State's huge military presence gains visibility with mobilization
His submarine was getting under way — immediately — as a result of the terrorist attacks. He could not say where he was going, when he would be back or even when he could call again.
"I just started crying," said 19-year-old Bear, whose husband is stationed on the USS Ashemore, a fast-attack submarine. "It's really, really hard not knowing where he is, if he's OK and if he'll be home for Christmas."
Tearful departures are becoming common across Washington state as the nation marshals its forces against an elusive enemy. The goodbyes are emotional reminders that a region known best for salmon, trees, Microsoft and coffee is also home to one of the nation's largest military clusters.
The 53,000 active-duty officers and enlisted men and women assigned to Puget Sound-area Army, Navy and Air Force bases represent one of the densest concentrations of military personnel of any similarly sized region in the country, trailing only Norfolk, Va., and San Diego. Across the Cascades, 3,400 more airmen are assigned to Spokane's Fairchild Air Force Base.
Military officials won't talk about what role Washington-based troops will play in Operation Enduring Freedom. Their primary mission has been safeguarding American interests in Asia and the Pacific.
But more than 6,200 locally based troops are likely already in the Persian Gulf region, girding for possible military strikes against suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.
The Bremerton-based supercarrier USS Carl Vinson — a floating airstrip more than twice the length of a jumbo state ferry — already was near the Gulf region when terrorists slammed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Its battle escort includes the USS Sacramento supply ship out of Bremerton and the Everett-based guided-missile frigate USS Ingraham.
A Fort Lewis-based Special Forces battalion and KC-135 refueling tankers from Fairchild have also been deployed. The tankers, used for refueling military planes in flight, would be essential for carrier-based attack jets to reach targets in Afghanistan.
While local base commanders stand ready to send much more, they're not forgetting their homeland duties.
"What I've said over and over since Sept. 11th is that we have to continue training," said Lt. Gen. James T. Hill, base commander at Fort Lewis, south of Tacoma, which, with its 20,000 soldiers, is the nation's fourth-largest Army base and the biggest west of Texas. "Right now that's our wartime mission."
More workers than Boeing
What's unusual about Washington's military presence is how invisible it seems, even though it spreads across vast tracts and pours billions of dollars into the state economy — no small benefit as the state hobbles toward recession.
The armed forces employ 83,000 (not counting the Coast Guard or reserves) across the state, including 26,000 civilians. That's more than Boeing, Microsoft or Weyerhaeuser. Only state government employs more.
Chris Johnson, an economist with the state's Employment Security department, estimates that every military job indirectly generates one additional job in the private sector.
The state's military's payroll totaled $4 billion last year. And defense contracts injected an additional $2.2 billion into the state economy, $730 million to Boeing alone.
And when they retire, many in the military locate here: Washington has an estimated 150,000 military retirees.
The economic reach of the armed forces even extends to the state's universities. The University of Washington alone received $30 million in research grants from the military last year.
"It's a lot more widespread than we tend to think," said Gary Kamimura, senior economic analyst for Washington Employment Security. "You think about the communities that are close to the bases like Lakewood, Bremerton, Whidbey Island, where you get not only the military as consumers but their families working at grocery stores and banks and nonmilitary industries."
The area may also gain 3,000 jobs if Boeing wins the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, the biggest contract in Pentagon history. Air Force Secretary James Roche is expected to decide between Boeing and Lockheed Martin by Oct. 26.
A parade of military might
To tour the state is to witness a parade of military might.
Guided-missile frigates and Navy destroyers routinely cruise in and out of the Sound's narrow waterways.
Bangor Naval Submarine Base, which enforces a no-fly zone around its secretive installation on the Kitsap Peninsula, is home to the Pacific's entire fleet of Trident ballistic-missile submarines, each holding 6,000 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
Hop farmers in Central Washington catch occasional echoes of Stinger missiles and long-range mortars from Fort Lewis' Yakima Training Center, 300,000 acres of sage flats and volcanic bluffs where the Army's I Corps (First Corps) tests its combat grit.
And lecturers at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma frequently must shout to be heard over the din of brawny transports landing at nearby McChord Air Force Base in Lakewood.
All are a part of a broad military presence that, remarkably, often goes unnoticed by Washington residents. Except in times of crisis.
