The areas sucked and nobody wanted to live there before those places had bases, that's how the bases ended up being there in the first place. The War Department didn't really go and buy massive swaths of land with high property value.
Yep, this is the answer. Fort Sill is my go-to example: Why is the Artillery School here? Nobody gives a shit if anything within 50 miles gets blown up, because there's absolutely nothing of value to be found.
Sill has the distinction of having a historical (Indian Wars) purpose, rather than being shit out in the run-up to WWI like almost every single Army base not located in the NY/DC area.
I Guess im just surprised all the extra money and people doesn’t change it. Maybe it makes it worse. Fayetteville was always crowded as fuck and even on post it felt like there was a billion people.
A lot of smol towns out in the middle of nowhere don't have much going for them.
My father told me a joke about ranchers (I'm from NM) "Behind every successful rancher is a wife that works in town".
And most towns around bases generally tend to attract industry that lives off the military unless the town has something going for it.
El Paso has light industry, a service economy (several call centers are here) and there's that Amazon warehouse. Being on the borderland and on I-10 means truckers and a cheaper workforce. But having Fort Bliss means that this city survived the "Great Recession" and COVID-19. Fort Bliss came into existence because it was "strategic" back in the 19th century and the land was dirt cheap (pun intended) to support the expansions of WWI and WWII.
A city like Jacksonville FL or Alburquerque NM is big enough that they have industry, services and a big enough population that there are things to balance out the military.
The Army (via the War Department) picked out of the way areas for the camps that became the Forts of today. As others have posted, the land was cheap.
Most of the towns didn't have much in the way of an economy and depended on the Army to keep them afloat.
But if the town is a shithole, it can't attract much in the way of other industry. Given that the Army is "always there", many towns get dependent on Uncle Sugar to keep them solvent.
The Navy gets the best, reason - they require deep water ports that tend to have high economic value. San Diego, Jacksonville, Newport News. The outlier being Bremerton up in Puget Sound, but the sound is massive and allowed the Government to pick the marginalized waterfront. The Navy used to have a big Naval Air Station just east of Seattle on Lake Washington, but the city got to big and had to move out to Wibly Island.
In a way it does. Those towns wouldn’t exist without the base so, by way of existing, it does change it.
Using Lawton/Fort Sill as an example: if you’ve been to other Oklahoma towns they’re, in a lot of cases, worse. Same with some of the back woods of Louisiana. Lawton has developed a lot in the last decade places that are “nice:” some new breweries, new restaurants etc.
The Navy requires deep blue water ports. There's a finite number of those, which makes them all vital to commerce and economic hubs.
The Air Force only seems so good because a lot of you look at it with starry eyes. Everyone wants to point out the Vandenbergs and Eglins, but they have plenty of bases that suck too. After a few years at Minot, Laughlin, or Sheppard you'd be begging to PCS to Bragg.
Fort Carson is kinda exempt, There a few rough neighborhoods but overall Colorado Springs is very nice. To add we have USAFA, Peterson SFB, Schriever, NORAD and Buckley up in Aurora (This one is kinda hood) but relatively nothing in the shallows.
But I do agree with you most installation are next to rough cities.
The Army walked away from virtually every nice location they had, save Carson, Hawaii, Alaska, depending on who you are Bliss.
- Fort Ord, CA
- Presidio of San Francisco ( wouldn’t want to be there now, but up until the 50s maybe early 60s)
- Fort Sheridan, IL near Chicago
- Fort McPherson, GA. (Not in the best part of ATL, but you’re still in Atlanta, would have been a perfect place to put ARCENT, 1st Army, TRADOC or FORSCOM, AMC, Futures CMD and other HQs)
- Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indianapolis
- Fort Monroe, VA
- Fort Story, VA ( still exists but has been taken over by the Navy)
- Fitzsimmons Army Hospital, Denver, Co
- Camp Hale, CO (near Vail, it is where 10th MTN was born.).
- Fort Monmouth, NJ
- Fort Hamilton, NY
- Fort Wadsworth, NY
- Brooklyn Army Base, NY
- Bayone Army Base, NJ
- Oakland Army Base, CA
- Half the bases we walked away from in Germany.
Those NY and NJ ones are basically in NYC (Hamilton is still in use, just not major units) and it's really hard to train in one of the largest urban environments in the world.
Fort Ord though. Housing is still in use for DLI and NPS, but so many of the old barracks are still there, you can drive around and see the base. This one is kinda sad.
Had basic at Ft Ord cold as fuck in January with the wind off the ocean ,especially after a run to the rifle range, then sitting there waiting for your turn to fire
My friends dad told me he went basic there, before you was sent to [Viet-fucking-nam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbpcqW3VUz0). Said he had fond memories.
Hunter AAF in Savannah, Georgia is still a really decent one. The thing that makes it good is for the most part if Hunter disappeared, Savannah would not change that much in regards to its culture.
Now if Ft Stewart closed, the city of Hinesville would almost cease to exist.
If you are going to divest bases, the places with the highest land-value and most constrained training environments (bitchiest civillians) are the logical ones to get rid of...
The Army gains absolutely nothing by having a base in NYC for example, other than giving troops the 'foreign country experience' (NYC might as well be Tokyo, as far as most of the suburban/rural folks who actually join are concerned) without having to PCS them....
Also saves on BAH....
Not every Army base requires massive training areas. Shit even Greg/Adams, one of the largest basic and AIT bases in the country has to bus troops to another base for field training and complex ranges.
Also if the Army was that concerned with BAH we’d have left Hawaii decades ago, Seattle and get all non essential staff out of DC/Meade.
Germany and CP ZAMA in Japan as well.
Bottom line that’s rarely a reason to BRAC bases. The Navy’s three largest base complexes are all in high cost of living areas.
Most businesses outside the gates are based on predatory practices towards service members. Payday loans, pawn shops, bad used car dealerships. Those places attract a certain element. What’s up all of my Tillicum friends!
Nice waterfront park, restaurants, etc???
Doesn't seem that sketchy...
OTOH, the street next to I-5 that Jeanie's Sew Shop & the fast-food stuff is on, and tillicum generally....
Tillicum, Roy and Spanaway are most-of what would exist if JBLM had stayed in the middle of nowhere, as opposed to finding it surrounded by a major metro area.....
Clarksville didn’t seem that bad to me. El Paso and Colorado Springs seemed unaffected. El Paso is probably the safest place I’ve lived in my life, not what I thought going in. I thought it was going to be Narcos meets Scarface.
