Shaw, McEntire could be vulnerable as Pentagon schedules additional cuts for 2005

Ask the 30,000 people who lost their jobs when the Charleston Naval Base closed in 1996, and they will tell you about the merciless monster known as BRAC, or Base Realignment and Closure.

The BRAC Commission, appointed by the president and charged with eliminating the nation's least essential military bases, struck South Carolina twice in the 1990s.

Each time it killed a major S.C. military installation and the thousands of jobs that came with it.

The Pentagon is planning a new round of base cuts in 2005, targeting up to a quarter of the nation's 425 bases. Once a base lands on the hit list, history shows it has only a 15 percent chance of survival.

Veterans of past base-closing rounds know that they must begin taking defensive action now.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "wants this BRAC round to be as big as the last three combined," says U.S. Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., whose district includes Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter. "That concerns me greatly."

South Carolina is home to five major bases in four parts of the state: Columbia, Sumter, Charleston and Beaufort. A study commissioned in 2001 by the chambers of commerce in those cities showed the bases contribute more than $3.4 billion directly to the state economy each year.

In the Columbia area, neither the military nor local businesses consider the Army's training facility at Fort Jackson vulnerable. They do worry about Shaw and about McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover.

But they are not simply worrying.

Local chambers of commerce are reviving the task forces that helped the state's bases survive the last round of cuts in 1995. County councils are setting aside money for campaigns to rally community support, which the Pentagon always counts in a base's favor.

A few hopeful voices say the base-closing round won't be so bad this time, given the likelihood of an attack against Iraq and a sustained war on terrorism in the years that follow.

But Rumsfeld, President Bush and a majority in Congress argue that streamlining the military is even more crucial under these circumstances; the nation needs to allocate its military resources more efficiently than ever.

Vann Hipp, a South Carolinian and former deputy assistant secretary of the Army, opposes additional base closures. But he knows they're coming.

"The '05 round is going to be draconian," says Hipp, "and the process has already begun."

RALLYING THE TROOPS

Shielding a base from the Pentagon's shears is easier with the backing of powerful politicians and well-connected lobbyists. But even the most cynical say that, generally, the Defense Department cares most about a base's role in protecting the nation.

South Carolinians make a case for each of their bases, but some bases are easier to defend than others.

"I will be drafted by the NBA before the Marine Corps closes Parris Island," says U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who stands 5 feet 7 inches tall.

Graham says the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, which trains all Marine recruits east of the Mississippi River, is too integral a part of the service to scrap. The same reasoning applies to Fort Jackson, which trains about half the Army's recruits.

"You wouldn't close down Jackson," says U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C. "You can't."

But while Parris Island and Fort Jackson are unique in the eastern half of the nation, the state's other facilities have more competition.

In 1995, the Pentagon placed 15 bases with profiles similar to Shaw's into three categories. Three bases fell into the top category, deemed most valuable to national security. Shaw fell in the middle, lumped with nine others. Three ranked at the bottom.

At that time, the Pentagon voiced concerns about "encroachment" at Shaw -- nonmilitary construction around the base's borders. The Pentagon also worried about the quality of the public schools that serve the base.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Olsen, executive director of the Sumter Base Defense Committee, says Shaw since has hardened any real or perceived soft spots.

City and county governments in Sumter have passed new zoning regulations that limit construction near the base. The county has borrowed $28 million to improve local schools.

And in several ways, Olsen says, Shaw stands out among its peers. It's the headquarters of the 9th Air Force. It has parallel runways -- not unique but uncommon. And its pilots have a distinguished flying record in the Middle East, where Shaw planes patrol the no-fly zones in Iraq.

Moreover, Shaw has consistently refurbished its infrastructure.

"I've been here for 20 years and every year I try to do something that adds something to the physical value of the base," Rep. Spratt says.

McEntire Air National Guard Station's small size -- which can work against a base during belt-tightening -- actually might be its salvation.

Whacking the home of the 169th Fighter Wing wouldn't contribute much to the $6.5 billion that Rumsfeld says the next round of closures would annually save. The fear is that McEntire could be merged with Shaw.

"It's something to watch out for," Graham says. "But it works great where it is and everything out there is already paid for."

Closer to the ocean, Charleston Air Force Base's backers say they also have addressed the base's weaknesses -- many of them, including encroachment, similar to Shaw's.

Also, like their Shaw counterparts, they take heart in the base's starring role in the war on terrorism. Taking off from a runway on the lip of the Atlantic Ocean, Charleston pilots ferried the bulk of U.S. materials used to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In Beaufort, the Marine Corps Air Station got a scare in 1995. Then, supporters of rival Cecil Field in Florida insisted that the Pentagon add Beaufort to the scrap list. In the end, Cecil died and Beaufort survived, boasting its control of surrounding air space and its room to expand.

PLAYING THE GAME

And then there's politics.

To Hollings, it was the major variable in the axing of the Charleston Naval Base and the survival of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on the border of New Hampshire -- the state that hosts the first presidential primary.

"They had to pick one so they picked Charleston," says Hollings.

Other states owe part of their successes to well-placed politicians.

In the last round of closures, Georgia lost nothing, and in previous rounds lost little, says John Nino, executive director of Georgia's Military Affairs Coordinating Committee.

Georgians believe this surely had something to do with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who chaired the Armed Services Committee from 1986 to 1994. In those positions, Nino says, Gingrich and Nunn could help choose members of the base-closing commission.

South Carolinians also have taken comfort in native sons in high places.

Former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1995 to 1999. Former U.S. Rep. Floyd Spence, R-S.C., chaired the House Armed Services Committee from 1995 to 2000.

But Spence died in 2001. Thurmond retired last month.

Have they left a vacuum?

"With all due respect to Thurmond," Hollings says, he couldn't save the Charleston Naval Base.

If South Carolina has any other factor working in its favor in 2005, it could be the hard hits it took in past base closure rounds.

Hipp, the former deputy assistant secretary of the Army, says it's possible that the Defense Department could take pity on South Carolina. It could reason that, after the elimination of Myrtle Beach Air Force Base in 1993 and the Charleston Naval Base in 1996, the state has lost enough.

In Hollings' view, the base cutters have no right to return to the Palmetto State.

"We've given at the office."