Don't let history repeat itself

At first glance, Kevin Reardon's advice to the committee fighting to keep the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna Township off the 2005 base closing list appeared to be sheer blasphemy. How dare Reardon, the military affairs expert on U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine's staff, come into the Mahoning Valley and even suggest the possibility that Ohio's second-largest military installation be closed?
However, a sober, objective review of his remarks shows that he not only offered sound advice, but was, in effect, reminding the Valley of the darkest period in the region's history, the collapse of the steel industry -- and the fact that we were not prepared for the aftermath. The effects of that unpreparedness are still being felt today.
"Start to think about what you are going to do if they leave," Reardon told members of the Save Our Airbase Reservists (SOAR) Committee recently. Talk about fighting words.
Committee Chairman Reid Dulberger wasted little time letting the senator's staffer and anybody else within earshot know that he disagrees: "I'm only going to examine our base for additional uses. That is the only scenario I want to imagine."
Campaign
And that's exactly what Dulberger, executive vice president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, should do. After all, he is leading the campaign to persuade the decision makers in Washington that dismantling the Air Reserve Station is not only economically unjustified but is militarily shortsighted.
On the other hand, the Defense Department has talked about closing about 100 military installations in the United States, which means as of today, no facility is guaranteed a future. And that's what Reardon's comments were all about. He wasn't saying that the Youngstown station, which is home to the 910th Airlift Wing of the Air Force Reserve and Marine and Navy units, is targeted, nor was he issuing any kind of a warning based on inside information.
He was simply giving the Valley some sound advice. If only a steel industry insider had come to the region and had shaken us awake with an opinion about the future of local steel mills.
To say the Valley was caught with its ingots exposed would be understatement. We were so unprepared that when a delegation of local government officials and community leaders went to Chicago to meet with U.S. Economic Development Administration officials about the region's economic future, delegates were tongue-tied when asked question, "What do you want to do now that the mills have closed?" Local officials admitted that no one had imagined a day when steel would not be king in the Valley.
That is why Reardon's comments to the Save Our Airbase Reservists should be viewed in a positive light. But the job of thinking the unthinkable should not fall to SOAR. Members are focused on keeping the base off the closing list, and that's a full-time assignment.
The ideal setting for the kind of research that is necessary to answer the question, "What will the Valley do if the base closes?" is Youngstown State University. The economic, social and even psychological implications of a base closing must be examined academically. How have other communities coped? What happens to the economy? How does a region withstand a $90 million blow each year? What do you do with a base that has been decommissioned?
And it isn't too early to begin such research.
Foolhardy
No one, especially members of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, should mistake an exercise in "What if?" as a sign that the Mahoning Valley has conceded defeat. Just as the region did several years ago in rallying behind then Congressman James A. Traficant Jr.'s call to demonstrate to the federal government the foolhardiness of closing the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, we will do so again.
If the Pentagon's goal is to cut spending, then the Vienna Township facility is the wrong target. Not only has the federal government earned a hundred-fold return on its investment, but the establishment of an air reserve wing makes it clear that Pentagon officials recognize the superiority of the base compared with other such installations.
That said, the region would be making a grave mistake not preparing for the worst. There is much work to be done, We must not forget the lessons of the collapse of the steel industry in the Mahoning Valley. And the chief lesson is simply this: Nothing lasts forever.