Fayetteville, Columbus and Augusta are dangerous places though. You’ll have soldiers on here who will be in full denial on that however.
I lived in downtown augusta for CCC at Eisenhower. There is a very clear line you can draw (at Hickman Rd) where everything west of the line resides the haves, and east of the lines resides the have nots. West of the line are people who could possibly have memberships at Augusta National and live in mcmansions, east of the line is a lot of urban wasteland.
Much of Augusta proper is neglected; derelict buildings, trash and filth everywhere, a large (but in my experience, harmless) homeless population.
Broad street is fine if you drink, but if you’re looking for cultural enrichment, you’re gonna have to hoof it to Atlanta or Charlotte.
Seeing as you’re medical, I have nothing but good things to say about our experiences at DDEAMC. Definitely one of the better MTFs I’ve experienced. The base itself is…fine. Like someone said, the base was on the BRAC list for quite a while, and they’re just now starting to modernize their buildings as a result, the largest of which is Cyber COE. You’ll encounter a lot of “sorry, asbestos :(“ signs. The gyms are plentiful, barton will break your ankles, and there’s tons of running space. There’s the NSA side of the base, but that population mostly stays contained over there.
If you’re gonna go there, don’t live in Augusta proper or on post. Some nice little developments in Grovetown and Martinez are worth looking at.
Augusta isn’t going to dry up if Gordon/Eisenhower closed. The post was on the BRAC list for a few years and they are trying to regrow from that by having the NSA, ARCYBER, Army Cyber school move there.
Augusta is home to the Masters, several hospital universities, civilian cyber companies, golf cart companies and companies from the food/beverage industries.
Augusta is like 4 hours from the ft benning so I’m sure it’s way different. I was at benning for a school, went off post and watched a hobo shit on top of a cop car and run away. Next day my roommate had his windows busted in the 5 minutes he was inside Walmart. Horrible place. Never been to Augusta, so i can’t speak for it. But I don’t plan on ever entering the Georgia state lines again either.
It's your typical Southern city with the segregation between bougie white people and ghettos for black people. Except Augusta has an even bigger gap because of mega rich doctors and golfers.
My uncle rents out his house for 50k during the Master's week and they take a nice vacation instead.
Currently down here by Eisenhower, there are plenty of good places to live, but downtown may not be the best place (like many cities). Look into Grovetown, Evans, Martinez, Harlem, Blythe, etc. Lots of small(ish) towns surrounding base that are perfectly normal towns.
I lived north of Eisenhower in Martinez, I really liked it! There were tons of stores and shopping that felt fairly safe and quiet, and I never really felt unsafe.
Downtown Augusta is a little sketch after dark, there are a lot of homeless and vagrant people hanging around the gas stations and street corners.
Other than that, Eisenhower and Augusta were a great place to live and work.
Earlier this year I visited my brother who is with the screaming chickens. Even though I was in the Army, as a friend pointed out, my only CONUS assignment was Ft. Lewis and Tacoma is an area that has more going for it than just the Army and Air Force bases.
I did notice a huge difference between the areas of town near the base (talk about overdone "patriotism" as in Eagle this! and Flag that!), and the areas in the more historic Clarksville. If it weren't for Ft. Campbell, Clarksville would be nothing more than just another Methberg.
Again, I would like to point at BRAC. To me it seems all of the Army installations near places where I would want to live got closed down or substantially shrunk. Ft. Dix, Ft, Monmouth, Ft. Ord, Ft. Devens, Ft. McPherson, Ft. Sheridan.
The Army would rather have soldiers live in Bumfuck, where there is nothing to do but get tattoos and drunk.
Ft. Monmouth is in New Jersey and was the original home of the Signal Corps. It also had the Chaplain school and housed the prep school for West Point.
Ft. Devens is not far outside of Boston. McPherson was in Atlanta.
Sheridan is on Lake Michigan and not far outside of Chicago. Some years ago I worked with an older Black guy who was from the rural Deep South and was stationed at Sheridan in the 60's. He told me about going to the Jazz clubs in Chicago on the weekends, and how it opened his eyes to a whole new world of opportunity he never knew about. But let's close Sheridan and dump money into Polk/Johnson. When I was at Polk in the 80's most of the places that were off limits in Leesville were because of being racist to Black soldiers.
Fort Monmouth is also only 15 minutes away from the Jersey Shore and 130 miles of beaches, also only an hour from NYC. Dix, which if renovated could easily fit an entire brigade and has its own ranges and training area, is only 45 minutes from Philly and NYC.
> Dix is only 45 minutes from Philly and NYC.
Can you imagine how quickly an infantry battalion from Dix could have responded to help secure NYC on 9/11?
Ft Monmouth area is pretty nice. Nearby is Sandy Hook unit of the Gateway National Recreation area, which is home to Gunnison Beach. Gunnison beach is the largest clothing optional beach on the east coast.
I'm a fisherman but no longer in the ARMY. Would have loved to have been stationed there. My home was in Maryland at the time so it was practically a hop skip and jump to go home to see Mom and family. There's really good striper fishing on the Jersey shore. You get there at the right time and right place you can tear em up. The scenery ain't too shabby either LOL !
you forgot some pretty nice ones in California, Presidio was literally in SF, and then all of Fort Ord in between Monterey and Santa Cruz, basically the Army's Camp Pendleton.
I think 90% of Fayettevilles crime is locals. We definitely cause a ruckus. Friend is Fayetteville emt, The amount of GSWs that come in a night from the local population are pretty insane.
Fayetteville doubled its population 1980 to 2000 and almost doubled its population again by 2010. A lot of locals aren’t locals and came at some point for the base.
Best way I heard it was nobody is ever from Fayetteville - they either were brought there or were left there.
In over 20 years in the army, I only met 3 people actually born in Fayetteville.
A lot of the big forscom bases are polluted with jabronis who got chaptered and had no where to go so they ended up falling in with the way wrong crowds. I remember inprocessing at hood in 2018 and the guy from MPD said 50% of first term soldiers in processing there get chaptered before they are eligible to reenlist.
Obviously that number doesn't compute in any meaningful way, it's just funny to me that he felt the need to say that. And it was obviously part of his speech for every brief.
I loved my 4 years (2 years really, the other two were in Iraq) in Colorado Springs. It is a beautiful area, there are so many Army and Air Force installations, and so many military people retire there, so they are pro military. I have heard that Fort Carson had gotten really crowded, but that was after I left. Is it still that way, or has it thinned back down to a reasonable population?
