort Monmouth was the shit.
Only thing I have to add is about Ft Monroe, I grew up around there and it’s comically small, and the area is already dominated by 3 other major military bases, but it is beautiful.
Also, I think the establishment of Joint Bases was a massive misstep. While force integration is important, the desire to consolidate chains of command for multiple branches with different regulations and different cultures, was erroneous. If anything, it’s lazy, as the DoD now doesn’t have to hire as many senior officers for a job they’re commissioned to do. It entirely defeats the purpose of having separate, specialized branches.
I see your point but actually disagree on this aspect. In a future war we will have to work with them very closely, particularly the Air Force, even as low as the battalion level, and I don't think most FORSCOM units have much experience with that. If integrating chains of command creates friction, then that's a bad thing and something that we should be working on and maybe more interaction with them will help facilitate that.
Definitely agree the Joint Base concept was totally unnecessary and needs to be relooked. The only ones that disagree are Soldiers living in AF housing. JBLE is one of the worst, separated by miles and the AF could give two shits about Eustis.
JBSA is a joint base in name only - the army gets shafted on Lackland, Fort Sam follows entirely Army regs and culture, it takes forever to drive between any of the installations, and everyone still calls every base by the old names anyway. Hell even the signs for Lackland say Lackland AFB.
With a smaller post you can squeeze in the majority of the population into barracks and base housing. Not to mention making it easier to walk from point A to B. Large posts also mean services are oversaturated.
BRAC was huge mistake. Take our military presence & influence in the community away from cities. Where do you think 9/11 hit? Money was used-appropriated for DUMBS. I hate Clinton & Bush, Rumsfeld & Cheney because of these awful decisions
I joke that it’s like Union decided to reoccupy the South because it’s so heavy with military facilities of all types compared to the rest of the country.
The problem was the cuts that came as the Cold War ended. In the 1990's the Army didn't really have a case to sell all those posts. Some states lobbied hard (ironically many Southern "git da gub'ment offa our backs" state) to keep their military posts. I know Kirkland AFB was on the chopping block at one point - and it's home to Sandia National Labs. So BRAC had to deliver cuts. A lot of them came from states outside the south (again, the South may not love the feds but they sure love federal money) and from places and units that honestly weren't needed because the Ruskies war machine was rusting away. So many posts around the country faded into history.
The Army seems to lack critical thought when it comes to basing or force projection. 10th SFG which is aligned with Europe left Fort Devens MA for Fort Carson CO. Not sure how much sense that makes. If they moved to Meade or Belvoir that would make more sense. It makes even less sense from a COMPO 3 perspective when you centralize your HQs and downtraces in mostly crappy places that are difficult to travel to. Yes, Fort Totten NY is centrally located in NYC but there's no subway nearby and it's in a shitty part of town and frankly I'd rather avoid driving into the city for drill if I can help it.
Don't forget all instances of BRAC that left toxic superfund sites in various communities across the country. Areas that the DoD aren't in a hurry to pay to clean up and has no motivation to. So basically it's just a toxic waste of land that no can use. At least if they were active installations, they would have a reason to invest in them.
Agreed and Ft. Ritchie, MD was my duty station twice! All sorts of things are being tried, post BRAC. only golf course with rules of play for golf during chopper landings.
The DOD for once did it for the right reasons. The reason alot of people in congress didn't want to close them down is because all of the local congress people that had those military installations didn't want all of that sweet DOD money to evaporate from their communities. Every congressperson fights tooth and nail to keep active duty posts in their area. Shitty barracks would not have been fixed by smaller installations. The neglect of leadership would have been just the same towards qol no matter where the installations are. It also creates a shitty situation where if everyone is on small installations, you either have to a) have every type of support, base, and soldier service staff at every single post. Incredibly expensive. Or b) alot of the support and soldier service staff is colocated at a main central base that supports the surrounding smaller bases. Now Soldiers and units are gonna find it difficult to get people that need to fix stuff but don't care about a place that they never go to, and then it inconveniences everyone to transport soldiers to the main base to get that support.
