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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Actually, Hawthorne is pretty neat.
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ssshhhh...i actually like it around there...just hope the C*lif*rnians don't find it...
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Great place for practicing high angle shooting, as LR 1947 can attest.
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in my mind, while lacking a WalMart, Starbucks and other amenities of contemporary civilization, it would be a hell of a place to soldier...nothing for miles and miles, but miles and miles..
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
The thing that concerns me is that in consideration of a small savings over time, and a large expense in cleaning up and returning bases, we lose the ability to expand in the event of a major future requirement.
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well, it seems our politicos are smug in the fact that DS, OEF, OIF and others have been handled without having to cancel a World Series, Stanley Cup (the sports did that themselves), we're not rationing aspartame, sugar or gasoline at home and for the most part, all of these endeavors haven't really disrupted life in suburbia...
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Can you imagine having to buy land for and build bases today like we did in WW II? The environmental impact studies alone would take forever.
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three years for a minor subdivision...probably 103 years for a military installation...land values in western NV and eastern CA have doubled in the last 5 years...160 acres, fair market value, runs around $1M...you'd need probably 2560 acres for a DZ the size of Sicily, so thats $16M...an artillery impact area could be a real problem...
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Finally, we further concentrate our resources in fewer and fewer baskets, making targeting much easier for those who would oppose us.
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this is the part that strikes me as shear lunacy...idiotic, almost...almost as idiotic as the "peace dividend" we derived from ending the Cold War...do you recall the White Paper circulated by DoD around Summer of 1992 identifying defense priorities for the coming years? wish i still had that lying around somewhere...unfortunately, it doesn't reflect well on our politicians ability to prepare for the future...i wonder if anyone ever thought about that? let's close down all but four or five Army posts, leave the same number of Air Force bases and a couple of Naval Yards...Pearl Harbor ring a bell top these schmucks?
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
I would favor mothballing and realigning bases, with no closure. That preserves the resources, removes the cost of clean-ups, and allows for a return if future requirements arise.
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this reasoning has to be fundamentally flawed...i am in complete agreement with it...