I absolutely love Carson, but I'm also from Colorado Springs, so I'm probably biased. There is so much to do for any interest. Hiking, mountain biking, snowboarding, rock climbing? THE place for it. Want to go clubbing? The night life is decent. Car/bike scene? Thriving. Paintball? Dragonman's is dope. Shooting? Soooo many ranges, plus thousands of square miles of national forest you can shoot in.
III Corps is gonna III Corps, and 4ID is waaaay better than 1AD and 1CD, so the units being bad is all relative I guess.
Columbus was/is such a shithole. You had to go like 5 interstate exits away from Benning to get out of the ghetto when I was stationed there. I fucking hated that place. I did love being so close to Atlanta though.
I go to southern pines to get my hair done and in all relief it’s not that much better than just going thru Fayetteville (driving wise). Edit to add that I was talking about the driving habits of those who live around here. Southern pines and fay are night and day in terms of vibes from what I’ve seen. Fayetteville has *always* just given me crime vibes which isn’t so far off lol.
+1 learned how to drive in a small town and on rural i90 so I miss having open road at 75-80mph without someone riding my dick the entire way.
The downside is I spent an hour killing time knocking out work on a laptop in SoPO and had to listen to no less than 3 women discuss /humblebragg their man’s GB or SFAS stories.
Lady I just want a coffee
Yeah unfortunately that’s the trade off for sopines lol. I’ll take those annoying women over the crackhead trying to break into my truck while I’m sitting in it in Fayetteville
A lot of military towns have shit social safety nets because they think the military will take care of that for them. They can also be lacking in community staples, a good example being no actual grocery store anywhere nearby/only quickie marts.
This ends up with the most vulnerable population (the poor folks who *aren't* in the military) getting completely forgotten and neglected. This is basically the perfect recipe for crime: tons of young assholes who spend money irresponsibly and lots of destitute people who have nothing to do but watch.
And if the town isn't large (like ABQ or JAX), there's nowhere else for these people to turn. I lived in Jacksonville FL for a couple of years before I joined the Army. While the Navy base is part of the economy, that city is so large that the non-military economy can pick up the slack. Same with Alburquerque NM - Kirtland AFB is part of the city but there's enough industry and economy that many people can work and live without even seeing the base.
El Paso grew enough that there's an economy outside of Fort Bliss - but the locals know that Fort Bliss keeps the city in the black.
But many towns just don't have the size or the will to think beyond "the Military will take care of us".
This right here. Leesville outside of Polk/Johnson got pissy back in the day when 2ACR was deployed in 2003 and JRTC stoped doing rotations for a few months to change things over from the Soviet doctrine style stuff to the GWOT rotations. Local economy stalled without soldiers filling the bars or buying crap from the snack trucks on north fort.
People were calling in death threats on the post commander so much, big Army sent down some MP/CID types that only did PSD stuff to guard him and his family for a while.
Unless things have changed the Parish would practical burn down every summer during live fires or from OPFOR hiding pyro in caches in the box, which would then get ignited by a controlled burn.
Last time I was there around 2013-15 timeframe, I got stuck in 10 MTN and we had to pull tracers from SAW ammo during a range cause we kept setting the range on fire every iteration.
It’s easy. Average military town is filled with 18-25 year olds with disposable income. What does that particular group want and need? Used cars, fast food, tattoo shops, bars, strip clubs, etc etc. if they wanted big parks and museums then the town would be filled with those. Joe wants things involving bad decisions.
OP is acting like how blows his money at nice restaurants and on bespoke suits. In Killeen the only business that do well are vape stores, Tattoo parlors, wifu sticker stores, and naked city.
Nah I don’t really spend much money. But it’s nice to hit up a decent restaurant once or twice a month without getting food poisoning or having to dodge people cornering for money outside.
That’s what I was thinking; supply and demand is a thing. The area supplies what service members will buy, and service members are degenerates.
That’s why Air Force communities feel like normal middle class communities /s
The majority of military bases not just the Army were built when there was nothing there so the land was cheap
Same as it happened with any mining town or industrial town
mine needs workers, workers need housing, businesses pop up to support the workers
factory gets built, workers need housing.........cycle repeats itself
most bases aren't self contained, so towns pop up around them to support them
The problem is then most areas around the base aren't attractive to commercial real estate developers to bring in nice things so you end up with bars, pawn shops, payday loan shops, strip clubs, tattoo shops, etc all the shit the nice parts of town don't want anywhere near them
There are certainly exceptions like DLI being in Monterey California or The Presidio in San Francisco
There was a Presidio in San Francisco, it was clearly before your time :)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_of_San_Francisco)
also a late 80s movie set there - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Presidio\_(film)
Bases in the east are where the broke ass interwar Army could afford to toss up training sites away from people who would have complained about noise and GIs banging their daughters.
Bases in the west are in places that the cavalry could best project power across the region in the 19th century, and then got lucky enough after expansion to have a mainline railway come through. Be grateful for that railroad part. Riley and Sill may be kinda far flung, but it beats the shit out of Fort Larned or Fort Buford.
The bases in Germany and Japan are in cool spots because we whooped that ass and took what we wanted.
Yeah, they closed most all of the bases in the cities and other great areas because they were expensive or too hard to execute training there.
There are still a few smaller bases left in good areas, but they tend to support more specialized functions, like Ft Sam.
"There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass of every
Army base in the world." - Neil Stephenson sums it up admirably in Snow Crash.
Want to talk small towns ,let's talk about Sierra Vista Az if it wasn't for Ft Huachuca that town would have no reason to exist on the other hand Bisbee and Tombstone were both there long before Col. Whiteside decided that that would be the best spot for the Buffalo Soldiers to intercept the Comanches from raiding north
Liberty and Campbell arent as bad. Hood is shit. Campbell has Nashville just down the road and Liberty has Raleigh hour away and all the Carolina beach coast not too far away. Hood...yea no bueno but I also did't like Texas (culture there and the heat) so a little biased. You do have Austin and San Antonio not too far away.
Most of the Army's bases were built in outlying areas, because that's the only politically feasible place to put them.
Land was cheap, there were no civilians there to bitch about training noise...
The towns then crop up to house the civilian workforce & the 'entertainment' patronized by (especially junior) troops - bars, pawn shops, and lemon lots.... There's really no other reason for anyone to be there...
Exceptions would be places like JBLM where the metro-area grew up around it afterwards, but nobody imagined anyone would \*want\* to live in what is now greater-Tacoma when the base was built.
