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| Europe |
| U.S. Army to Leave 13 Bases in Germany |
| 2005-07-30 |
| The U.S. Army will pull out of 13 bases in southern Germany as part of its repositioning of American forces around the world, its European headquarters said Friday. Eleven bases in and around the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg will be handed over to the German government by September 2007, the Army's European headquarters in Heidelberg said. Two more bases near Wuerzburg will close and be handed over in subsequent years. The Defense Department said the changes will affect about 6,100 soldiers and 11,000 family members as well as about 1,000 Army civilian employees and 1,000 civilians employed locally. While facilities like the huge Ramstein Air Base, a hub for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are being retained, Washington is bringing many units home and opening smaller, more flexible bases abroad to respond to new threats such as international terrorism. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #17 This just goes to show the Truman Doctrine was a failure. It's about time we pulled out of the quagmire in Europe. But I support the troops. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-07-30 23:22 |
| #16 Sholuth Ulomonter3734 Who is this guy? Lerned more about recruiting in 3 minutes than in the last 30 years.... |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-30 10:56 |
| #15 I don't see the closure and pull out of forces as a pay back or a bitch slap. I spent three tours there and loved it, despite all the alerts, repeated rotations in and out of the Hohenfels and Grafenwehr Military Training Areas and the former REFORGERs. But change must come. The ending of the golden era of the Cold War, with our forces so finely honed, began during the great reduction of forces and buy-out plan after the Warsaw Pact countries began to finally implode more rapidly due to the failure of policies and mechanisms brought on by socialism. The Cold War was long and whether the winner or loser, there are consequences for both sides good and bad. Much of it economic. Bush Sr. and Gorbachev helped facilitate the dismantling of the status quo built up since the post-WW II tragic decisions that led to the Soviets taking eastern Europe into a bloody iron grip of inhumanity. That status quo was unbelievable in its expense, breadth of influence and monstorous in it's military might for both NATO & the Warsaw Pact. But what a mighty sight! Bush Sr. & Gorbachev took the spotlight for the facilitation of changing all this. In reality it was a great number of people behind the scenes on both sides who kept the machinery running and a great deal of people to bring the machinery to a near-halt. The consequences of peace are more appealling to me even if it meant the loss of jobs and frightful military prowness for the world to oggle at. I did my part and I had to shift gears in my military career too.... albeit not so painful as it may have been for others. The closure of the military bases will be terrible for some and welcomed by others. The times are always a changing, and sometimes seem to change too quickly. We will get over it and the Germans who built their careers working at these bases will find a way to adjust... that's what the fine near-socialist government of Germany is good at right? It will all work out in the wash. |
| Posted by: Threth Greregum9255 2005-07-30 10:33 |
| #14 Is this because of less folks enlisting? You only need enlistments to replace those leaving, for whatever reason, the service. Congress mandates the manpower ceiling the service can have, so for extended periods its a finite sum game. Back in old army of 70s-80s, the Army operated under an 'up or out' personnel system. A soldier had to reach a certain grade by a certain time in service or they had to leave. Call it churning. With the reduction in force starting the 90s, the upper ranks stagnated, that is they stayed around longer, forcing very qualified individuals in the lower ranks out, not because they couldn't do the job, just because the personnel system couldn't promote them. That meant that recruiting had to constantly replace personnel because the 'system' created the need. In the late 90s, someone finally realized that the problem wasn't the soldiers, but the system. The blind 'up or out' policy was modified, so that now you can have at least career E5s [that is individuals who can reach 20 year retire in the rank of sergeant]. Remember your personnel ceiling is fixed. So with record reelistments, the need for new enlistments drops. With the willingness to retain qualified individual regardless of progression in rank, the service is well served. It takes years to make good NCOs [unless you prefer the Darwinian environment which means you pay heavily in casualties to sort out natural leaders, re:Audey Murphy]. Those can not be made up with a first term enlistee which is something Hildabeast and her crowd do not understand. Its not about numbers. Its about the quality of the NCO corps. |
| Posted by: Sholuth Ulomonter3734 2005-07-30 09:37 |
| #13 TGA, if Germany wants France and the Low Countries again.....You can have 'em. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-07-30 08:56 |
| #12 And, to put this in context, a massive and time-pressured restructuring of the Army occurred in rampup to US participation in WWII. Roosevelt promoted Gen Marshall, who had realized that our Army was both undermanned for the conflict and also equipped and trained for last century's war - literally, as we still had some horse cavalry in an emerging era of tanks and airplanes. Marshall's planning and organizational skills made him so valuable that Roosevelt refused to send him to supreme command in Europe. Hence one of the few 5 star generals in our Army's history never directly commanded combat action past the rank of Captain - and that was not because he wasn't a capable field commander. It's hard for us to realize just how massive the resulting changes to our military were -- expensive, done later than hindsight wished, controversial to some. For instance, tanks were still new. In the 30s, prior to the outbreak of the war, we hadn't standardized on tank design and equipment. Patton was given command of one of our first tank units and used some of his own personal fortune to upgrade equipment for them - not unlike the experimentation being done in Iraq and Afghanistan with new weaponry and command systems today. The resulting experience helped Marshall and his staff standardize equipment, create new doctrine, implement a new way of training and rapidly spin up a powerful Army already under the stress of fighting a war. We're doing it again today. |
