A drop-off in uniformed customers at Hatton's Firehouse Subs on Rivers Avenue in North Charleston inevitably means a dip in lunchtime receipts.

"It's not a whole lot of business," he said, "but I can tell."

Hatton also is well aware that the Pentagon is orchestrating a grand plan to shutter 100 or more of its least-efficient bases. Like a lot of other area business owners, Hatton worries about that, despite repeated, speculative assurances that Charleston's most important military installations will survive the cuts largely intact.

"If you don't have that influx of people, it's going to hurt business," Hatton said.Whether such fears are justified is a question hanging over anxious military communities across the country, including Charleston.

Safe and secure for more than a decade, the nation's 425 bases once again face an uncertain future as the Pentagon rolls out what it promises will be its biggest-ever reappraisal of military real estate.

The day of reckoning is May 16, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is scheduled to turn over his recommendations for closings, expansions and relocations to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The independent panel, in turn, will embark on a series of hearings and site visits to determine what gets closed and what gets expanded.

The nine-member commission is expected to submit its final recommendations to President Bush in September.

Once a base lands on the hit list, history shows it has just a 15 percent chance of survival. At this point, nothing short of the Pentagon itself is off the table.

"These are tenuous, nervous times, but my message is to keep telling our story," said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who recently made a point of telephoning the Air Force chief of staff "to let him know we're open to new missions."

"We're trying to keep in front of the decision-makers and get the relevant information to them about why our bases are effective in terms of the war on terror," said Graham, a South Carolina Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Playing a big role in the public relations campaign is Tom Mikolajcik, a retired Air Force brigadier general and adviser to state and local officials on base-closing matters. In Mikolajcik's view, it would be "naive" to think every South Carolina military facility will emerge unscathed. The Naval Hospital on Rivers Avenue, for one, is not expected to survive, following years of cuts in its medical services and staff, services which are expected to be picked up by a proposed clinic on the Charleston Naval Weapons Station.

But Mikolajcik, a former Air Force wing commander, quickly notes the major bases in the tri-county region are models of the "transformed," modern-day military the Pentagon wants to create.

"Does that mean closings or realignments won't happen here?" Mikolajcik asked. "I wouldn't go that far."

BRAC ATTACK

The source of this national angst is BRAC, the acronym for Base Realignment and Closure.

Many Charlestonians are familiar with the term, which was seared into the local consciousness on Feb. 26, 1993. On that day, a grim-faced U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings appeared on television to announce that Charleston's venerable Navy base and shipyard were on the hit list. The closings wiped out at least 22,000 local jobs.

The region's economy has bounced back. Somewhat unexpectedly, the Navy helped fuel that recovery, quietly adding jobs and making up much of the ground it lost in the 1990s.

Today, the stakes are high, just as they were 12 years ago. The military accounts for more than 27,000 active-duty and civilian jobs and contributes $3.3 billion a year to the region's $20 billion economy, according to a study last year by the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce's Center for Business Research.

It's anybody's guess which bases will be closed, expanded or reorganized.

"What's going to consume people between now and the 16th of May is rumors," Mikolajcik said.

Rumsfeld eased some concerns last month when he backed off the Pentagon's earlier projection that it was looking to eliminate 25 percent of military-base capacity. That figure is more likely to be 20 percent or less because so many overseas troops are being called home. In any event, cuts are coming.

Losing the Navy hospital wouldn't hurt nearly as much as losing the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Charleston, commonly known as SPAWAR.

The research and development center, which designs products for the military and for government agencies, generated an estimated $1.3 billion for the economy last year, or more than a third of military spending in the region. It employs about 2,300 high-paying civilian defense industry workers.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey fretted last month about the fate of the complex. Noting that Hollings used his muscle on Capitol Hill to wrest the high-tech engineering unit away from Virginia in the 1990s, Summey fears political payback in 2005.

"There was a lot of resentment ... within the Department of the Navy after Senator Hollings moved it here," he said. "We have to make sure that doesn't still exist."

Officials also worry about the fate of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Southern Division, which employs about 550 civilians. The fear is that it will be relocated to either Jacksonville, Fla., or Norfolk, Va.

As BRAC experts see it, the North Charleston-based division is vulnerable on two fronts: It leases its Eagle Drive offices, and its building is not within a secured installation.

In a tactical move, an entourage led by the chamber of commerce made an unusual and unsolicited offer to Navy Secretary Gordon England earlier this year, saying it would build NavFac a new headquarters on the southern end of the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in a gesture of community support. England's office said it can't consider that offer until the base-restructuring list is finalized.

The Air Force Base, meanwhile, is also a potential BRAC target, though in most minds a lesser one.