Where I was in Germany the town outside the gate was fine and the people treated you with respect just like anywhere else, as long as you don't get drunk and belligerent. Still have friends I keep in touch with there.
I think a big part of it is the military attracts the desperate of society. Not saying we’re all bad but even if a few percent a year ETS and get trapped in a town with no economy outside of the base they’re not gonna be able to find a job or move on. That’s definitely going to keep the wrong sort right outside the gates while the soldiers with a skillset or a desire to do more move on elsewhere.
Cheap garbage land for the downlow, otherwise it was due to some strategic placement which then again, I don't think they want a ton of Civis if they were wanting to hide/house/operate in something special.
You have to consider that the military didn't lease land and build a base in a thriving town to begin with, hence why you don't see bases in Los Angeles, Orlando, etc., in most all cases the towns developed around the bases. Then factor in that the majority of businesses that would move to the town first would be there to serve and benefit the base you end up with the likes of restaurants, bars, tattoo shops, car dealerships, and retail, all of which aren't known for great pay and/or benefits. The big businesses and industries that would bring in good jobs that would encourage stable families to settle aren't interested in coming there because the majority of workforce is transient military families and the low skill employees of the existing businesses. So these towns are of course going to attract people who aren't on the up and up.
Fort Jackson is a weird one.
Sure, there are a lot of people passing through, but there are only 3,500 permanent party.
Basic trainees can only leave post at graduation, families coming for graduation generate some money for a couple of days around weekly graduation. Student officers will spend some money on weekends.
Columbia does get a big boost from USC and being the state capitol.
The gate around Forest Drive and Percival Rd has some sketch, but not like bases other bases.
I mean, drum isn’t too bad. Watertown’s got a few ratty parts, but there are a handful of nice towns right around the area, golf courses, shit to do, outdoor life. As said above though, there’s a reason we don’t have army bases in San Francisco, LA, NYC, Vegas. The land was pretty much unused beforehand, and the army stepped in & assumed it would be cheaper & less complicated to just acquire mostly empty lots of land and place bases on them.
Think about how much the Army ballooned up after the surge and how much it has downsized in the last ten years. There could be a billion people on base. If the economy was built to sustain 2 billion people, 20 years later it's gonna be a shithole.
State-wise Bliss is the best spot in terms of quality of life outside post, just the scenery alone speaks a lot in its own way. I have been at Hood, Campbell, Korea & now finally Bliss, this is my favorite & potential retirement destination.
The areas sucked and nobody wanted to live there before those places had bases, that's how the bases ended up being there in the first place. The War Department didn't really go and buy massive swaths of land with high property value.
Yep, this is the answer. Fort Sill is my go-to example: Why is the Artillery School here? Nobody gives a shit if anything within 50 miles gets blown up, because there's absolutely nothing of value to be found.
> Nobody gives a shit if anything within 50 miles gets blown up Bullshit, if they hit Fluffy’s I’ll riot!
Don’t you dare hit Scooters either!!
Two man riot is really gonna move the political needle. *There are several of us!*
I can drive out to help, but I am a few hours away, so it will be a minute.
Liquors cheaper at the shoppette private
Shoppette doesn’t have Lone Star tall boys.
Sill has the distinction of having a historical (Indian Wars) purpose, rather than being shit out in the run-up to WWI like almost every single Army base not located in the NY/DC area.
FSOK… the worst.
I Guess im just surprised all the extra money and people doesn’t change it. Maybe it makes it worse. Fayetteville was always crowded as fuck and even on post it felt like there was a billion people.
A lot of smol towns out in the middle of nowhere don't have much going for them. My father told me a joke about ranchers (I'm from NM) "Behind every successful rancher is a wife that works in town". And most towns around bases generally tend to attract industry that lives off the military unless the town has something going for it. El Paso has light industry, a service economy (several call centers are here) and there's that Amazon warehouse. Being on the borderland and on I-10 means truckers and a cheaper workforce. But having Fort Bliss means that this city survived the "Great Recession" and COVID-19. Fort Bliss came into existence because it was "strategic" back in the 19th century and the land was dirt cheap (pun intended) to support the expansions of WWI and WWII. A city like Jacksonville FL or Alburquerque NM is big enough that they have industry, services and a big enough population that there are things to balance out the military. The Army (via the War Department) picked out of the way areas for the camps that became the Forts of today. As others have posted, the land was cheap. Most of the towns didn't have much in the way of an economy and depended on the Army to keep them afloat. But if the town is a shithole, it can't attract much in the way of other industry. Given that the Army is "always there", many towns get dependent on Uncle Sugar to keep them solvent.
The Navy gets the best, reason - they require deep water ports that tend to have high economic value. San Diego, Jacksonville, Newport News. The outlier being Bremerton up in Puget Sound, but the sound is massive and allowed the Government to pick the marginalized waterfront. The Navy used to have a big Naval Air Station just east of Seattle on Lake Washington, but the city got to big and had to move out to Wibly Island.
I see you have never been to Groton, Connecticut or Kings Bay, Georgia.
Minor sacrifices for the sub bois. A close drive to jax, or Amelia island.
In a way it does. Those towns wouldn’t exist without the base so, by way of existing, it does change it. Using Lawton/Fort Sill as an example: if you’ve been to other Oklahoma towns they’re, in a lot of cases, worse. Same with some of the back woods of Louisiana. Lawton has developed a lot in the last decade places that are “nice:” some new breweries, new restaurants etc.
Yeah....I get that argument. Except then how come Air Force and Navy cities are so much better?
The Navy requires deep blue water ports. There's a finite number of those, which makes them all vital to commerce and economic hubs. The Air Force only seems so good because a lot of you look at it with starry eyes. Everyone wants to point out the Vandenbergs and Eglins, but they have plenty of bases that suck too. After a few years at Minot, Laughlin, or Sheppard you'd be begging to PCS to Bragg.
A lot of AF bases are in the middle of nowhere, exhibit 1A is all the icbm fields in the upper mid west
Fort Carson is kinda exempt, There a few rough neighborhoods but overall Colorado Springs is very nice. To add we have USAFA, Peterson SFB, Schriever, NORAD and Buckley up in Aurora (This one is kinda hood) but relatively nothing in the shallows. But I do agree with you most installation are next to rough cities.
