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.