| Posted by: rkb 2005-07-30 07:06 |
| #11 TGA, I'm not sure that we wouldn't get the equivalent of an eviction note from some future German government. But you are absolutely correct that these bases were established in response to a strategic threat that doesn't exist in the same form anymore. A restructuring of these large overseas deployments of US troops is timely and appropriate for all concerned. |
| Posted by: rkb 2005-07-30 06:46 |
| #10 I think it's a big mistake pulling out of Germany, it's still very important that we maintain a presence there. Is this because of less folks enlisting? No. The US military is undergoing one of its every-50-years-or-so major restructurings in response to changing missions, world situations and technology. You can follow more of the details of what and why at the DOD transformation site. The move of Army divisions from Germany and South Korea is part of a reworking of the Army to make combat brigades, rather than the larger divisions, the "unit of action". UAs are the level at which major deployments occur. Moving to brigades as the deployment unit is connected to other transformation changes. For instance, the Army is changing its job rotation approach: soldiers will spend more time in a given unit. This is due to training / mission benefits, but also lessens the disruption to families. Units will mostly be based at home, but will rotate out to do various missions (including non-combat) more often ... this means families can stay at the same base, retain school continuity for kids and friendships, with the soldiers travelling away from the base more often - i.e. for 1 yr tours in Iraq rather than the 2+ year deployments of individual families to divisions overseas as is currently the case. Behind all of this is technology. We are evolving what military doctrine people call the "netcentric battlefield". The Army's Future Combat Systems plan, for instance, has a lot of digital data being exchanged between soldiers, commanders and autonomous vehicles (robots such as the ones used in Afghan caves, that can maneuver themselves; unmanned aerial vehicles; etc.) The result is smaller, nimbler units of action which can respond to situations quickly - especially operations that are smaller than / not necessarily a full war, i.e. the kind of operations we are likely to be doing for the next decade or two, while also allowing the aggregation of such units into larger armies as needed. It also better supports joint operations across the various services. |
| Posted by: rkb 2005-07-30 06:20 |
| #9 TGA, I agree. There are plenty of areas in Germany populated with pro-Americans. You've got your red and blue areas too. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-07-30 02:22 |
| #8 It's still useful to let the Europeans understand that their dependence on American defense spending is reaching an end. Either they stand up for themselves, at a cost, or they go gently into the Islamist night. Or could it be into the arms of the Russian bear? Either way, the US should maintain bases in its own interest, not for the sake of the locals. |
| Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) 2005-07-30 02:19 |
| #7 "Hurting the economy" is just nonsense. No doubt the local communities (pro-American btw) will be affected but for the German economy as a whole this is just a waterdrop in a bucket. Germany subsidizes the U.S. presence with more than 1bn dollars a year (Pentagon estimate). It gets more out of it than it spends but even if the net value of total US presence in Germany tops 1 bn dollars, this would represent about 0,1% of the GDP. The truth is that those bases were laid out to face the Soviet challenge and do not fit into the current US military strategy, that's all. But "new friends" are not always that reliable as the case of Uzbekistan just showed. Not likely that you'd ever get an "eviction note" from the German government. Uzbekistan just sent you one. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-07-30 01:38 |
| #6 We had to conquer europe just to get these air bases in place, even tho we stick it to them by hurting their economy, they'll recover and we'll end up with less influences on them in the long run. |
| Posted by: DEEK 2005-07-30 00:53 |
| #5 The 1968ers their commie off spring and German media are quite happy to see us go. The Bavarians who these closings mostly effect will not be, they are "conservative" when comparing them with the rest of Germany. I think we should stay so we can keep our foot on their throat if they decide to go on the warpath when their socailist dream state craters and they start blaming everyone else for their problems. It after is the German way to deal wiht problems, blame it on someone else. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom 2005-07-30 00:49 |
| #4 Yes, while we probably give their economy quite the boost, I still feel it's necessary. After travelling and spending some time in Germany a few years back, I really got the feeling that they still feel they are the superior race and I could see history being repeated. |
| Posted by: Jan 2005-07-30 00:43 |
| #3 Both of you missed the point! The pullout stems not only from changing priorities but also from the need to stick it to the German Left (public?). Now let them fare without tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen and women plunking down mucho dollars into their economy. You don't shit in the master's chair and that's exactly what Gehard and company did, continue to do, and plan on more of the same stuff in the future. So here's the payback, Deutschland! |
| Posted by: Ebbavins Chomoth3961 2005-07-30 00:27 |
| #2 I think it's a big mistake pulling out of Germany, it's still very important that we maintain a presence there. Is this because of less folks enlisting? |
| Posted by: Jan 2005-07-30 00:21 |
| #1 Wow. End of an era. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-07-30 00:13 |