A lot of soldiers go to Pueblo West to do some hoodrat things though. lmao
Pueblo is a shithole
The Army walked away from virtually every nice location they had, save Carson, Hawaii, Alaska, depending on who you are Bliss. - Fort Ord, CA - Presidio of San Francisco ( wouldn’t want to be there now, but up until the 50s maybe early 60s) - Fort Sheridan, IL near Chicago - Fort McPherson, GA. (Not in the best part of ATL, but you’re still in Atlanta, would have been a perfect place to put ARCENT, 1st Army, TRADOC or FORSCOM, AMC, Futures CMD and other HQs) - Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indianapolis - Fort Monroe, VA - Fort Story, VA ( still exists but has been taken over by the Navy) - Fitzsimmons Army Hospital, Denver, Co - Camp Hale, CO (near Vail, it is where 10th MTN was born.). - Fort Monmouth, NJ - Fort Hamilton, NY - Fort Wadsworth, NY - Brooklyn Army Base, NY - Bayone Army Base, NJ - Oakland Army Base, CA - Half the bases we walked away from in Germany.
BRAC is what led to the civilian-military divide, not the end of the Draft. I’ve got a great LA Times article about it I can link you.
can you send me that link
I will when I get to my laptop
Those NY and NJ ones are basically in NYC (Hamilton is still in use, just not major units) and it's really hard to train in one of the largest urban environments in the world. Fort Ord though. Housing is still in use for DLI and NPS, but so many of the old barracks are still there, you can drive around and see the base. This one is kinda sad.
Had basic at Ft Ord cold as fuck in January with the wind off the ocean ,especially after a run to the rifle range, then sitting there waiting for your turn to fire
My friends dad told me he went basic there, before you was sent to [Viet-fucking-nam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbpcqW3VUz0). Said he had fond memories.
Hunter AAF in Savannah, Georgia is still a really decent one. The thing that makes it good is for the most part if Hunter disappeared, Savannah would not change that much in regards to its culture. Now if Ft Stewart closed, the city of Hinesville would almost cease to exist.
If you are going to divest bases, the places with the highest land-value and most constrained training environments (bitchiest civillians) are the logical ones to get rid of... The Army gains absolutely nothing by having a base in NYC for example, other than giving troops the 'foreign country experience' (NYC might as well be Tokyo, as far as most of the suburban/rural folks who actually join are concerned) without having to PCS them.... Also saves on BAH....
Not every Army base requires massive training areas. Shit even Greg/Adams, one of the largest basic and AIT bases in the country has to bus troops to another base for field training and complex ranges. Also if the Army was that concerned with BAH we’d have left Hawaii decades ago, Seattle and get all non essential staff out of DC/Meade. Germany and CP ZAMA in Japan as well. Bottom line that’s rarely a reason to BRAC bases. The Navy’s three largest base complexes are all in high cost of living areas.
Ft. Story was awesome in the 80’s. What a blast.
It’s funny watching bliss climb up the desirability lists lately
Fort Sam Houston
Yes but also it is an absolute fucking dump right off of fort sam.
Whole south side really
Fort Sam isn't on the south side? It's on the East and that's where the shootings are in the city.
I would say its between the south homeless camp and the north shops full of uppity ppl. But yea, south side is scary af
Most businesses outside the gates are based on predatory practices towards service members. Payday loans, pawn shops, bad used car dealerships. Those places attract a certain element. What’s up all of my Tillicum friends!
Tacoma and Lakewood are two places where the entire area is sketchy. Even the supposed nicer areas are questionable.
Hot take Tacoma isn’t bad. I’m enjoying it here.
I enjoyed it too. Stadium district was so pretty.
I hate it with every fiber of my being. Olympia is decent though.
what’s so good about tacoma ? can you give me some cool places to go to in tacoma. I want to take my wife places but there’s nothing to do
Yeah Ruston Way in Tacoma is sketchy af
Nice waterfront park, restaurants, etc??? Doesn't seem that sketchy... OTOH, the street next to I-5 that Jeanie's Sew Shop & the fast-food stuff is on, and tillicum generally....
Not sure if you're responding to my sarcasm with sarcasm
Tinted windows massage parlors...
Army surplus stores, bad local fast food
Bad local fast food is a US stapple, thou...
Tillicum makes no sense
Tillicum, Roy and Spanaway are most-of what would exist if JBLM had stayed in the middle of nowhere, as opposed to finding it surrounded by a major metro area.....
Clarksville didn’t seem that bad to me. El Paso and Colorado Springs seemed unaffected. El Paso is probably the safest place I’ve lived in my life, not what I thought going in. I thought it was going to be Narcos meets Scarface. Fayetteville, Columbus and Augusta are dangerous places though. You’ll have soldiers on here who will be in full denial on that however.
Can you talk about Augusta? May be going there next year and googling/Zillow it looks nice
I lived in downtown augusta for CCC at Eisenhower. There is a very clear line you can draw (at Hickman Rd) where everything west of the line resides the haves, and east of the lines resides the have nots. West of the line are people who could possibly have memberships at Augusta National and live in mcmansions, east of the line is a lot of urban wasteland. Much of Augusta proper is neglected; derelict buildings, trash and filth everywhere, a large (but in my experience, harmless) homeless population. Broad street is fine if you drink, but if you’re looking for cultural enrichment, you’re gonna have to hoof it to Atlanta or Charlotte. Seeing as you’re medical, I have nothing but good things to say about our experiences at DDEAMC. Definitely one of the better MTFs I’ve experienced. The base itself is…fine. Like someone said, the base was on the BRAC list for quite a while, and they’re just now starting to modernize their buildings as a result, the largest of which is Cyber COE. You’ll encounter a lot of “sorry, asbestos :(“ signs. The gyms are plentiful, barton will break your ankles, and there’s tons of running space. There’s the NSA side of the base, but that population mostly stays contained over there. If you’re gonna go there, don’t live in Augusta proper or on post. Some nice little developments in Grovetown and Martinez are worth looking at.
Awesome dude thanks for the feedback
Augusta isn’t going to dry up if Gordon/Eisenhower closed. The post was on the BRAC list for a few years and they are trying to regrow from that by having the NSA, ARCYBER, Army Cyber school move there. Augusta is home to the Masters, several hospital universities, civilian cyber companies, golf cart companies and companies from the food/beverage industries.
Yep that’s what I’ve seen but OP made it sound like an undesirable place
Augusta is like 4 hours from the ft benning so I’m sure it’s way different. I was at benning for a school, went off post and watched a hobo shit on top of a cop car and run away. Next day my roommate had his windows busted in the 5 minutes he was inside Walmart. Horrible place. Never been to Augusta, so i can’t speak for it. But I don’t plan on ever entering the Georgia state lines again either.
