THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406190035
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940619 LENGTH: JACKSONVILLE, FLA.
Pairs of F/A-18 Hornets cut giant, graceful arcs above endless swaths of green pine forest, while crew members in blue jumpsuits scuttle between cavernous hangars bearing the names ``Gunslingers,'' ``Rampagers'' and ``Golden Warriors.''
{REST} This is Cecil Field, a mammoth air base carved into the vast and humid Florida heartland - 22,000 near-empty acres that used to represent what was right about naval aviation, that once symbolized its future.
Until the Navy chose to close it.
``No one in Jacksonville would have thought Cecil would go away,'' said Capt. Sam Houston, the base's commanding officer. ``We didn't even know it was being considered.
``Now it's clear anything can happen. Nothing's sacred any more.''
As it now stands, Cecil Field, among the largest of the Navy's 28 air stations, must close by Sept. 27, 1999. Its jets are to be scattered among bases in Virginia Beach, Cherry Point, N.C., and Beaufort, S.C.
In recent months, the surviving bases have been locked in a battle over who gets what, like relatives picking over the remains of a family estate. Each hopes to position itself to win Cecil Field's most prized possession - the F/A-18 Hornets, the Navy's only tactical jet still in production.
Though most of the F/A-18 squadrons are slated by law to go to Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, supporters of Oceana are lobbying to divert some 200 Hornets to the Virginia Beach base. The move is considered crucial to the long-term future of Oceana, which, while retaining the F-14 Tomcat, is seeing its other plane, the A-6E Intruder attack jet, taken out of service.
But there's more at stake in this decision than Oceana Naval Air Station. Where the Navy sends those jets will help shape the future of naval aviation.
Should the Hornets proceed to Cherry Point, it will be the first time Navy jets operate out of what historically is a Marine Corps base. Such a joint operation, which many see as the future of military aviation, could pave the way for Cherry Point to emerge as the premier jet base on the East Coast.
Those who defend Oceana say the Marine base cannot handle all the jets without costly, major improvements. They warn that the price of moving to Cherry Point will be high - in both money and the integrity of the independent world of naval aviation.
``If the Navy believes that there is going to be a huge pot of money available to restructure naval aviation, I believe they are in for a big disappointment,'' said Rep. Owen B. Pickett, who is championing the fight to save the Virginia Beach base.
``They better make the most with what they have because the future is very uncertain. If they are banking on huge amounts of money to revitalize and reinvigorate and recreate naval aviation, they may be leaning on a very slender reed.''
On the sidelines of this battle is Cecil Field, where the military veneer of cool acceptance hides signs that the decision to close still rankles: Pilots sit glumly around wooden tables, knowing they lost a battle. Retirees sell used cars with bumper stickers that say, ``Save the Military: Just Say No.''
``It's devastating to me,'' said Michael ``M.T.'' Kirk, a car dealer, from his sandlot near the fringes of Cecil Field. ``I think everyone depends on them, from the Subway to the carwash down here.
``I like it here, I know everybody. I sit on my patio over there and wave all day long. You get attached to it. I hate to see it go.''
It's been more than 50 years since Cecil Field was built in this 32-square-mile pine forest, about 15 miles west of downtown Jacksonville.
Large palm trees stand at the base's main gate, near a retired A-7 Corsair and a sentry dressed in fatigues. F/A-18 Hornets, known as strike-fighters for their dual role in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, roar above four runways that divide the airfield from the distant line of pines.
Here, in the heart of Hornet country, it's hard to see how Cecil could close.
F/A-18s and S-3 Vikings fly in and out of the air station to a practice bouncing field less than 10 miles away. Bombing ranges are less than an hour away. Two warning areas, used for dogfighting and other air-to-air maneuvers, are located over the Atlantic Ocean and across Florida over the Gulf of Mexico.
``Our location is ideal,'' said Capt. Ken Cech, commodore of the Atlantic Fleet's F/A-18s. ``We have good weather. We are surrounded by operation areas.
``We have all the facilities we need.''
So, why shut it down?
That's a question asked often these days in the offices of Jacksonville politicians and businessmen.
How did they lose Cecil?
They never saw it coming.
A year ago, as the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission readied for the 1993 round of closings, a Jacksonville lobby of consultants and citizens worried about an aviation depot at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. They campaigned hard to keep the maintenance facility off the defense department's hit list, traveling to Washington and cajoling budget analysts.
On March 12, 1993, they got the news.
The depot was spared. Instead, Cecil Field, with its 7,000 military and 1,500 civilian employees, was closing.
``We were in shock,'' said T.R. Hainline, a Jacksonville land-use lawyer who was involved in the city's campaign. ``Everyone we talked to, the pilots, the admirals, said they couldn't believe it.''
It was a harsh blow. The only hope rested with the members of the base-closing commission - eight civilians who had the power to take a base off the closure list, but rarely did.
Jacksonville would get a chance to plead its case on May 3, 1993, at a commission hearing in Orlando.
The city launched its campaign. Hired to head it was Herbert W. McCarthy, a consultant who had worked in logistics at the Defense Department for more than 20 years before moving to Jacksonville.
McCarthy set up office in an old, tall downtown building. He tapped Steven Estes, a retired Navy commander who once flew F-14 Tomcats at Oceana.
They made an odd pair. McCarthy was short and paunchy with silver hair. Estes quickly nicknamed him Santa. Estes was a large and hulking man. McCarthy referred to him as Sky King.
Before getting started, McCarthy called an old friend of his at the Pentagon - Charles Nemfakos, the Navy's senior budget analyst who was in charge of preparing the list of what would close.
McCarthy told Nemfakos he had made a mistake by putting Cecil Field on the list. Nemfakos didn't reply, McCarthy said. The two chatted for 10 minutes.
