Reposte and/or response to queries on Fort Irwin expansion

[Don Zweifel <zweifel@chapman.edu>]

Received numerous responses both for and against recommendation to expand
Fort Irwin.

Believe it's truly unfortunate that these very lucid and critical opinions
were'nt posted on the Net. Lenny Siegel and Aimee' Houghton have asked 
that our Newsgroup be much more than just a glorified bulletin board. 
They, if I'm not mistaken, wish us to be interactive with one another 
on practically any subject matter as long as it relates to 
environmental and ecological concerns. 

In response to several inquiries about whether REFORGER or Return of
Forces to Germany is still occurring, may we say that to the best of
our knowledge the last actual major redeployment of air, sea and ground
forces happened in September of 1988.

The cost of each annual REFORGER was horrendous, amounting to about $10 to
$14 billion. The shocking destruction of farmland, farm animals, roads,
trees and some buildings that got in the way of US and allied NATO tanks
had to be paid for, with the US picking up the lion's share of the tab. 

Since 1989 this operation has been downgraded to primarily a command and
staff exercise with mostly computer simulations of force projection back
to european soil. The environment is no longer negatively impacted
significantly, but actual tactical battlefield manuevering is confined to
"glorified" computer games for even the lowliest tank gunner and
infantryman. 

Sad to say that realistic hands-on training has been greatly curtailed due
to the demise of REFORGER. On the bright side though is the possibility of
running most of our forces and NATO elements through a significantly
expanded training facility like Fort Irwin, thus saving a boatload of
expenditures.

Do you concur or demur?
 Don Zweifel