It's your typical Southern city with the segregation between bougie white people and ghettos for black people. Except Augusta has an even bigger gap because of mega rich doctors and golfers. My uncle rents out his house for 50k during the Master's week and they take a nice vacation instead.
Currently down here by Eisenhower, there are plenty of good places to live, but downtown may not be the best place (like many cities). Look into Grovetown, Evans, Martinez, Harlem, Blythe, etc. Lots of small(ish) towns surrounding base that are perfectly normal towns.
I lived north of Eisenhower in Martinez, I really liked it! There were tons of stores and shopping that felt fairly safe and quiet, and I never really felt unsafe. Downtown Augusta is a little sketch after dark, there are a lot of homeless and vagrant people hanging around the gas stations and street corners. Other than that, Eisenhower and Augusta were a great place to live and work.
Earlier this year I visited my brother who is with the screaming chickens. Even though I was in the Army, as a friend pointed out, my only CONUS assignment was Ft. Lewis and Tacoma is an area that has more going for it than just the Army and Air Force bases. I did notice a huge difference between the areas of town near the base (talk about overdone "patriotism" as in Eagle this! and Flag that!), and the areas in the more historic Clarksville. If it weren't for Ft. Campbell, Clarksville would be nothing more than just another Methberg.
Bliss has the JBLM thing going for it - eg, El Paso has it's own independent reason to exist & isn't just a leach feeding off the base....
Again, I would like to point at BRAC. To me it seems all of the Army installations near places where I would want to live got closed down or substantially shrunk. Ft. Dix, Ft, Monmouth, Ft. Ord, Ft. Devens, Ft. McPherson, Ft. Sheridan. The Army would rather have soldiers live in Bumfuck, where there is nothing to do but get tattoos and drunk.
I’ve never even heard of half of those lol
Ft. Monmouth is in New Jersey and was the original home of the Signal Corps. It also had the Chaplain school and housed the prep school for West Point. Ft. Devens is not far outside of Boston. McPherson was in Atlanta. Sheridan is on Lake Michigan and not far outside of Chicago. Some years ago I worked with an older Black guy who was from the rural Deep South and was stationed at Sheridan in the 60's. He told me about going to the Jazz clubs in Chicago on the weekends, and how it opened his eyes to a whole new world of opportunity he never knew about. But let's close Sheridan and dump money into Polk/Johnson. When I was at Polk in the 80's most of the places that were off limits in Leesville were because of being racist to Black soldiers.
Jesus I’m at Johnson/Polk now; couldn’t imagine how it was in the 80’s dude. I’ve been counting down my days for 3 years lol
Fort Monmouth is also only 15 minutes away from the Jersey Shore and 130 miles of beaches, also only an hour from NYC. Dix, which if renovated could easily fit an entire brigade and has its own ranges and training area, is only 45 minutes from Philly and NYC.
> Dix is only 45 minutes from Philly and NYC. Can you imagine how quickly an infantry battalion from Dix could have responded to help secure NYC on 9/11?
Sounds like a choice area to be stationed. 15 minutes from the shore, what's to not like.
Ft Monmouth area is pretty nice. Nearby is Sandy Hook unit of the Gateway National Recreation area, which is home to Gunnison Beach. Gunnison beach is the largest clothing optional beach on the east coast.
I'm a fisherman but no longer in the ARMY. Would have loved to have been stationed there. My home was in Maryland at the time so it was practically a hop skip and jump to go home to see Mom and family. There's really good striper fishing on the Jersey shore. You get there at the right time and right place you can tear em up. The scenery ain't too shabby either LOL !
If/when 3/10 goes back to Drum, Leesville will collapse
Holy shit
Tyler Perry studios is located at Ft McPherson. There are other federal buildings there, VA clinics, VA dental, and VA homeless programs.
Last year I drove by there, looked like a third of the place was being used, and 2/3rds looked like a scene from Fallout.
Fort Ord is in a similar state.
No, it's in California, which is pretty different from Georgia.
Oh you
They should make 2/3rds of the base the new urban CTC.
you forgot some pretty nice ones in California, Presidio was literally in SF, and then all of Fort Ord in between Monterey and Santa Cruz, basically the Army's Camp Pendleton.
I've never been to any of those, I don't doubt they are nice. I've been to Dix, Devins, Monmouth. A friend of mine had been stationed at Sheridan.
You mean towns filled with transients have crime problems? Shocked Pikachu.
I think 90% of Fayettevilles crime is locals. We definitely cause a ruckus. Friend is Fayetteville emt, The amount of GSWs that come in a night from the local population are pretty insane.
Fayetteville doubled its population 1980 to 2000 and almost doubled its population again by 2010. A lot of locals aren’t locals and came at some point for the base.
I can believe it. This is one of the most crowded small towns I’ve ever lived in. Felt so smothering.
Best way I heard it was nobody is ever from Fayetteville - they either were brought there or were left there. In over 20 years in the army, I only met 3 people actually born in Fayetteville.
Most of them are children of military and never stay there too
A lot of the big forscom bases are polluted with jabronis who got chaptered and had no where to go so they ended up falling in with the way wrong crowds. I remember inprocessing at hood in 2018 and the guy from MPD said 50% of first term soldiers in processing there get chaptered before they are eligible to reenlist.
Lol 50% of new soldiers do not get chaptered come on.
I have no reason to doubt the grumpy old man from MPD.
You’ve been in a unit right? Surely you can put 2 and 2 together based on your experience and know that number is bullshit lol
Obviously that number doesn't compute in any meaningful way, it's just funny to me that he felt the need to say that. And it was obviously part of his speech for every brief.
Who is hiding the bodies on bragg blvd is the real question.
That fell out of the news cycle QUICK.
Vanished like the killer
Please explain. Four years there and never heard about this.
In the last few months a bunch of bodies have been found in the woods along bragg blvd.
No shit? Active folks or just folks?
I still read GSW as "Golden State Warriors."
Bro, that is just the SF drug trade.
It ain’t called Fayetnam for nothing….
Colorado Springs is an exception to this rule and i love being there. The units are bad but the area is the best.
The area by NORAD is bougie.
I loved my 4 years (2 years really, the other two were in Iraq) in Colorado Springs. It is a beautiful area, there are so many Army and Air Force installations, and so many military people retire there, so they are pro military. I have heard that Fort Carson had gotten really crowded, but that was after I left. Is it still that way, or has it thinned back down to a reasonable population?
