BEAUFORT -- John Payne has seen a different list of rumored base closings almost every day for the past two years.

One says the Parris Island Marine Recruit Depot will be shuttered, with Columbia's massive Fort Jackson Army base absorbing all East Coast Marine Corps basic training.

The next says that the Marine Corps recruit depot will be just fine, but its San Diego counterpart will close.

For most of the last year and a half, Payne, the chairman of Beaufort County's Military Enhancement Committee, an offshoot of the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce working to protect local military bases from closing, has ignored the lists.

"Look how many lists have come out over the last 18 months," Payne said. "They can't all be right, because they've all got different bases on them."

On May 16, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to publish his list of military installations to be closed. With that date looming, Payne, a retired Marine Corps colonel, said it's time to pay some heed to the rumors.

This year's round of base realignment and closure, or BRAC, is expected to cut 25 percent of the military's infrastructure as the Pentagon looks to get the military to operate more efficiently and spend its money where it's most needed.

It's expected that the nation's bases will drop from about 400 to about 300, but the more important aspect of the process is to cut total infrastructure, not a specific number of bases.

"You really can't look at the number of bases," Payne said. "You have to look at size in addition to the number. In terms of infrastructure, two small bases might not equal one large base."

Each military branch has completed its own list of bases recommended for closure, so some rumors may have merit, Payne said.

Because of its scope, worries are expected to be larger for this round than the last four closure rounds combined, and local and state officials say that means nothing is safe.

"You can't have a (process) that looks at 25 percent of the strength and, given the number of bases in South Carolina, not have a threat," Gov. Mark Sanford said of South Carolina's chances to escape closures. "This is the mother lode. ... The size and scale of this particular BRAC calls into question any and every installation."

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson represents Beaufort as well as Columbia and Sumter, homes to Fort Jackson and Shaw Air Force Base, respectively. He has labeled BRAC his top priority and said he won't consider a single base safe until the process is complete.

"My concern is that I did not anticipate Charleston naval base (closing)," said Wilson, a Charleston native, referring to the 1993 decision to close the Charleston Naval Shipyard. "That taught me a lesson, and the lesson is that we need to be prepared and not take anything for granted."

HOW IT WORKS

The Department of Defense has said the military is operating at excess capacity and needs to be streamlined to improve national defense.

Using a 20-year plan published in February 2004, the Pentagon will identify which bases are needed, which operations at multiple bases can be consolidated and which installations should be closed.

Also in February 2004, the Defense Department published a list of criteria it will use to evaluate each base. The criteria stress military value, including operational readiness; joint war-fighting and training; expansion ability; and availability and condition of land and cost of operations. Each base has completed surveys evaluating those subjects, plus local housing availability and the local school system.

So while an economic impact study by Georgia Southern University in 2002 estimates that Beaufort County's three installations -- Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, Parris Island and the Beaufort Naval Hospital -- contribute $454 million in payroll annually to the local economy, such figures alone won't convince the Pentagon to spare a base.

"That's not what they want to hear in D.C.," Payne said of the potential economic blow of a base closing in the county. "Every community that loses a base will take some economic loss. That's not the story we tell in D.C."

Instead, Beaufort County's representatives stress the value of area bases to the military, including the air station's expandability and access to both air-to-ground and air-to-air training ranges, and the new crop of privatized housing being built on the bases.

A nine-member commission will recommend which military facilities should be closed or cut back.

The commission is made up of civilians, with two members nominated by the Speaker of the House, two by the Senate majority leader, one each by the minority leaders of the House and the Senate and three by President Bush. After being confirmed by the Senate, the commission evaluate the bases on Rumsfeld's list.

The commission must submit its recommendations to Bush by Sept. 8. The president has until Sept. 23 to approve or disapprove the recommendations. If he approves the commission's recommendations, they become binding 45 legislative days later.

If the president disapproves, the commission has until Oct. 20 to submit revised recommendations. The president then has until Nov. 7 to make a final decision on the list.

"Here's the kicker," Payne said. "In the past, it took five commissioners to get a base off the list. This time it takes seven. That makes it much, much more difficult to get a base off the list once it's on there."

The change was made to take some of the politics out of the process so that powerful congressmen would have a harder time swaying the commission to take bases in their districts off the list, Payne said.

THREAT AND OPPORTUNITY

During the last round of base closings in 1998, Beaufort County was represented in Washington by longtime senators Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings and veteran Rep. Floyd Spence. Spence and Thurmond served as chairmen of their respective Armed Services committees.

Spence and Thurmond have died, and Hollings retired following the 2004 legislative session, leaving Sens. Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint and Rep. Wilson to fill the void of their combined political clout.

"They had access to people that Senator Graham, Senator DeMint and Congressman Wilson just don't have because of the level of seniority and the fact that they were on the right committees," said Beaufort County Council Vice Chairman Skeet Von Harten, a retired Marine who was chairman of the county's Military Enhancement Committee in 1995.

Von Harten said Spence pulled several high-ranking military officials, including the secretary of defense, into a room during a Christmas party to discuss the importance of Beaufort County's military installations.

"Yeah, it helps a lot," Von Harten said. "Congressman Spence could do it. Congressman Wilson cannot."

Sanford said that while seniority, or a lack of it, shouldn't drive the process, it will have an impact on the process.

"There's no denying that," he said. "It's a seniority-based system in Washington."

But many members of the congressional delegation and the Military Enhancement Committee are quick to say that even with all that seniority, South Carolina lost two bases in recent rounds.

"We lost Myrtle Beach, and we lost Charleston when we had Thurmond and Hollings and a lot of seniority," said DeMint, the Republican who replaced Hollings. "If the Pentagon wants to close something, there's very little politicians can do. Instead of relying on seniority while the doors close, let's roll up our sleeves and do everything we can to keep these bases open."

Payne agreed, adding that having a congressional delegation that works hard to protect the bases is more important than having representatives with a lot of experience.

Beaufort County's representatives argue that the area's bases have the military value the Defense Department is seeking.

And, in a best-case scenario for the county's bases, the closure round could lead to expansion. The 1998 round brought two Navy F/A-18 Hornet squadrons to Beaufort's air station and military schools to Columbia's Fort Jackson, Wilson said.

"I'm hopeful we can actually grow our bases," he said. "I'm not approaching this just from a negative standpoint. ... I'm working to make it positive."

DeMint said the state boasts "indispensable" resources for the military, including its East Coast location.

"A lot of the problems we're having in the world are in the Middle East, and the best access would seem to be from the East Coast," he said. "There are certainly some (valuable) bases in the middle of the country, but what we've got to offer is more multidimensional."

Graham said the F/A-18 Hornet is a state-of-the-art fighter attack jet, and the training offered at Parris Island and Fort Jackson is essential to the military's future, as is the air station's ability to expand and take on more fighter squadrons.

"It's both a threat and an opportunity," Sanford said. "It's not only closure, it's realignment."