By Larry Jones
July 25, 2005

During a July 19 hearing in Washington (DC), the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) voted to add several military installations to a list of 318 closure and realignment recommendations submitted by the Secretary of Defense last May. Since that time BRAC has been holding hearings in potentially affected communities around the nation to consider the impact of the recommendations on the nation’s overall defense capability as well as on local communities. At the hearing Anthony Principi, Chairman of BRAC, hinted that the Commission might add more bases to the list between now and late August when BRAC is expected to submit a final list.

At the July 19 hearing, BRAC voted to add the following installations to the list of recommendations for closure and realignment:

• Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Maine

• Navy Broadway Complex, San Diego

• Naval Master Jet Base, Naval Air Station in Oceana, Virginia

• Pope Air Force in North Carolina

• Galena Airport Forward Operating Location in Alaska

• Defense Finance and Accounting Service facilities located at Buckley Annex in Colorado; Columbus, Ohio; and Indianapolis

• Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California

• Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

• Bureau of Navy Medicine, Potomac Annex, Washington, D.C.

• Air Force Medical Command, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.

• Tricare Management Activity, Office of the Surgeons General Military Departments, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, all in Virginia.

The BRAC Commission also voted not to place several installations on the list of recommendations for closure and realignment including the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, the Naval Shipyard in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.