Fort Jackson means millions for local businesses
The Dey family of Wisconsin never had taken a family vacation. A farm family, they work seven days a week and rarely leave their home in New London.
But on Tuesday, five family members boarded a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and flew to Columbia to watch Kaitlyn Dey — their daughter, sister and niece — graduate from basic training at Fort Jackson.
They rented a car, booked a jacuzzi suite at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites on Garners Ferry Road, noshed regularly at the nearby Shoney’s and bought some souvenirs. In addition to airfare — at $535 a ticket — they estimate they’ll spend about $2,500 on the trip, most of it in Columbia.
“It’s definitely well worth the trip,” father Richard Dey said. “We are so proud of her.”
The Deys join thousands of family members that throng to Fort Jackson’s Hilton Field every week of the year, except two. That adds up to an estimated 200,000 people a year who come here from across the nation for three or four days and spend that time eating, drinking, celebrating and visiting Columbia’s sites.
Another 50,000 a year come for graduations from the fort’s various other schools, be they chaplains, truck mechanics, drill sergeants or even polygraph analysts.
Together, those 250,000 annual visitors pump an estimated $45 million a year in direct spending into the Midlands economy. That’s a big chunk of the fort’s estimated $2 billion a year in overall economic impact, when you consider payroll for the fort’s 7,000 employees, supplies, contractors and other cash flow.
But the planned reductions in the Army because of the drawdown in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and insistence by Congress that all services drastically trim their budgets could put a dent in those numbers.
The Army already has asked Fort Jackson and 29 other installations across the country to prepare reports on how deep cuts would affect their communities. As a worst-case scenario — a scenario that most community and military leaders say is unlikely to happen — Fort Jackson officials are gauging the impact of the post losing nearly half of its employees, or 3,100 workers.
To make their case to the Army on the importance of Fort Jackson to the Columbia area, the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce collected 13,000 signatures on a petition that they submitted to the Pentagon. Another 4,000 groups, companies and individuals logged their support directly to Army brass.
That was the biggest show of support of any of the 30 potentially affected bases, said retired Maj. Gen. George Goldsmith, chairman of the chamber’s military affairs committee.
In addition to the community responses submitted in writing, Army leaders will come to Columbia for a public hearing in March to get direct input.
“We have to show the people in the Army why we are the most military friendly community in the country,” he said.
Military downsizing would hurt
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel earlier this year announced the Obama administration wants to reduce the size of the Army to 440,000 or 450,000 soldiers. That’s down from a war-time high of 570,000.
Those drawdowns are less than the sequester cuts that are the result of the debt-ceiling standoff three years ago that was driven by House Republicans. The sequester would lower the size of the Army to 420,000, if it isn’t repealed before 2019.
A smaller Army likely will mean fewer recruits trained at Fort Jackson, the nation’s largest training base, which churns out about 45,000 to 47,000 new soldiers annually.
That would be bad news for Steven Shova, general manager of the Golden Corral buffet and grill on Forest Drive, just a few hundred yards from the fort’s main gate.
The restaurant begins filling up on Tuesday nights when graduation families start pouring into town. On Thursdays, the only day that families can take their new soldiers off post, the place is jammed.
For instance, last week, 13 family members of Pvt. Daniel Kernan, gathered to celebrate. His parents drove from Pittsburgh, his drill sergeant brother James Kernan flew in from Fort Sill, Okla., and other family members made the trip from Monroe, N.C.
“Today, he can eat anything he wants to,” father David Kernan said. “It doesn’t matter as long as the graduate is full and happy.”
And chow down he did, taking advantage of the first meal outside of an Army dining hall — where recruits often only have a few rushed minutes to eat — in 10 weeks.
“I feel like I’m going to get yelled at,” he said, after multiple trips to the buffet.
Shova estimates the military makes up 30 percent of his overall business. The Army downsizing “is going to affect all the businesses around here.”
Joey Bowman, who has worked at the restaurant for 14 years, was more succinct.
“If they close that base down, we’re done,” he said.
Many economic sectors would be affected
No one is suggesting that the nation’s largest training base is going to close anytime soon. But expect changes, officials have said.
Another round of military base realignment and closure, called BRAC, could come as soon as 2017. Already it has affected Fort Jackson.
The Army’s Recruiting and Retention School and its 92 employees will move in October from Fort Jackson to Fort Knox , Ky.
When the Army moved its armor school, which works with tanks, from Fort Knox to Fort Benning as a result of the 2005 BRAC, it left plenty of housing and classrooms adjacent to the service’s recruiting and retention command. The relocation of the school to the home of its parent command will save the Army $14 million annually with a projected savings of $138 million over a 10-year period.
Much of that is in the form of per diem paid to approximately 96 soldiers who stay in Columbia hotels for two weeks while they are in training and eat in Columbia restaurants.
“That’s 96 rooms that (hotels in the area) will be losing,” said Holiday Inn Express general manager Bianca Virk.
Virk has worked in hotels around Fort Jackson for 12 years, seeing the number of hotels rise to 10 from four. She said the basic training graduations guarantee up to four nights of sellouts a week, every week. And it affects hotels outside of the Fort Jackson area as well, as business travelers, construction workers and others have to go elsewhere to find rooms.
“It goes all the way to Lexington,” she said.
Carl Blackstone, CEO of the chamber, noted that hotels and restaurants aren’t the only businesses that would be affected by reductions.
“Hospitality is affected, of course,” he said. “But there are other significant impacts: Bottlers and distributors that put food in the convenience stores or take drinks to the drink machines on base. Cab companies. There are a lot of other sectors that depend on the fort.”
Could fort pick up training from other bases?
But there is also opportunity in BRAC, officials say.
Fort Jackson today trains 54 percent of the Army’s soldiers – about 47,000 a year. That is more than the Army’s three other training bases – Fort Benning, Ga., Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and Fort Sill, Okla. – combined.
Fort Jackson’s commander, Maj. Gen. Bradley Becker, recently told members of the S.C. Military Base Task Force that he doubted that the cuts would be as deep as 3,100.
“Our ability to conduct basic combat training would be almost eliminated” by a cut that deep, he told the group, which is made of representatives from the state’s four main military communities – Columbia, Sumter, Charleston and Beaufort.
He added that with enough public support and political pressure, Fort Jackson could, perhaps, pick up basic training missions now at Benning, Sill or Leonard Wood.
Fort Jackson houses nine battalions of soldiers in training, Becker said, and could increase that capacity. A battalion has up to 1,200 soldiers.
Becker, recently appointed to two-star general, also has taken a lead role in the preparations for BRAC.
“He and (his wife) Sherri are huge advocates on not just protecting Fort Jackson, but increasing its missions,” Blackstone said.
More missions would be great news for hotel manager Virk.
“What happens at Fort Jackson makes or breaks us,” she said.
This story was originally published September 6, 2014 at 5:24 PM.