Officials ask to keep military presence

TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- With a flood of acronyms and scores of graph-stuffed PowerPoint slides, officials from North and South Carolina and West Virginia lobbied Tuesday to hold onto facilities the Defense Department has recommended for cuts in this year's round of base closings.

Speakers who addressed members of President Bush's base-closings commission during the five-hour hearing at a community college relied on a wide range of tactics and strategies.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, trying to save the state's Air National Guard 130th Airlift Wing, told commissioners West Virginia lost more soldiers per capita during Vietnam than any other state in the nation.

The mayor of North Charleston, S.C., hoping to fend off the loss of more than 1,100 Navy jobs, noted that Charleston lost 20,000 personnel in the last military realignment of the early 1990s, when its naval base and shipyard were closed.

"I dare say the Charleston community probably understands the BRAC process as well as any in the United States," R. Keith Summey said. "In 1993, we were 'BRAC-ed.' "

And North Carolina's leaders continued to market their state as the nation's most military-friendly.

"Our bases, together, are the military's power projection platform on the East Coast," Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue said. "We welcome additional missions and the expansion of the military presence on our state."

The hearing was one of 16 being held around the country by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission to allow communities to respond to the Pentagon's recommended cuts.

Those proposals were released last month; the commission is to make its recommendations to President Bush in September.

Retired Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr. of Virginia, one of the four commissioners who attended the hearing, said commissioners listened with special attention to claims that the Pentagon's recommendations violate the criteria set up by Congress for closing and shifting bases

"We know a good issue when we hear one. ... All this, 'I love my base, my base loves me,' it's interesting, but it can't be checked," he said.

West Virginia focused on the effort to save eight C-130 cargo planes that the Pentagon has recommended be moved from Yeager Airport in Charleston, W.Va., to Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.

U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd said he is concerned that aircraft are being taken from 28 Air National Guard bases around the country, including Yeager's 130th Airlift Wing.

"If the Pentagon's BRAC recommendations were implemented, the loss of eight C-130 aircraft from Charleston would have a dramatic impact on the ability of our governor and the West Virginia National Guard to respond to local emergencies," Byrd said.

Air Force Maj. Kevin Ray told the commissioners that statistics the Air National Guard provided to the Pentagon before its recommendations inaccurately stated there is room for only eight C-130s at Yeager. In fact, he said, 12 C-130s can be housed at the airport.

About 150 West Virginians, many of them wearing light blue "Keep 'Em Flying" T-shirts, rode buses and flew a C-130 to Charlotte to support keeping the 130th at Yeager. They stood as a group as Byrd spoke of National Guard soldiers serving overseas in Kosovo and battling floods in places like Wheeling, Parkersburg and Clendenin.

"All of West Virginia is part of the West Virginia National Guard, because the West Virginia National Guard has been a part of all of us," Byrd said.

Among the proposals North Carolina speakers urged the commissioners to undo were:

• A plan to move some aircraft maintenance responsibilities from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, costing some 630 civilian jobs;

• A recommendation to put Pope Air Force Base under Army command and move more than 4,000 Air Force personnel from the base, with the 43rd Airlift Wing's C-130 cargo planes shifting to Arkansas;

• A proposal to close the Army Research Office in Durham's Research Triangle Park and move it to Maryland, where similar offices for the Air Force and Navy are already located.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., noted that President Bush was in Fort Bragg for a speech Tuesday evening marking the first anniversary of the handing over of power to the Iraqi government.

"The fact that the president of the United States chose to commemorate this historic event from a North Carolina base is testament to the value our bases hold for this nation's defense," she said.

South Carolina's leaders said they were generally pleased with the Pentagon's proposals, which left major installations mostly untouched and would result in a net gain of more than 700 jobs for the state.

"Generally speaking, the Department of Defense got things right," U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said.

However, the Pentagon proposed closing Charleston, S.C.'s Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the South Naval Facilities Engineering Command and moving their jobs elsewhere.

Bill Lewis, a retired naval captain from Charleston, said the Defense Department's plan to close the engineering command is expensive and offers few benefits.

"This BRAC proposal would never have made it out of the corporate boardroom," Lewis said.