``The list the Navy submitted is the right list,'' Nemfakos said to McCarthy before he hung up the phone.
McCarthy knew it would be an uphill fight.
Being put on the list meant those in the Navy were blocked from helping the Cecil Field campaign, even if they disagreed with the decision to close it. The release of Navy information on the air station would be slow, if it came at all.
``I knew being on the list it would have to be something phenomenal to get it off,'' McCarthy said. ``It was the community against the Navy.''
And the Navy held all the cards.
What Estes and McCarthy soon learned was that the biggest problem facing Cecil was its size. By wiping out Cecil, the Navy was able to close a large chunk of excess capacity in one swipe.
``Cecil Field's strength turned out to be its doom,'' said Estes. ``It had all that room. It was an illogical argument.''
They tried to turn it around.
Because Cecil Field was so large, they argued, the base could host the F/A-18s and take the F-14 Tomcats from Oceana, with little construction necessary. There was even enough room for the jets from Beaufort, S.C., too.
It was a simple strategy. Close Oceana and send the F-14s to Cecil. Keep Cherry Point as it was - a Marine Corps air station devoted mostly to AV-8 Harrier jump jets.
At first, the argument seemed to make sense. Cecil Field had a higher military value, as computed by a complex analysis of data, than Oceana and it was generally accepted that the cost of closing the Virginia Beach base was far less than the cost of closing Cecil.
``The Navy itself graded Cecil above Oceana,'' wrote McCarthy in a report he presented to the base-closing commission. ``Yet, the Navy decided to close Cecil in favor of Oceana. They argued that only Oceana can handle the F-14 community. But it is not the only base which could do so.''
But the team knew it wasn't enough to sway the commission.
Later that spring, McCarthy and Estes got copies of aerial photographs taken of the land surrounding Oceana. In those snapshots, they found what they were looking for.
Two elementary schools sat squarely in the center of the accident potential zone around Oceana. A large shopping mall had been built under the jets' landing pattern - over the objections of the Navy.
Finally, they had their weapon.
The photographs were blown up and placed on thick poster board. An economist was hired to analyze the numbers used by the Navy to figure out which base would close.
On May 3, the team went to Orlando for the commission hearing.
There were problems from the start.
Florida's governor, who had been asked to plead for Cecil, was late. The microphones in the large auditorium wouldn't work.
Once started, the arguments were met with skepticism.
When the team said it would be difficult to build new runways at Cherry Point to accommodate the F/A-18s, a commissioner said they wouldn't be needed. When the team pointed to the development at Oceana, the commissioners asked about encroachment at Cecil Field.
In the end, the commissioners voted 6-1 to add Oceana to the list, simply for consideration. It was a token victory for Cecil Field. Few believed that meant Oceana would close.
In the next few weeks, McCarthy and Estes worked long hours to compile answers to the commissioners' questions. They submitted a supplemental report that included, for instance, a statement from a meteorologist on why no hurricanes have hit Jacksonville.
On June 4, 1993, they watched as five busloads of sailors and several flag officers - including Adm. Henry M. Mauz Jr., commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet - appeared at a base-closing hearing in Norfolk to support Oceana.
It was, McCarthy said, a sea of white uniforms. He knew then it was over.
``It's a basic rule when you have a commander in chief of a uniform community and he says he wants something, you give it to him,'' McCarthy said. ``When Adm. Mauz said he wanted Oceana, that was it.''
Later that month, McCarthy and Estes went to Washington. On the Thursday before the final vote of the base-closing commission, they met with two commissioners in the office of a Florida congressman.
They pointed to a 1992 crash at Cecil Field, when an S-3 Viking, an anti-submarine jet, went down in the trees. If it had happened at Oceana, they said, the jet would have hit Lynnhaven Mall.
The commissioners seemed impressed.
Estes held out hope.
On Saturday, he put brochures touting Cecil Field on each of the commissioners' chairs and followed a few of them to the restroom, hoping for a chance to talk.
Those hopes ended minutes later. Commission Chairman Jim Courter opened the discussion on Cecil Field by referring to a secret mission at Oceana. Courter said the Navy couldn't afford to lose the Virginia Beach station, because of that mission - believed to be a training facility for Navy SEALs.
The vote was 7-0 to shut down Cecil. The F/A-18s were to go to Cherry Point, the S-3 Vikings to Oceana.
Among the Jacksonville business people, politicians and lobbyists, bitterness grew.
``Politics shouldn't enter into it, but it did,'' Estes said, in a recent interview, of the base-closing process. ``Because if you just accept the numbers, if you went by the criteria they created at the beginning, they wouldn't have closed Cecil Field.
``They lied.''
Three months would pass last year before McCarthy could return to Cecil Field. He couldn't face the people who worked there.
``It was sad,'' McCarthy said. ``It was like losing a whole group of friends. It was almost like a funeral.''
Last October, McCarthy drove to the air base to present a plaque to the Blue Angels, who were flying at an air show commemorating the base's 50th anniversary. He stood on the tarmac gazing up as the F/A-18s flew above him.
Again, he asked himself, ``Why?''
One month later he got his answer.
On Dec. 9, McCarthy met with Nemfakos, the Navy analyst, in Washington. He told Nemfakos he still couldn't believe the Navy was closing Cecil Field.
Nemfakos told him it had to.
He explained he'd been working for 25 years to build up the Navy and the Department of Defense, McCarthy recalled. Now, in the last years of his career, he was being asked to close much of it down.
To do that, he told McCarthy, he had ``to get some crown jewels.''
Cecil Field, he said, was a crown jewel.
{KEYWORDS} BASE CLOSINGS MILITARY DOWNSIZING
by CNB