Are Base Closings a Good Thing

As you can see in the news, they are looking at base closings and "re-alignments" again and the impact is enormous. Affected counties are up in arms that rely on the funds and everyone has an opinion. The real issue is that people are terrified of change and having to learn to adapt. We want taxes down, we want the debt gone, but at the same time we want change to "happen to someone else"....the old "not in my back yard syndrome".

I live in a town that relied on 3 major companies having their corporate headquarters here. Now that the economy has changed so drastically, my town is not doing well. We went through the "oh my gods" and the "somebody needs to do something" and now we are evolving from a manufacturing town to a service and education town. It did not happen overnight and we still have a long way to go, but we are slowly adapting and finding new ways to do things.

As a former military wife, I have no issue with the base closings with the following caveat. I don't think we are doing ENOUGH. It is time for the 4 branches to be demolished and for us to become 1 military presence with pooled resources. That would eliminate all the duplication. The duplicate parts that are needed by all branches, the medical that could then become good for everyone and the sense of unity of having one military branch.

I have seen some of the wasteage and just went "you have got to be kidding". That a navy ship is taken out of service and $100 - $100,000 parts are thrown away because they can't be sent back to the parts depot (too expensive and no mechanism in place to accept them back). Workers can't take them home because that would be "stealing"....so they go in dumpsters and are WASTED. I've seen that air force medical is much much superior to navy medical. To the point that one of my children would not be with me if the navy medical had stayed in charge of the case. Why is this? As it is explained to me.....navy takes their budget and spends it on the ships and if there is anything left over it goes to medical and morale and welfare. Air force spends it on the medical and morale and then looks at Congress and says "we need money" and get it. The point here is that with consolidating the branches completely, we could get the needed resources immediately and increase efficiency and teamwork. I mean excuse me....if there is a war, it isn't just navy on the ships anyway. They are taking the air force, they are holding the marines....

So my attitude is if you are going to make change, never mind doing it a little at a time. Do it the right way and straighten out the military map completely to have what we need for the future with the correct use of limited resources. Any company that did it the way we are would be going bankrupt very soon versus the company that restructures and emerges stronger and better.

Where do we draw the line?

I can tell I must be getting older as I am finding I get more upset over articles I see in the news.......

Case in point #1: Lions club has boxes all over to collect your old glasses to help those who can not afford them. My thoughts? GREAT! What a good way to use glasses and frames that you can no longer used and that someone else may with adjustment have clear vision from. Next I see an article on it on the local news channel and what do I find out? That the glasses aren't being used to help the underprivileged here in the U.S., they are being taken overseas to help in countries like Ethiopia...........

Case in point #2: Congress wants another 81 BILLION dollars for the war in IRAQ..........hello???? we never should have been there, where is this money coming from and what about our own problems with poverty, education, welfare reform, social security, etc?????
I have problems with budgets being cut for helping our citizens so we can keep spending money rebuilding and protecting another country? What about other countries helping out with all this money? We aren't the RICH POWERFUL BIG BROTHER anymore....(oh yeah, I forgot....all the other countries think we shouldn't have been there too.....)

My issue is not with helping others, but that we have to help the people in our country first. When we don't have a TRILLION dollar debt that my children and their children will have to deal with, when we don't have to do budget cuts and have to worry about social security being insolvent and education going downhill, etc.....THEN we can help others.......

Funny how all classes you go to on your personal spending say "SAVE your portion for the future FIRST.....next, pay down debt.....next, live within your means.....THEN help others"......I'm tired of seeing all our efforts go to other countries and not helping the people in our own first!