As U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta formally laid out plans Thursday to cut the active Army ranks by 80,000 soldiers and conduct another Base Realignment and Closure study, a call for a battle plan of sorts was taking shape in Columbus.
Potential cuts at Fort Benning, including the loss of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team and its roughly 3,900 troops, was on the minds of community and business leaders.
“The 3rd Brigade, I think, is very vulnerable. The training load, obviously, is going to drop a little bit,” said Carmen Cavezza, a retired Army lieutenant general who commanded Fort Benning and the 3rd Brigade’s precursor, the 197th Infantry Brigade, during his career. He also is the immediate past chair of the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce.
“I think our involvement needs to be active participation with our elected officials, because they’re ultimately going to make these decisions,” Cavezza said. “And we need to build it around readiness. When you talk about readiness it starts right here at Fort Benning and our national security with the training of the troops.”
The Army is bracing for $487 billion in cuts over the next decade, which could include the elimination of up to 13 of the service’s 45 combat brigades. Panetta on Thursday also mentioned lower pay raises for personnel starting in 2015, as well as military retirees paying more for the health care they receive on federal installations.
Cavezza confirmed he was at a chamber board briefing on the defense cuts two days ago. There was no panic, he said, but obvious concern over the possible negative impact on the local economy.
“The general mood was nobody wants to lose anything,” he said. “I don’t want to lose anything but, face it, there’s going to be something lost because of a significant reduction. But it doesn’t have to be a catastrophic loss. I think Benning probably can justify retention more than a lot of installations can justify retention of the troops and, specifically, that brigade.”
Economic effect
Jake Flournoy certainly has an interest in the outcome of the budget and political wrangling that is beginning to take place. Vice president of Columbus-based Flournoy Development Co., he is working to construct the 173-acre Benning Technology Park off Interstate 185, just outside the post’s main entrance. The plan is to build a business park for a large number of defense contractors.
The businessman has been staying in touch with military officials and has heard for some time the possibility that the 3rd Brigade could be snatched away from the post or dissolved altogether. If that should occur, he said, the military’s $3.5 billion investment in expanding Fort Benning for the most recent BRAC process, and the private sector’s building of new homes, apartments and schools to accommodate the military, should help sway Congress in its decision-making.
“One thing I would emphasize is that the Columbus community embraced BRAC and has prepared itself very well relative to many other communities that have not built the housing and the infrastructure to support the influx,” Flournoy said. “If they do remove the 3rd Brigade then, obviously, it opens the door for Benning to argue to acquire something to help make up at least a portion of that loss … I think everybody’s hopeful that they’ll see the value.”
That’s the way Will White feels. A partner with Greystone Properties, a major apartment developer in the Columbus area, he sees the loss of the 3rd Brigade or any significant military presence rippling through the area economy. About a third of Greystone’s apartment residents are military.
White said the uncertainty gives him pause as he looks to construct more apartments in the area. And he thinks any business considering the Columbus market would be hesitant until the military pulls the trigger on the drawdown and hard numbers materialize.
“I would suspect that any developer that’s not currently in the Columbus market, because of this possibility, would probably move on to another market,” White said. “I certainly would if I was not already in Columbus and had projects in the works.”
Businessmen such as Paul Voorhees, owner of Ranger Joe’s, which has an international mail-order operation and retail stores in Columbus and in Hinesville, Ga., near Fort Stewart, are certainly paying close attention to how the budget situation unfolds.
“We’re pretty international, which will help us weather it. But we probably won’t have any increases, that’s for sure,” he said, noting the loss of the 3rd Brigade would be very painful. “That would hurt the whole city of Columbus, Georgia. For me, it wouldn’t affect my mail-order house. But I would need less people working in my store.”
Gary Jones, vice president of economic development and military affairs at the chamber, said he still thinks Columbus and other communities are a long way from knowing exactly what’s going to happen.
“Now, the services will begin to say, ‘We’ve got definition. Let us go and see what our service is going to look like’,” he said.
Aside from a series of meetings, Jones said the chamber is dusting off previous documents from the last BRAC round, including a joint land-use study and a 10-county growth management plan, as it prepares to grapple with the budget cuts and, hopefully, help shape them and limit any damage.
“Our board is very, very sensitive to the needs of the military and the impact to Fort Benning,” he said.
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