Howard "Vic" Calcutt, one of the owners of Uncle's Barber Shop on Dorchester Road, picks up all sorts of chatter from his base clientele.

While getting their hair cut, Calcutt's active-duty customers often talk about the commercial and residential development that has cropped up near the base. The Pentagon has made it clear that such private-sector build-up, or "encroachment," diminishes an installation's military value because it could interfere with training and other critical missions.

Calcutt believes the base and its fleet of C-17 transport jets are too valuable for the military to move, given the big role they have played in supporting the war on terror. About one-third of the equipment and supplies sent to Iraq and Afghanistan has been shipped by air or by sea from Charleston.

"I'm not saying they won't close it, because people have been told certain things around here about all the building-up around the base," Calcutt said. "That might give them a reason to close it. But I don't see it happening any time soon."

COVERING THE WATERFRONT

Charleston began mobilizing its anti-BRAC forces relatively early, before the Pentagon officially released its base-closing criteria. The effort officially kicked off in August 2001, when the chamber summoned a group of about 40 business executives, political aides and military advisers to its board room. "What we learned in the last go-around (in 1993) is that you can't start too early," local restaurateur Dick Elliott said at the start of that meeting.

A defense industry task force immediately went to work on a public relations campaign, gathering information about the region's military bases and passing it up the chain of command to congressional leaders, state legislators and decision-makers at the Pentagon.

The effort has been exhaustive, and nothing has been taken for granted, said Mary Graham, vice president of the chamber's public policy division.

With a tab expected to exceed $1 million, the chamber has retained defense consultants to track key developments on Capitol Hill, set up meetings and help portray local bases in the most favorable light. It also has sent delegates to Washington on at least 40 occasions to meet with lawmakers and remind Defense Department big shots about the region's expanding role as a military transport hub.

"Even inside the Pentagon, people didn't know what was still here in Charleston," Graham said.

The chamber team also has hammered home the point that the sprawling 17,000-acre Charleston Naval Weapons Station along the Cooper River has room to handle not only additional Navy activities but those of the other armed services, she said.

Similar campaigns have been organized in the state's other military strongholds. Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. James L. Gardner Jr., a Hanahan resident who is Gov. Mark Sanford's top base-closing adviser, said those communities, including Beaufort, Columbia and Sumter, "have literally covered the waterfront several times."

"I can't imagine that anything's been overlooked," Gardner said.

Still, apprehension remains high in places such as Sumter, where about one-third of the local economy is tied to nearby Shaw Air Force Base. Sanford said last year the area "is in a dangerous spot."

"It's churning everybody's stomach," said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Olsen, executive director of the Sumter Base Defense Committee. "I already have a knot in my stomach. It's just the unknown."

U.S. Rep. John Spratt, whose district includes the F-16 fighter base, said his push from Washington has been to correct shortcomings at Shaw that were identified in previous BRAC rounds. For instance, he said he has helped secure funding to build a new mess hall and continuing-education facilities.

"I think Shaw is in better shape for this review," Spratt said.

Experts also worry about the fate of McEntire Air National Guard Station, home of the 400-person 169th Fighter Wing. State Adjutant General Stan Spears has said South Carolina's failure to pump about $80,000 in payroll and maintenance money into the facility near Eastover, as required under agreements with the federal government, "almost ensures" it will be put on the list. In response, the state Budget & Control Board earmarked $79,881 in stopgap funding for McEntire last week. At the same time, the state Senate added $100,000 to the Air Guard's budget.

KEEPING THE GUARD UP

While no one expects BRAC to be politics-free, the Pentagon's approach this time around is as fair as it can be, experts said. "This process has been much cleaner, more analytical," Mikolajcik said.

The key difference is that the individual armed services have less power in deciding the fate of their bases and units. Instead, the information they have provided about their installations is being lumped together with reams of other data. The Defense Department is studying all of it to determine where it makes the most sense to combine or close bases.

Officials also say that BRAC isn't necessarily a bearer of bad news. In the last round of base restructurings, in 1995, the Weapons Station landed a $104 million training unit where some 3,500 sailors a year now learn about nuclear power.

One of the graduates of that program is Ron Northcutt, who hasn't strayed far from the base. Last fall, Northcutt and Chris Roehm bought a bar and pool hall off Red Bank Road, just outside the north entrance to the Weapons Station.

Their Wings Etc. & Bare Bones Billiards is a popular hangout with the student sailors on the Weapons Station. "They like to come down and unwind after they take their tests," Northcutt said.

Northcutt said he's been too busy with the business to worry much about BRAC. Besides, he doubts the Navy will move the nuclear-training school, particularly because it's brand new. Also, he points out, it's the only program of its kind in the country.

"These guys are pretty well locked in to be here for a while," Northcutt said. "At least we're hoping so."