BRAC head invited to check out fort’s mission
BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer

EATONTOWN — Two area congressmen are inviting the head of a federal commission created to determine the fate of military bases throughout the nation to look closer at Fort Monmouth’s service to soldiers in the field, before choosing to shut it down.

On May 16, three days after the U.S. Department of Defense announced that Fort Monmouth is one of 33 military installations nationwide recommended for shutting, U.S. Representatives Rush Holt (D-6th District) and Frank Pallone Jr. (D-12th District) issued an appeal to Anthony J. Principi, chairman of the Pentagon’s Base Closing and Realignment (BRAC) Commission, to visit the threatened base and experience its mission firsthand.

The Defense Department has made a “terrible error in recommending the closure” of Fort Monmouth, described as a “critical military installation” during wartime, Holt and Pallone wrote in the letter distributed following Monday morning’s meeting of the Save Our Fort Committee, an advocacy group co-chaired by both congressmen.

Because the nine BRAC commissioners, none of whom are from New Jersey, are now entrusted by the Defense Department to choose which if any of the 33 targeted bases are removed from the Pentagon’s list of recommendations, public officials must now grab their attention, Holt explained.

Unlike the “specific, limited criteria” used by the Pentagon in recommending that Fort Monmouth be shut down and its operations relocated mainly to the Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) in Aberdeen, Maryland, the BRAC commission looks at each targeted installation in the context of “national security [and] homeland security,” he said.

Contingents of BRAC commissioners are required to visit all of the bases suggested for closing this summer, prior to Sept. 8 when the commissioners’ final listing of recommended base closings and realignments is submitted to President George W. Bush, Pallone noted.

“We will spend the next three months fighting this battle,” he said.

In their correspondence to Principi, a California resident, both congressmen offered to show him the U.S. Army’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems created by Fort Monmouth scientists and engineers.

“Several of the most technologically advanced systems currently being used today in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Homeland Defense were developed at Fort Monmouth, and are playing a direct and major role in helping our troops in the global war on terror,” Holt and Pallone wrote.

“We would be honored to show these to you personally at Fort Monmouth,” the congressmen added.

Soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan are “relying on Fort Monmouth for ground-breaking and timely innovations to keep them safe and effective,” Holt and Pallone wrote.

If Fort Monmouth is closed, the safety and effectiveness of those soldiers and the nation would be compromised, they added.

Joined by Mayors Gerald Tarantolo, Ann Y. McNamara, and Maria Gatta, who lead the fort’s three host communities, Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport respectively, three of the fort’s host communities, Holt and Pallone contended that the Pentagon had ignored the fort’s “military value” and its ability to “cross-service” other branches of the military besides the U.S. Army.

Frank Muzzi, a fort contractor who also co-chairs the Patriot’s Alliance, another advocacy group, also joined in to back up the congressmen as they moved ahead with their battle to save the base from closure.

Regardless of party affiliation, public officials from the federal, state, county and municipal levels must endeavor to demonstrate Fort Monmouth’s research and development capabilities to Principi and other BRAC commissioners, Pallone said.

“Numbers crunchers” inside the Pentagon who have determined that the Defense Department can save $143 million per year over six years by moving Fort Monmouth’s operations to APG at a cost of $822 million do not understand the local base’s mission, he continued.

“The nature of what is done here is a little more esoteric and not as well known at the Pentagon,” Pallone said, noting that the U.S. Army has recommended that Fort Monmouth remain open.

The Defense Department has “overestimated the savings to be garnered by moving the facility,” Holt and Pallone wrote to Principi.

The Defense Department has argued that the cost of living, health insurance and utilities will be significantly less in Aberdeen, located about an hour outside of Baltimore, than they would be in Monmouth County, Muzzi noted.

Yet it is unlikely that the cost of living would be that much lower in Aberdeen, which is also located near Washington, D.C., Pallone pointed out.

“That’s not exactly a low-cost area,” he said.

By predicting that 75 to 80 percent of the more than 5,000 civilians now employed at Fort Monmouth would relocate to Maryland, the Pentagon has already shown “that they don’t understand the nature of their workforce,” Holt said.

Public officials and other Fort Monmouth supporters need to impress upon Principi and the BRAC commissioners that the majority of the civilian workforce will refuse to relocate and uproot their families, he continued.

As a result, new civilian scientists and engineers possessing the knowledge now available at Fort Monmouth would have to be recruited for APG, Holt said.

By the time those workers were up to speed on the advanced technologies, soldiers in the field could be put at risk, he continued.

“[Fort Monmouth] has been the center of electronics, telecommunications, signals, the kind of thing that has provided a level of support and a level of expertise that would be very hard to duplicate elsewhere,” Holt said.

The Pentagon has also “failed to calculate the jointness Fort Monmouth has achieved with nearby military facilities at Fort Dix, Lakehurst, McGuire and Earle,” both congressmen wrote to Principi.

The first three military installations, located contiguously in Burlington and Ocean counties, have been recommended for realignment into a central operation to serve all branches of the service, Pallone pointed out.

“[The Pentagon] is looking at Fort Dix and Lakehurst and saying they want cross-servicing there,” Pallone said. “We’re doing cross-servicing here.”