ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Scott Air Force Base of Illinois both survived the recent large U.S. Army cuts with a graze wound. But now state officials are focusing on making sure they survive future cuts from the military’s Base Realignment and Closures (BRAC).
Missouri officials breathed a sigh of relief in June when the Army announced that instead of losing up to 5,000 personnel, Fort Leonard Wood was losing 774.
“I do believe that the Army’s recognition of Fort Leonard Wood’s enduring value was why those numbers were on the low end and not the higher end,” says Mike Dubois of Kit Bond Strategies.
Nobody knows when the next round of cuts will come, but they will come, and Dubois is among those working toward that day. As someone who worked for Sen. Kit Bond during the last BRAC process, he knows that congressional connections count.
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“You can in some cases draw a correlation between those states that are represented with members on armed services or appropriation committees and those that are not,” Budois says.
Dubois says that means having both senators and a congressmen on those committees is a big plus for Missouri. Another plus is that the Fort Leonard Wood is home to the Military Police, and chemical and engineering schools, which are needed no matter the military’s size.
Ellen Krone, executive director of the Leadership Council of Southwestern Illinois, says Scott AFB stands out as a location that has grown 40 percent since the last cuts by BRAC. She says every community wants to keep its military base, but Scott AFB has evidence of having some of the strongest community support.
“The Air Force Times recently named Scott Air Force Base the No. 1 base to be located at for the Air Force, and for a number of reasons,” Krone says. “The cost of housing, the strong support, you know. It’s got MetroLink at the station.”
Scott AFB is the fourth largest employer in the region, and Krone says it has the land capacity to grow even more.
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