By DON HALLWERCK
When I went to work at the Space and Missiles Systems Organization in Inglewood in January 1962, the military presence in Los Angeles and California generally was immense. The number of Air Force, Navy and Army bases here, their size and working populations, both in uniform and civilian, the support facilities and business that filled the needs of these facilities, the purchases in services and goods they generated, and their overall impact on the quality of life in Southern California were incalculable.
Today, the only obvious military presence in the Los Angeles area is a tiny fraction of what was here in 1962. There is the Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach, which covers a lot of acres but has only a small staff; Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, which is primarily a satellite to the Air Force Space and Missiles Center in El Segundo; and the Space Center itself, which is composed of several moderate-size office buildings and the Aerospace Corp. across El Segundo Boulevard.
What happened?
Some reduction was inevitable, as the Defense Department consolidated facilities, changed its force structures, etc. But much was due to the complete ineptitude of local politicians, from mayors to congressmen to senators and governors of California, who were unable or unwilling to marshal their enormous political strength to fight off power grabs.
The local news media did not help. I rarely saw any in-depth analyses of the human and economic impact of these facilities. This is California, after all, with always new and glamorous businesses and photo ops.
March Air Force Base was chopped. El Toro Marine Base is no more. George Air Force Base in Victorville, Cheli Air Force Station in South Gate and the Mira Loma facility were closed. The huge San Bernardino Air Materiel Area at Norton Air Force Base was closed, devastating that area for years. The impact on Long Beach and San Pedro of losing the many Navy warships formerly based there was severe.
Aviation grounded
The same sad story of loss applies to the aircraft industry, which predominantly grew here in Southern California. Douglas Aircraft had more than 50,000 employees in Long Beach at one time. Through some bad decisions and bad luck, Douglas sold out to Rockwell, based in Pennsylvania. You have seen the results. Today, the C-17 in Long Beach is the only aircraft built here, and it is hanging on by its fingernails. When Rockwell was bought by Boeing Corp., now in Chicago, the last nails in the coffin of local aircraft production were in place. Remember Lockheed? Now in Georgia. And on and on. Famous names, huge employee rosters, almost all somewhere else.
California has lost almost all of its military facilities, except those in the San Diego area. We see almost no soldiers, sailors or marines here anymore. Think about that.
We almost lost the crown jewel of them all, the Air Force Space and Missile System Center, several times. It was saved at least twice, principally because the Aerospace Corp., an Air Force-owned technical support facility (read brain factory), made it clear that its staff would not move to Colorado or New Mexico, both of which lust after this financial cornucopia.
Finally, when almost everything else was gone, the local politicians realized several years ago that the Space Center was worth a vast amount of money to this area, and they for once worked together and saved it, at least for a while.
Years ago I helped save McClellan Air Force Base, near Sacramento, by getting new workloads. It is now a polluted memory, where it was once the largest employer in Northern California. Military bases up and down California are no more, including Mare Island, the Presidio and Fort Ord. However, the big Air Force Logistics base in Utah remains. The state of Utah protects that economic gold mine religiously, to misuse a phrase. Other small states, such as Georgia and Oklahoma, have used their political clout to get and keep huge military bases and their payrolls.
I do not believe that we deserve the kind of narrow and incompetent political representation we too often have in California. They have severely diminished this state, and all of us who are fortunate to live here have lost much.
There are many thousands of well-paying jobs and the accompanying multiple billions of dollars we no longer have to bolster our economy that should not have been lost. At least part of this tragedy could have been prevented, but was not.
Don Hallwerck is retired from the U.S. Air Force, where he worked as a civil servant for 35 years. He lives in Long Beach.