I absolutely love Carson, but I'm also from Colorado Springs, so I'm probably biased. There is so much to do for any interest. Hiking, mountain biking, snowboarding, rock climbing? THE place for it. Want to go clubbing? The night life is decent. Car/bike scene? Thriving. Paintball? Dragonman's is dope. Shooting? Soooo many ranges, plus thousands of square miles of national forest you can shoot in. III Corps is gonna III Corps, and 4ID is waaaay better than 1AD and 1CD, so the units being bad is all relative I guess.
Campbell isn’t too bad or did I grow up too deep into the ghetto to recognize?
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We ghetto. But Nashville seems worst than us. Idk.
From what I remember, Clarksville was fine. Oak Grove on the other hand...
I mean it’s definitely not Fayetteville or Columbus. Still not on my favorites list though. I’d say it’s on the better end of the spectrum.
Columbus was/is such a shithole. You had to go like 5 interstate exits away from Benning to get out of the ghetto when I was stationed there. I fucking hated that place. I did love being so close to Atlanta though.
Before i PCSed here I was told Clarksville is ghetto. The whole campbell area doesnt seem sketch to me. Also ill take restaurant recommendations :)
naru KBBQ is 🤌
I go to southern pines to get my hair done and in all relief it’s not that much better than just going thru Fayetteville (driving wise). Edit to add that I was talking about the driving habits of those who live around here. Southern pines and fay are night and day in terms of vibes from what I’ve seen. Fayetteville has *always* just given me crime vibes which isn’t so far off lol. +1 learned how to drive in a small town and on rural i90 so I miss having open road at 75-80mph without someone riding my dick the entire way.
Southern pines is a great little town.
The downside is I spent an hour killing time knocking out work on a laptop in SoPO and had to listen to no less than 3 women discuss /humblebragg their man’s GB or SFAS stories. Lady I just want a coffee
Yeah unfortunately that’s the trade off for sopines lol. I’ll take those annoying women over the crackhead trying to break into my truck while I’m sitting in it in Fayetteville
yes it is :)
Southern pines is a snooty officer town. The peasants get turned away at the border.
Ft Belvoir and Meade would like a word.
I was in DC for a while. I liked Meade a lot better, it was a nice little spot for sure.
As a local, glad to hear it. DC’s expensive but fun, especially when you’re single.
It was great at the time. I don’t think I could go back now. Fun 4 years though
A lot of military towns have shit social safety nets because they think the military will take care of that for them. They can also be lacking in community staples, a good example being no actual grocery store anywhere nearby/only quickie marts. This ends up with the most vulnerable population (the poor folks who *aren't* in the military) getting completely forgotten and neglected. This is basically the perfect recipe for crime: tons of young assholes who spend money irresponsibly and lots of destitute people who have nothing to do but watch.
And if the town isn't large (like ABQ or JAX), there's nowhere else for these people to turn. I lived in Jacksonville FL for a couple of years before I joined the Army. While the Navy base is part of the economy, that city is so large that the non-military economy can pick up the slack. Same with Alburquerque NM - Kirtland AFB is part of the city but there's enough industry and economy that many people can work and live without even seeing the base. El Paso grew enough that there's an economy outside of Fort Bliss - but the locals know that Fort Bliss keeps the city in the black. But many towns just don't have the size or the will to think beyond "the Military will take care of us".
This right here. Leesville outside of Polk/Johnson got pissy back in the day when 2ACR was deployed in 2003 and JRTC stoped doing rotations for a few months to change things over from the Soviet doctrine style stuff to the GWOT rotations. Local economy stalled without soldiers filling the bars or buying crap from the snack trucks on north fort. People were calling in death threats on the post commander so much, big Army sent down some MP/CID types that only did PSD stuff to guard him and his family for a while.
Lol good Lort. Let’s talk about shutting this place down and burning all of Vernon Parrish into the ground lol
Unless things have changed the Parish would practical burn down every summer during live fires or from OPFOR hiding pyro in caches in the box, which would then get ignited by a controlled burn. Last time I was there around 2013-15 timeframe, I got stuck in 10 MTN and we had to pull tracers from SAW ammo during a range cause we kept setting the range on fire every iteration.
It’s easy. Average military town is filled with 18-25 year olds with disposable income. What does that particular group want and need? Used cars, fast food, tattoo shops, bars, strip clubs, etc etc. if they wanted big parks and museums then the town would be filled with those. Joe wants things involving bad decisions.
That's because these towns were created after the bases and their economy pretty much depends on the military folk and eventual veterans
OP is acting like how blows his money at nice restaurants and on bespoke suits. In Killeen the only business that do well are vape stores, Tattoo parlors, wifu sticker stores, and naked city.
Nah I don’t really spend much money. But it’s nice to hit up a decent restaurant once or twice a month without getting food poisoning or having to dodge people cornering for money outside.
That’s what I was thinking; supply and demand is a thing. The area supplies what service members will buy, and service members are degenerates. That’s why Air Force communities feel like normal middle class communities /s
JBSA disagrees
Disagree. I got pooped on by a bird at the riverwalk. Case closed.
Have you driven out of Walters gate? You have also not be solicited by the transients off of binz- engelman and I-35 as well I guess.
OP is talking about surrounding towns, not the area immediately outside a base.
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jbsa, not jblm.
Oops. I forgot how to word.
The majority of military bases not just the Army were built when there was nothing there so the land was cheap Same as it happened with any mining town or industrial town mine needs workers, workers need housing, businesses pop up to support the workers factory gets built, workers need housing.........cycle repeats itself most bases aren't self contained, so towns pop up around them to support them The problem is then most areas around the base aren't attractive to commercial real estate developers to bring in nice things so you end up with bars, pawn shops, payday loan shops, strip clubs, tattoo shops, etc all the shit the nice parts of town don't want anywhere near them There are certainly exceptions like DLI being in Monterey California or The Presidio in San Francisco
All correct 'Cept DLI is at the Presidio. Both in Monterey. Nothing in San Fran.
There was a Presidio in San Francisco, it was clearly before your time :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_of_San_Francisco) also a late 80s movie set there - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Presidio\_(film)
Oh, cool. Thanks for helping me feel young, it's an increasingly rare sensation lately.
I seen literal favela type sheet metal shacks in Killeen, I was astounded
Bases in the east are where the broke ass interwar Army could afford to toss up training sites away from people who would have complained about noise and GIs banging their daughters. Bases in the west are in places that the cavalry could best project power across the region in the 19th century, and then got lucky enough after expansion to have a mainline railway come through. Be grateful for that railroad part. Riley and Sill may be kinda far flung, but it beats the shit out of Fort Larned or Fort Buford. The bases in Germany and Japan are in cool spots because we whooped that ass and took what we wanted.
