Positive comment on Ft. Irwin expansion

[Don Zweifel <zweifel@chapman.edu>]

We all appreciate the elimination of wasteful and useless military
installations but there's only so much fat to cut off before one digs into
the bone. And that point has been reached and exceeded in this writer's
opinion.

When force readiness is jepardized due to a lack of adequate training
facilities, responding expeditiously to precipitous aggression on
the part of some petty tyrant like Saadam Hussein becomes an increasingly
iffy and improbable proposition.

We can't have our cake and eat it too, if you'll excuse a bit of
triteness. One really can't have it both ways. Do we wish to continue
being a superpower and all the ramifications that entails or should we be
willing to tolerate being intimidated and bullied about, willy-nilly? 

Training adequacy is the sine qua non or an absolute prerequisite of any
national defense force worth its salt. One cannot shut down most of our
crucial military bases and still expect to be regarded as a preeminent
and credibly viable power within the host of nations.

Therefore, a "reasonable" expansion of Fort Irwin, of let's say 165,000
acres rather than 331,000 would allow our service branches and NATO forces
to train simultaneously. The devolvement or downsizing of USAREUR or US
Army Europe has effectively obviated any further significant wargaming
(specifically the formerly annual "REFORGER" or Return of Forces to
Europe) across-the-pond.

Fort Irwin is an ideal site for learning the skills of warfighting because
it's located in one of the most inhospitable deserts on earth, the
Mohave (Our son received some of his tracked-vehicle training there). 

Environmentally and/or ecologically speaking, of all the sites that could
be suitable this one would probably have the least impact on the flora and
fauna, because there's so little of it. The endangered desert tortoise
should be be relocated to the Arizona-California stateline area. This is
another ostensibly god-forsaken zone known for its arid climate (near
Yuma, Arizona). 

If anyone is in disagreement with the above let them please have at it. 

 Don Zweifel