Sometimes Free Lunch Isn't Free, and Isn't Even Lunch

Last week, one of the principals involved in the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission actions spoke to local elected and community leaders about the danger of laurels (with and without hardys) and/or resting on them. Anthony Principi was instrumental, suggested regional media in the summer of 2005, in removing both the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and also in Kittery, Maine (look at the map if you don't believe me) and the Naval Submarine Base New London, that's actually in Groton (you don't need a map just a sense of whimsy), Connecticut from the Department of Defense's kill zone of installations to be closed.

Southeastern CT which used to be heavily reliant on defense jobs (Electric Boat, one of two builders of nuclear powered submarines is located here) with the Submarine Base and in recent years, has also come to rely on the two casinos. For part of the summer of 2005, the region was quiet, desperate, afraid and then relieved as the final BRAC report kept the submarine base open and the sun shone. Mr. Principi's remarks less than fortnight ago were to remind everyone that the world is in a state of flux (always remember to use the 'x') and what once was, may no longer be, at least the next time around. (Try telling that to Red Sox fans who've won three world championships in baseball in the last eighty four years and think their team is on a hot streak. Okay, so all three have come in the last five years...as a Yankees fan, I don't see their point. Kidding.)

I'm old enough to remember 'in case of nuclear attack' drills in grammar school in the 1950's (there was nothing quaint about them, in case you wondered), the Cuban Missile Crisis and better dead than red to, and through, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall' and damn, if he didn't! And as scary as this brave new world is, with asynchronous warfare and horrors without end, it doesn't hold a candle to what was hanging over our heads for over four decades starting with the end of World War II.

A lot has changed but sometimes we forget and we find ourselves doing what we've always done because we've always done it Every one agrees that in a dangerous world, the US needs a strong military to serve as a deterrent and bulwark-and many advocate for a more mixed and agile force that we can dial up or dial back based on the nature of the adversary we are opposing. To a man with a hammer, the whole world is a nail. But who pays for the hammers and how?

That's the scary thing in SE Connecticut (and anywhere that has an industrial base tied to the production of goods or services for the military), there's a tendency, too often (and not incorrectly), to see submarine construction and basing as a jobs issue and NOT as a national defense topic which is what the Base Realignment and Closure process was supposed to be about (I say 'supposed to' because, try as they might, there would and will always be some politics in these decisions-at least as long as human beings have to make them). When your house payment is dependent on your salary from building or maintaining submarines, or as a Sailor fighting his ship from a pier based in Connecticut (disappearing for months at a time on missions you cannot even tell your family about), it's more than just an academic exercise when we speak about repurposing ALL of our military, active duty and reserve, as well as national guard to provide the best possible service in defense of the country at the most reasonable cost.

We cannot buy national defense the way we buy hamburger, or the Sunday pot roast. And while it's great to pray for peace and work for it, too (I think that's probably a bit more effective, but that's because I know who pays the price when politics precludes peace, the Salt of the Earth), we need to better define what we need and how we intend to use it and pay for it and then analyze how it's working out, making adjustments as we go along. My children smile when I talk about the 4-H shows I attended in Central Jersey in the early Sixties with bomb shelter kits. I don't want us to continue to bankrupt ourselves, financially, morally or militarily because we may run out of history before we can repair the damage.
-bill kenny