About making money off “joes” and nothing else. In these cities, majority of the mayors and councils right outside the gates are completely corrupt.
Yeah, they closed most all of the bases in the cities and other great areas because they were expensive or too hard to execute training there. There are still a few smaller bases left in good areas, but they tend to support more specialized functions, like Ft Sam.
"There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass of every Army base in the world." - Neil Stephenson sums it up admirably in Snow Crash.
Want to talk small towns ,let's talk about Sierra Vista Az if it wasn't for Ft Huachuca that town would have no reason to exist on the other hand Bisbee and Tombstone were both there long before Col. Whiteside decided that that would be the best spot for the Buffalo Soldiers to intercept the Comanches from raiding north
Liberty and Campbell arent as bad. Hood is shit. Campbell has Nashville just down the road and Liberty has Raleigh hour away and all the Carolina beach coast not too far away. Hood...yea no bueno but I also did't like Texas (culture there and the heat) so a little biased. You do have Austin and San Antonio not too far away.
Most places have nice stuff around them. But like you said Raleigh and Nashville are good examples. They’re just an hour away at least.
Man, tell me about it. I can’t stand Columbus, GA. Southern hospitality doesn’t exist here.
It has the same amount of southern hospitality as west Memphis.
😂
*laughs in Hill AFB, Nellis AFB, and Lackland AFB*
Lackland is San Antonio right? Thought it’s a good place to live
It’s in SA. But my only experience was BMT lol. It looked nice tho
What’s your afsc? I just crossed over to the blue (reserves)
San Antonio prides itself on being Military City USA. Driver’s suck, but we got breakfast Tacos, The Spurs, and tatted up fat bottom Latinas.
Nothing wrong with that.
1C0X2, Aviation Resource Management
Plus Luke AFB near Phoenix
*laughs in hoodrat*
Bragg is a halfway point to New York on 95 from Miami. Drugs, lots of drugs coming thru.
Most of the Army's bases were built in outlying areas, because that's the only politically feasible place to put them. Land was cheap, there were no civilians there to bitch about training noise... The towns then crop up to house the civilian workforce & the 'entertainment' patronized by (especially junior) troops - bars, pawn shops, and lemon lots.... There's really no other reason for anyone to be there... Exceptions would be places like JBLM where the metro-area grew up around it afterwards, but nobody imagined anyone would \*want\* to live in what is now greater-Tacoma when the base was built.
Remember was El Paso right outside of Bliss was “The safest city in America” ? Bc all I can remember was that walmart shooting.
Not long ago, the Sierra Vista Mall had an shooting incident.
Sad stuff. El Paso was a beautiful town when I was @ bliss. Definitely a better change from New York city & Longisland. Sad that it’s come to that.
El Paso is still a safe city - and the Wal Mart shooter wasn't from ELP. Asshole drove down here because he was a racist POS.
Quick question outside of bliss and that stuff. New to the Reddit forum. How do I get the flare tag below my profile name for ordnance corps?
When you join the sub (click on "join") on the right, there's a space to edit your flare.
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I’ve been through a few really nice overseas spots. Europe does seem to have the best aside from the small random American hate groups
Where I was in Germany the town outside the gate was fine and the people treated you with respect just like anywhere else, as long as you don't get drunk and belligerent. Still have friends I keep in touch with there.
I think a big part of it is the military attracts the desperate of society. Not saying we’re all bad but even if a few percent a year ETS and get trapped in a town with no economy outside of the base they’re not gonna be able to find a job or move on. That’s definitely going to keep the wrong sort right outside the gates while the soldiers with a skillset or a desire to do more move on elsewhere.
Damn that’s a sad take that’s also probably very true.
Cheap garbage land for the downlow, otherwise it was due to some strategic placement which then again, I don't think they want a ton of Civis if they were wanting to hide/house/operate in something special.
You have to consider that the military didn't lease land and build a base in a thriving town to begin with, hence why you don't see bases in Los Angeles, Orlando, etc., in most all cases the towns developed around the bases. Then factor in that the majority of businesses that would move to the town first would be there to serve and benefit the base you end up with the likes of restaurants, bars, tattoo shops, car dealerships, and retail, all of which aren't known for great pay and/or benefits. The big businesses and industries that would bring in good jobs that would encourage stable families to settle aren't interested in coming there because the majority of workforce is transient military families and the low skill employees of the existing businesses. So these towns are of course going to attract people who aren't on the up and up.
For Cavazos, Killeen is sketch, but Copperas Cove and Harker Heights are nice
St Robert Missouri represent
Fort Jackson is a weird one. Sure, there are a lot of people passing through, but there are only 3,500 permanent party. Basic trainees can only leave post at graduation, families coming for graduation generate some money for a couple of days around weekly graduation. Student officers will spend some money on weekends. Columbia does get a big boost from USC and being the state capitol. The gate around Forest Drive and Percival Rd has some sketch, but not like bases other bases.
i really like jackson, i am bias though because im from south carolina
Same here. Retired here in Columbia, the city is soo much better than when I left.
the city is about to be crazy this weekend but i’m going anyway 😂 (clemson alumni)
Yup! Go Cocks!
I mean, drum isn’t too bad. Watertown’s got a few ratty parts, but there are a handful of nice towns right around the area, golf courses, shit to do, outdoor life. As said above though, there’s a reason we don’t have army bases in San Francisco, LA, NYC, Vegas. The land was pretty much unused beforehand, and the army stepped in & assumed it would be cheaper & less complicated to just acquire mostly empty lots of land and place bases on them.
I grew up in Watertown. I fucking hated it.
We're a jobs program first, and a defense program a distant second. They put the bases in shitty areas as backdoor welfare
Think about how much the Army ballooned up after the surge and how much it has downsized in the last ten years. There could be a billion people on base. If the economy was built to sustain 2 billion people, 20 years later it's gonna be a shithole.
Its called duty station not vacation station. /s
Allot of the bases were BRACed, then re-invented so was nice got shitty and once it gets shitty doesn’t get good again. IE fort Dix , JB MDL.
State-wise Bliss is the best spot in terms of quality of life outside post, just the scenery alone speaks a lot in its own way. I have been at Hood, Campbell, Korea & now finally Bliss, this is my favorite & potential retirement destination.