News

NEW: Bomber commander tells 7,000 at BRAC hearing: Keep Ellsworth
By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer

RAPID CITY -- A flag-waving crowd of more than 7,000 at Rushmore Plaza Civic Center on Tuesday heard a retired four-star general urge that Ellsworth Air Force Base remain open.

"The Pentagon, in its zeal to consolidate and reach some perceived quota for base closures, picked the wrong base by putting Ellsworth on the list," retired Air Force Gen. John Loh told three members of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

The BRAC Commission held a hearing at the civic center arena Tuesday afternoon.

Loh had sharp words for the Pentagon's plan to close Ellsworth and move its B-1B bombers to Dyess AFB in Texas. "It's a recipe for unmanageable congestion and never-ending chaos that spells inefficiency, waste and degraded operational readiness for the B-1s," he said.

Loh, who once commanded the Air Force's entire bomber fleet, spoke by videotape, his image projected on two giant screens flanking a stage set up in the civic center arena.

The three members of the nine-member BRAC Commission sat stage right, with two staffers. South Dakota witnesses sat stage left. They included Gov. Mike Rounds, all three members of the state's congressional delegation and community leaders.

At a press conference after the hearing, BRAC Commissioner Samuel Skinner, who chaired the hearing, said Gen. Loh had "great credibility," and Skinner promised his testimony would be given "great weight."

Skinner also called Ellsworth "a spectacular base," and he said Rapid City presented "the most precise challenge" so far of a Pentagon base-closing recommendation.

Last month the Pentagon recommended consolidating the nation's entire fleet of 67 B-1s at Dyess AFB.

Closing Ellsworth, however, would cost the Rapid City area economy 5,500 jobs and $278 million a year, and opposition to the plan has been strong here.

Tuesday's event was a "regional" BRAC hearing, but Ellsworth was the only base discussed

Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce President Jim McKeon n a retired Air Force colonel himself n who helped organize the hearing, called the turnout of 7,000 "outstanding."

The arena was nearly full, with dignitaries down front, 75 reporters and more than a dozen television crews behind them.

McKeon said another 3,000 people showed their support by lining the route the BRAC commissioners took from Ellsworth AFB to the civic center.

"It puts little goose bumps on the back of your head when you see that many people," he said.

Tuesday's meeting was a formal hearing. Witnesses were sworn, and the event was transcribed. Still, it felt more like a giant pep rally n one of the biggest ever held in Rapid City.

The 7th Cavalry Band of Sturgis played patriotic tunes in the civic center parking lot, where a giant American flag hung beneath two 70-foot cranes.

Hot dogs and drinks were given away. Flags were distributed.

Inside the civic center, the Shrine of Democracy Barbershop Chorus warmed up the crowd, with tunes ranging from "America" to the Beatles' "When I'm 64."

The crowd gave the BRAC commissioners a standing ovation, and the barbershoppers opened the hearing with the national anthem.

But the real drama of the two-hour hearing was provided by Loh, a retired four-star, whose appearance on videotape was a closely guarded secret until Tuesday.

Loh said the Pentagon's plan to save money and increase efficiency by consolidating B-1s at Dyess would accomplish neither goal.

As commander of Air Combat Command in the 1990s, Loh was in charge of all the Air Force's bombers and bomber bases. He said one of his "guiding principles" was to never base more than 36 long-range bombers at a single base.

"Putting more than 36 bombers at one base results in a very inefficient operation," he said. "Operational readiness suffers because too many crews share too few training ranges and air space."

Loh was followed by his former deputy ACC commander, Lt. Gen. Thad Wolfe, who told the commissioners, "Ellsworth has been a well-kept secret. Perhaps too well kept."

Wolfe said he thought the Air Force had underestimated intangible benefits of Ellsworth n including its quality of life for airmen, which he said affected performance. He quoted Napoleon, who once said, "The moral is to the physical as 3 is to 1." (in other words, morale is important).

Wolfe also cited Ellsworth's "remarkable access to uncrowded airspace" and a series of construction projects over the past 20 years that have converted Ellsworth into a virtually new base.

The BRAC commissioners toured Ellsworth Tuesday morning, and after the hearing Commissioner James Bilbray said he was impressed with the new buildings at the base. But Bilbray added, "Whatever we close, we'll lose hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure."

All three members of the state's congressional delegation spoke at the hearing.

Republican Sen. John Thune n a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a strong ally of the Bush administration on most issues n probably has the most political capital to lose from Ellsworth closing. But Thune also earned one of the longest standing ovations of the afternoon.

"We need to increase our flexibility, not decrease it," Thune said.

Citing the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and emerging threats from Iran, North Korea and China, Thune, like almost every speaker Tuesday, argued against consolidating the B-1s at a single base "where a single terrorist attack could wipe out our entire fleet."

Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson, who is on the Senate Appropriations Committee, described a decade's worth of military construction, worth more than $140 million n including a new operations center for the 37th Bomb Squadron, new base housing and a new education center.

Democratic Rep. Stephanie Herseth argued for Ellsworth's ability to accept more missions, including tankers, unmanned aerial vehicles and a yet-to-be built airborne laser weapon.

"It is a first-class, well-developed installation well equipped to handle emerging missions," she said.

The hearing also was part showmanship and part economic development seminar.

A video about the Rapid City area, narrated by Mayor Jim Shaw, featured aerial shots of the Badlands, the Cathedral Spires in the Black Hills a cowboy on a roundup, B-1s on the Ellsworth flight line and images from Sept. 11, 2001, and from combat in Iraq.

South Dakota School of Mines & Technology Professor Sidney Goss told the commissioners that Rapid City's "metropolitan statistical area" would lose almost 10 percent of its 116,000 people.

Gov. Rounds spoke last, reinforcing the theme that the Pentagon should not abandon the theory of "strategic redundancy" and that "America needs two B-1 bases and two runways."

Rounds told the commissioners he knew it would be difficult to reject the Pentagon recommendations. "We know the type of challenge we have," Rounds said. "We're looking at a mountain in front of us to climb."

He added, "In this state people look at a mountain and then carve it."

During the last round of base closings, in 1995, the BRAC Commission removed about 15 percent of the bases from the closure list.

Commissioner Bilbray, a former congressman from Nevada, said after the hearing that the percentage of bases removed from this list could be higher this time. "We've got a very independent commission," he said.

For more BRAC coverage, see Wednesday's Rapid City Journal.

Contact Harlan at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com