ABERDEEN REALTORS, AGENTS, RELOCATING to APG and BRAC SPECIALISTS, HARFORD COUNTY

http://www.baltimoreexaminer.com/opinion/Learn_for_defense_to_make_BRAC_work_in_Maryland.html

Learn for defense to make BRAC work in Maryland

By Baltimore Examiner Newspapers 8/19/08

Thank our Government Accountability Office for a warning shot of reality last week. GAO projects worker shortfalls when 5,100 jobs move to Aberdeen Proving Ground in three years. Maryland must prove, right now, that won’t happen.
APG could be short 2,200 employees when the Fort Monmouth, N.J., jobs move here because surveys there indicate about half the employees say they will retire instead of moving. More than half of current employees will be eligible by then.
The Department of Defense noticed that eight years ago and began trying to prepare. It means Monmouth’s essential, technologically intense national security mission has a big problem no matter where it is.
Opponents of closing Monmouth seize upon this GAO report and distort it -- as they have others.
But everybody must face BRAC facts. Congress and the president created it to eliminate just such parochial, political and special interest meddling in allocation of our precious resources.
Consolidating at APG makes sense for a myriad reasons far outweighing the few against. This latest GAO report is a perfect example.
DOD knew a personnel problem loomed five years before any decision to consolidate at APG. Half these essential employees would be eligible for retirement BRAC or no BRAC. Relocation, at most, is but one small factor.
Our strategic question -- not just in this revealing case but throughout our defense establishment -- is whether we can anywhere in America produce personnel with the brains, fundamental knowledge and learning ability requisite to defense.
Core mission is the same as 50,000 years ago: Bringing effective force to bear over distance. But how we do that now requires more brain than brawn. Surely, the men and women who still must have the strength, courage and will to go kill human beings ultimately remain the cutting edge of our sword. But more and more of the blade backing them is forged from knowledge and intellect.
That modern alloy is weak and growing weaker. One key indicator: According to a report last year, as of 2005 China produced 9,427 engineering Ph.D.s. We graduated 7,333, but 60 percent of those were foreign nationals.
Maryland officials claim our education system can fill any Monmouth transfer shortfall. And they opened an office there to counter disinformation about quality of life in our state so more personnel will move.
But they must act decisively now to ensure from kindergarten through graduate schools we educate the citizens needed to defend us in this vortex of rapidly evolving modern warfare. Then send a message to headquarters in Washington demanding our entire nation fill the breach.
This latest GAO report reveals a bigger problem than a few thousand Fort Monmouth employees refusing to transfer. It is a warning shot through the weakest spot in our 21st Century defense shield.