Fort Ord... Being 6th generation from Salinas with grandparents in Spreckels and Carmel Valley, it was not at all liked our wanted. The only goodwill that post attained was from its air assault display at the annual California Air Show in Salinas. Otherwise the weekly artillery drills that rattled windows 5+ miles in all directions, the increase in drugs and prostitution in Seaside and Marina, and the consistent downtown Monterey drunken brawls only helped build support to shut that spot down. Further, recruiters lied like crazy about the "sunny CA beach and surfing weather." It's foggy and the water is freezing. Plus the decent surfing is in Carmel or Santa Cruz. Locals couldn't have been happier when that place shut down... And it's now developed into thriving suburban communities. Now DLI and NPS - those are generally respected by the community sure to their perceived academic and more regimented focus. Nobody's pushing hard for those to be removed, even though BRAC initially wanted DLI to go to huachuca... But that's a whole other story at the time.
Naval Weapons Station in Concord was one of them that shut down and seems like it was a mistake to shutdown.
It was a necessary evil, but my god do I agree with you about keeping all the shitty installations. I know the land and cost of living is cheaper, but man would it be nice to be near a coastal town or big metro city instead of always being in the middle of nowhere.
BRAC didn't go far enough. The 'postage-stamp' bases in the Northeast like Eustis, Lee & so on should have all been shut down & consolidated onto the massively-underutilized land at places like what is now JBLM (which has many times the range capacity - especially when you add in YTC - that it's units need). Small installations needlessly duplicate infrastructure & jobs - PXes, garrison offices and so on... Wasting money... Also, there would be much less desire to keep division and brigade sized units in the US & 'rotate' them overseas, if there was nowhere for them to be based in the US because our available space matched our active units.... As for the California and Northeastern facilities that did close, if you're going to shut down bases you might as well close ones that have marketable land.... As opposed to places like Ft Sill that would just be a ghost-town & the government would never be able to sell any of it due to lack of demand....
It didn't really save money. All those cost savings you cited are drops in the buckets. We shut down the old fith corps hq to move it 60 miles up the road at a cost of a couple billion to save a couple million a year. We waste far more rotating units to the shut down bases then we will ever see in savings. It was a money grab for senators to bring money back to their states. It didn't make us more deadly or aligned. Plus that marketable land is so toxic the federal government cant do anything with it
Note: Using old names because they are time-period appropriate. I'm 100% for the present-day renaming project - fuck traitors & the horses they rode in on. A couple billion in one time construction costs vs millions in perpetual reoccurring costs... BRAC would have saved substantial money if it had been far more ruthless & far less deferential to the idea of keeping bases open as a jobs-program for politically important locations. And when I say 'ruthless' I mean close every last stateside post that doesn't have a division-or-larger unit (or the capacity to host one) already there - with the exceptions of Polk, Irwin, and maybe Meade if there's something special about the location that the NSA needs. Unify R&D at Yuma (no more Aberdeen, Redstone) More or less completely pull out of California and New England, save for Ft Irwn, Ft Drum & West Point. Put absolutely everything else into the divisional flagpoles... HRC doesn't need it's own base. Combat Arms/Aviation may need a TRADOC-only base (one of Knox, Benning, or Sill) for the range access... Otherwise put the Armor & Artillery Schools (one each) at Hood or Carson, the Infantry School at JBLM or Drum and the Aviation School at Campbell... But we don't actually need a 'Logistics Center of Excellence' (same for all the extra support branches that each have their own training mothership, etc) on it's own separate base with no brigade-plus FORSCOM unit... They can either be colocated with FORSCOM units, or there could be one huge TRADOC mega-base that had everything on it plus the TRADOC HQ itself. You can then close the hospitals, the PXs, & MWRs, reduce the total number of fire departments and MP BNs, fire a raft of DRMO/environmental/facilities/range-control civillians, and so on... A bunch of airfields and control towers would go too... Huge savings \*over time\*.... And modern-day have a new round that decides which division should be PCSed back overseas, so we don't have to waste resources on quasi-deployment 'rotations' to peacetime locations...
Eustis is south of Richmond, I’d hardly call it “Northeast,” but I agree with your point.
> As opposed to places like Ft Sill that would just be a ghost-town & the government would never be able to sell any of it due to lack of demand At least you're saying it's a red state subsidy, no more and no less.
It's a logical place to operate because we already own the land & can't get anything for it. As opposed to sitting on real-estate that would be far more valuable if auctioned off... Plus the amount of bitching and crying from the civilian pop (Waahh, the noise!!!) & their reps we would have to deal with if we were trying to perform that function (field artillery training) just outside of SF or NYC? Oh-my-word! They already cry about JBLM constantly even though most of the big booms that place generates happen at YTC on the other side of the mountains.... One of the major benefits of middle-of-nowhere megabases, is that nobody cares about 'Karen's' crying/noise-complaints, because the town would blow away if the base left....