"I think it's easy to get lost when you're in such a big urban setting like this," said Lt. Col. Mike Negard, an Army public-affairs officer at Fort Lewis. "Most military bases are in rural settings or near smaller towns, so the military's a lot more obvious."
Dose of reality for a young wife
On a recent morning, Amanda Bear was beginning her waitressing shift at Pat's Restaurant and Bakery in Bremerton. She wore a red-trimmed, handmade flag pinned to her shirt, a reminder of her husband, whom she still had not heard from since he was scrambled out to sea aboard his submarine shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Similar patriotic symbols have popped up around this community, which locals endearingly refer to as a "squid town" because of its large Navy presence.
"I knew this was his job when I married him," Bear said. "I just never expected it to really happen. Nobody did. It came out of nowhere and knocked all of us wives back into reality."
That somber reality is hitting home in the dozens of towns that surround the state's bases, places that feel the emotional or economic ripples whenever the military blinks.
In Tillicum, a tiny Pierce County community pinched between McChord and Fort Lewis, business has plummeted since the attacks.
"Soldiers are having a hard time getting off base," said David Robinson, an ex-Navy petty officer who owns Historical Military Sales Inc., one of three military surplus stores along a half-mile of the town's main strip.
The same half-mile is home to four dry cleaners, five check-cashing services and nine barber shops — all catering directly to soldiers.
"It's been slow," agreed Tom Hale, owner of Tom's Barber Shop, which depends on soldiers for 90 percent of its business. Here, haircuts are quick and cheap, the barbers are gray-haired ex-GIs, and conversations are a faithful barometer of military mood.
"These young guys I've talked to seem very anxious," said fellow barber Gary Davis, an ex-sailor with faded blue tattoos up his arm. "They want to do something."
The Army's pending makeover
Washington's military presence has remained steady despite a decade of defense downsizing. While the nation's active-duty strength has shrunk 34 percent since 1990, the number of officers and enlisted men and women in Washington has stayed roughly the same.
That is due in part to the state's strategic access to Pacific Rim nations. But military experts say thanks is also owed to U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, a respected player nationally in the defense and intelligence arenas.
The 24-year House veteran's hawkish pull and dealmaking ability are largely credited with helping steer Washington through four rounds of base closures in the late 1980s and early '90s without losing a single installation.
In fact, the day of the terrorist attacks, Dicks, at a meeting in the offices of House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, was trying to convince a group of fellow lawmakers that U.S. military capabilities were eroding because of cutbacks.
Today there is little argument on Capitol Hill about using the Social Security surplus to bolster the nation's defense, and as troops and sailors prepare for war, Dicks is also focused on how protected U.S. military installations and the general public are at home.
"We've always had the protection of two big oceans," said Dicks. "That's one of the things that's a new feature of all of this."
As Congress debates a new round of base closures, the first since 1995, Washington's military future seems more secure than ever.
The fleet of 26 C-17 transports at McChord, the biggest military airlift base in the Western United States, is expected to almost double in size within two years. Closer to Seattle, Fort Lewis is leading an operation known as "Transformation," the biggest makeover in the Army's history, as it reshapes itself for 21st century war.
Over the next 25 years, tank battalions that are hard to deploy and light airborne forces that are short on firepower will be remolded into all-purpose combat brigades capable of striking anywhere in the world in 96 hours.
Right now, the first of these lethal brigades are training for urban warfare and testing Light Armored Vehicles, highly versatile tanks on wheels instead of tracks that can hit 60 mph. The brigade is scheduled to be combat ready by 2003, a date that could be moved up as America launches its campaign against terrorism.
"This has never happened," said Gen. Hill. "The Army has evolved over the years as technology has evolved, but we have never said we're going to completely redo the Army from the bottom up."
The forward-looking initiative, as well as the close proximity of Fort Lewis to McChord Air Force Base and the region's numerous ports, are considered huge pluses to defense planners, further sheltering the area from possible defense cuts, military experts agree.
"This is a strategic asset for America," said William Harrison, a three-star general who succeeded Norman Schwarzkopf as Fort Lewis base commander before retiring in 1991. "You've got all the forces aligned here with the transportation means to get them anywhere in the world.
"It's an ideal situation."
Seattle Times researcher Vince Kueter and reporters Kevin Galvin and Christine Clarridge contributed to this report.
Ray Rivera can be reached at 206-464-2926 or rayrivera@seattletimes.com.