Times Like These, by Mike Andrews

If you are keeping your ears open in the restaurants and coffee shops of Altus, you know there are two big stories dominating conversation. The first is that Altus Air Force Base is definitely closing. The other is that Altus Air Force Base is definitely NOT closing.

The fact is that there will be a list published in May and finalized by the end of 2005, placing the necks of several military bases and the communities that host them firmly on the chopping block. In each of those towns -- from Columbus, Miss., to Yuma, Ariz. -- people are trying to prognosticate about their facility's chances of survival. But nowhere does such talk take on the urgency that it does in Altus.

The numbers are stark. A town of just over 20,000 has more than 4,000 people employed on base. And that's not including subcontractors or the people who make a living selling cars and houses to people who work on base. Saying that losing the base would be bad for Altus is much like saying the Dust Bowl was bad for Oklahoma.

The bare fact of the matter is that no one knows whether or not Altus is on the list -- no one, that is, except Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of this round of closures. All those people in those restaurants and coffee shops, even the ones who are themselves in the Air Force, are only guessing, making predictions in much the same way some guy sitting at Texas Rangers' training camp might forecast whether they have a shot at the World Series.

In an effort to find someone with a reliable opinion on Altus' future, I called someone who sits in an office near Washington, D.C. This particular office is in a think tank called The Lexington Institute.

Loren Thompson is the chief operating officer of the institute, which he says is "a non-partisan think tank that supports a strong defense but favors smaller government." In others words they support BRAC.

I found his name in an Associated Press series that ran in the Times. In it, Thompson said that Tinker Air Force Base was 100 percent safe. But he was not quoted about any other Oklahoma facility featured in the series. So I though I'd ask him if he had an opinion about Altus.

"I do not," was his reply, "but let me check my list."

He shuffled some papers, then said, "It's a single service base. It appears to have a single mission. It's a small base. I'd say it's a question mark."

Then he qualified his statement, "Of course, I don't know what I'm talking about."

When he says he doesn't know what he's talking about, he only means it half-heartedly. Aside from this thinking work, he teaches military affairs at Georgetown University. He is the equivalent of a seasoned baseball scout forecasting the Texas Rangers' chances at the World Series.

The fact that it is a single-service, single-mission base is important because Rumsfeld wants to build a military that isn't strictly divided between Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. This will also be a "serious" BRAC, meaning deep cuts are supposed to be made. Rumsfeld wants all excess capacity -- currently estimated at 25 percent -- eliminated. He wants realignment to save the government $7 billion a year.

"Should be obvious that in order to reach (those goals), scores of bases will close and many will be realigned," Thompson said.

And while economic impact is among the second tier of considerations the commission will take into account in making a final decision, Thompson doubts that the fact that closure would have a devastating blow on the community would be an overriding factor.

Neither would wasting money be a consideration. Bases with hundreds of millions of dollars of newly built infrastructure have been closed.

Thompson admitted he had no firsthand knowledge of Altus AFB, "only hearing of it one or two times." When I told him the employment to population ratio, he was a bit taken back. "Altus, what is that near?" he inquired. I had to wonder how many of the people in Washington who make such decisions knew Altus' precarious place in the world.

Perhaps we should look at attracting think tanks to Altus. Then Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rumsfeld -- once he is former defense secretary -- can find out for themselves.