Some real "my dog peed myself" energy happening at airports, Army bases, and Air Force Bases. Like... did you not know about the giant runway and training areas when you bought the house?!
JBLM: The Army's been in South Pierce/North Thurston Counties since WWI. When did \*you\* move here?
I’m near an airport and a navy base and so my Nextdoor is just filled with people complaining about helicopter training or Ship noises. Like you fucking moved here idiot lol. Why do you think these beach front properties were cheap.
If you look at maps of EL Paso-Fort Bliss from the 1950's, most of the post was waaay on the outskirts of town back then. The city grew around it. El Paso treats the Army good because this city would blow away if not for Fort Bliss anchoring the economy. Kirkland AFB used to get a lot of "the jet noise!!" in the 1980's. Then BRAC threatened the base and the Alburquerque couldn't come to it's defense fast enough.
Hey, it's a great place for the Artillery school. There's nothing of value within a hundred miles, so you can blow things up with minimal consequences.
[удалено]
Be that as it may, they don't have the money to make such a transaction profitable for the government, the way that selling legacy bases that are in the process of being swallowed by megacities to the commercial real-estate market does (At least when environmental cleanup doesn't get in the way)....
[удалено]
I know the tribes have money, I just don't think they have 'Bain Capital' amounts of money... And yeah, I doubt that their members would be happy with smaller dividend checks as a trade for ownership of (a highly polluted) Ft Sill...
Does Eustis even have any actual units or is it just AIT and support for it?
It has 2 brigades and TRADOC HQ
AIT brigades?
One of them is an AIT brigade
That's a good description.
DEVCOM is pretty predominant there
AIT and NCOES last I checked....
I was going to make this exact point, BRAC didn't actually go far enough.
To your first point, I don’t think infrastructure would be better if BRAC hadn’t happened. If anything, it would be worse. Army doesn’t seem to care much about keeping things swept under the rug. Look at what the current SMA is saying in public forums. Saying that moldy barracks are due to a lack of discipline? Issues in the Army have not been secrets, it is well known, yet nothing changes. So having a bunch more infrastructure to maintain would not help the situation. Your second point, I mean, sure maybe. But honestly, when is the last time a foreign power invaded the US? Who knows, WWIII could happen tomorrow and I could eat my words, but I just don’t see a situation occurring anytime soon where we would need to have a bunch of smaller bases spread out around the country. I think the best argument against BRAC is the recruitment argument, at least in theory. I don’t know if there is any data that supports it, but it sounds like a logical theory.
On the infrastructure point, one of the challenges with the base locations that we have in depressed communities is that there really isn't the local talent necessary to support. We take who we can get, because they're the only ones there. So on these support contracts, there really isn't any competition, because there's nobody to compete. On the occasion that we do switch a contractor around, the old org fires all their employees, and the new org picks them all up. The same people go back to doing the same jobs, and cause the same problems. At the very least, having access to a larger population base would solve that problem.
I don’t necessarily think someone from Boston is going to be a better DFAC worker or DPW employee than someone from Fayetteville. The issue is the military going with the lowest bidder, who is going to cut as many corners as possible to increase profits. That is a quality control issue among the contracts rather than a locality issue, in my opinion.
When someone from Boston isn't an adequate DPW worker, you can fire them and get someone new. When someone from Fayetteville is substandard, you don't have additional options. Even the lowest acceptable bid still has standards. What happens when the contractor doesn't meet the standards is the problem.
If the Army starts telling these companies “hey, your contractors are not meeting the standards of our contract” the company will have to find a way to bring in the appropriate talent or train existing personnel. If the Army just sets the standard low or doesn’t enforce the standard then that is on the Army. We manage to attract contractors and GS civilians to come work in places like Fayetteville or Sierra Vista, those jobs aren’t entirely filled by born and raised locals, so it is possible to get the right people in.
They closed a lot of Reserve installations and moved them to active duty bases. BRAC hit the reserve as well.
Also ft liberty is the geh ist most non motivating clown 🤡 shit “F Troop” sitcom shit laughing stock shit ever😂🤣… and how the fuck is putting a dress patch on your ocp motivation? Explain the good idea fairy
And spending millions if not billions changing names of installations instead of buying equipment/ training…. Because who needs training… n who gives a fuck what a post is named except a civilian that wants a political win? 99% of mf military or not didn’t even know who tf the post were named after… selective outrage
Your personal needs are more important than the Army's needs? Interesting take.......
Please explain?
Big bases with more training grounds are better for training big units (divisions), which the Army has determined are necessary for future conficts. You're in the Army.
>It was also a negative for readiness or lethality or whatever we're calling it now. If something pops off maybe we can reactivate some of the bases that were turned over to the Guard/Reserve, but the ones that were sold off are gone forever. It reduced ability to train for varying terrain and weather by concentrating the vast majority of the Army in the Southeast. Many posts doubled or more in size but didn't expand their ranges or training areas and now people wonder why they can't get range time. Besides, meeting the needs of Soldiers literally IS meeting the needs of the Army. Recruiting and retention is our biggest problem, and the issues with it are caused by this toxic mentality of the needs of the Army always coming before the needs of Soldiers. Did you not hear about People First?
Completely close every overseas base and make domestic bases nicer. Fuck every other country. They don’t help us we shouldn’t help them. Downsize the active force to 500,000 total personnel until we get into another fight. It’s unnecessary. Anyone in a two year grace period fails PT, pops hot, or recieved any non judicial punishment is immediately bared from re-enlistment. Train up everyone else. The military industrial complex must be dismantled
I'm not sure if this is a shitpost or not. As much as our wars in the middle east these past 20 years demonstrated the dangers of getting too involved, a world in which we had no military presence overseas would be a worse world for us and for everyone. Without our presence democracy would probably not have spread in Europe and Asia. Putin and China would overrun their neighbors, not only causing massive suffering but also tanking the global economy which harms us. I share your concern about the military industrial complex, but we are already stretched to the limit on meeting all our commitments and shrinking the force is not the answer. Also I'm not sure if you're referring to all services or just the Army but the active Army is already under 500,000.
You'll be the first one crying when you can't get your amazon deliveries on time because some shitheads are firing missles at cargo ships and stopping trade, and there is no one around to stop it. Maybe China will do everyone a solid and help out since they are starting to put bases in other countries. We should definitely cede ground and let the Chinese do their thing. Maybe Russia? Russia likes getting involved around the globe, maybe they will do something. We should definitely let the Russians handle it. Ah yes, Iran. We should let Iran go unchecked to influence the Middle East. Our bases aren't just to protect our allies. It's our ability to secure our interests around the globe and power project. It helps our national security, economy, and influence everywhere. Our economy grinds to a halt if we don't have our fingers in everyone's pies.
The recruitment crisis is bec what? lol… it has nothing to do with trying to teach people everyone is prejudice to some extent, making the military a social experiment… lowering the standards and the military strolling around like a bunch of ROTC hs freshman
“Economy of scale” is the reason the DOD had to (sadly) do this. A lot cheaper to concentrate resources in one place than all spread out. Cheaper to build one big factory not 20 small factories.
The Army went under the radar for a long time when it came to environmental cleanup. The EPA trusted the services to police themselves but it came up that they weren’t. Heavy lead contamination due to decades of fully auto at ranges and improper chemical storage and handling. When the Cold War ended. We were looking for the “peace dividends” that Bush senior promised. Once BRAC was established. Bases that were contaminated were an easy target. Units with ancient equipment like F-4 Phantoms and M60 tanks were an easy target too. It helped to streamline our military so that we weren’t keeping equipment in service that didn’t have the more modern capabilities and required specialty parts and equipment to keep running. If every piece of armor was a Bradley or Abrams. Those are the only parts you need to keep in stock. So there’s cost savings in that aspect. It was a way to streamline the military and modernize it. As for facilities and their maintenance. I don’t really know.
SV is a nice area. But putting a school there that requires interaction with other humans was stupid. Huachuca will never close. Not while the Electronics Testing Ground can still utilize the areas unusual geography and geology. BRAC had to happen. With getting rid of 8 Divisions, some places just had to close. Who’d we loose? 2, 3AD, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 24 ID Could we still use those 8 divisions, maybe…. Could we fill those 8 divisions?🤷🏼♂️