The New York Times March 10, 2003
Guam, Hurt by Slump, Hopes for Economic Help From Military
By James Brooke
"Proud to be Americans: Military Personnel Welcomed" beckoned a red, white and blue newspaper advertisement here.
The advertisement, for automobile insurance, was aimed at the 9,200 military personnel based here, but it summed up the open-arms welcome to soldiers and sailors by this longtime garrison island, the westernmost American projection to Asia's edge.
"More military would mean more jobs," Joe Deeso, an unemployed 19-year-old, said as he drove past the chain-link fence of Andersen Air Force Base to Micronesia Mall, a turquoise-colored temple of American consumerism. As Mr. Deeso passed houses and hotels damaged in December in a supertyphoon, an island radio station announced that "GovGuam" was laying off hundreds of government workers, and cutting pay to 4,600 more.
Last December, when all of South Korea seemed to be in the streets protesting the accidental deaths of two teenage girls killed by an American military vehicle, Guam's leaders pointed out that this island, the largest between Hawaii and the Philippines, had plenty of unused military land for building bases.
In January, when Japanese politicians greeted plans for American warplane training with "not in my backyard" arguments, Guam authorities said in effect, Come on down here, just a three-hour flight from Tokyo.
And in February, people in Guam welcomed the news that the Pentagon was going to send 12 B-52 bombers and 12 B-1 bombers here. Most of the bombers have arrived.
"While many communities may shun having the military in their backyards, we on Guam welcome them, embrace them," said Felix P. Camacho, the newly elected governor of this American territory of 150,000 residents.
"Guam can play an increased role in taking up the slack," said Mr. Camacho, a Republican. Fresh from visiting Navy and Air Force commanders here and openly bidding for American military units now based in Japan and South Korea, the governor predicted, "As they downsize in those regions, Guam will benefit."
The island's welcome is an about-face from the resentment a decade ago. Although protests never grew as strong as the movement that helped end in early February the United States Navy's use of a bombing range in Vieques, P.R., the dissatisfaction here was symbolized by a much publicized photograph of an activist who climbed the fence of the naval air station and spat in the face of a sentry.
Emboldened by a rising tide of tourists and hotel construction, protesters called for cutbacks in American troops here and the transfer of land from the military, which controls almost one-third of Guam's 209 square miles. During the military cuts of the mid-1990's, several units left the island.
Today's new appreciation of the military is spurred by a soured love affair with tourism from Japan.
For the Pentagon, Guam's new attitude comes as the Bush administration reviews American troop levels in Northeast Asia.
"From where we were five, six, seven years ago to where we are today, it's almost a 180-degree swap-out with how we view Guam and its strategic importance to the United States," Gen. Richard B. Myers of the Air Force, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington on Feb. 5.
At the hearing, Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, defended the deployment of long-range bombers here as a check against North Korea's nuclear and missile ambitions.
A week later, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Mr. Rumsfeld said that some of the 37,000 American troops in South Korea should leave the peninsula "and be more oriented toward an air hub and a sea hub." On March 6 in Washington, he hinted that some units in Korea might move to "a neighboring area."
To listen to some people here, the air and sea hub would be Guam, where no permission of a foreign power is needed to carry out combat missions from local bases.
For an air hub, Andersen offers two nearly two-mile air strips that send jets screaming off cliffs and over empty ocean where no one complains about noise. Sometimes called "the gas station of the Pacific," Andersen routinely fuels dozens of planes and houses hundreds of crews on short notice.
"Andersen is prepared, poised and ready for any kind of exercise or contingency wartime situation," said Col. Joseph F. Mudd, the local wing commander. The base's past missions include sending hundreds of B-52's on bombing runs over North Vietnam in the early 1970's and processing thousands of Vietnamese boat people after the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975.
For a sea hub, the Navy has a protected deepwater harbor, five sealift ships, large storehouses, access to a newly privatized repair drydock, and the only live-fire bombing range in the Western Pacific, a 200-acre coral island, 150 miles northeast of here. In fall 2002, two Los Angeles class submarines were stationed here, the first nuclear-powered attack submarines to be given home ports outside the continental United States. In 2003, a third submarine is to follow, according to Rear Adm. Patrick W. Dunne, the navy commander here.
Submarine support facilities are part of construction projects totaling the nearly $500 million that the Navy and Air Force are quietly investing this year in bases here.
"Guam has an English-speaking, fast-food and shopping-mall culture familiar to U.S. military personnel," Carl Peterson, then chairman of the Guam Chamber of Commerce, wrote last May in a "white paper" intended to lure more military investment.
At one mall, Guam Premier Outlets, this feeling was echoed in interviews.
"Each new sub brings 60 new families," said Richard Thompson, a car dealership loan officer, near a swirl of shoppers. "We are very military friendly here. Having military folks on Guam is a very positive thing."
When protests against the military did occur on Guam, the island was riding a giddy real estate boom, surfing on growing waves of Japanese tourists. But, while hotel rooms tripled in the 1990's, to about 9,000 today, Japanese arrivals stalled, forcing hotel occupancies down to 55 percent in 2002. Touched by Japan's economic stagnation, tourist arrivals here decreased to about a million in 2002, one-quarter below 2000 figures.
"When tourism was so great, Guam people didn't have to consider the contribution the military was making," said Bartley A. Jackson, director of the Pacific Islands Club, the largest hotel here.
But Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam's nonvoting representative in Congress, said, "Whatever thoughts we had about the military years ago, those attitudes have changed.
"We have learned that we may not able to ride on tourism alone, we need something else," Ms. Bordallo said. "We are very anxiously looking forward to an increase of military activity on Guam."
Attitudes here are music to the ears of American military planners, accustomed to a steady litany of complaints from local officials in Japan and South Korea.
"I just had the Guam Legislature in here yesterday," Colonel Mudd said as cargo planes refueled outside his office window at Andersen. "It is amazing the show of support for the military here in Guam. I have never seen it in 25 years in the military."
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GRAPHIC: Photo: A B-1 bomber arriving at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam last Thursday. Guam is welcoming any additional United States military presence. (Reuters)
Chart/Map: "Not Just the Gulf: Other U.S. Operations"
In addition to the deployment of troops in the Persian Gulf region, U.S. forces are involved in a number of other peacekeeping and counterterrorism operations around the world.
The size of the circles reflects the size of the forces involved in each operation.
DJIBOUTI
A task force of 1,300 provides support for counterterrorism activites in the Horn of Africa region.
YEMEN
U.S. Special Operations forces trained 200 Yemeni soldiers in counterterrorism tactics last year.
COLOMBIA
About 70 soldiers are training Colombian troops to protect an oil pipeline.
PHILIPPINES
Last year, 1,300 troops conducted training exercises with the Philippine military. Plans to send 1,700 more troops fell apart late last month.
AFGHANISTAN
Between 8,000 and 9,000 troops continue to hunt Al Qaeda and train the Afghan Army.
PERSIAN GULF
There are currently 230,000 U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf region in preparation for a possible attack on Iraq.
SOUTH KOREA
There are 37,000 U.S. troops here, some stationed within a few miles of the demilitarized zone.
BOSNIA AND KOSOVO
About 7,000 U.S. troops are part of NATOs peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.
GEORGIA
Approximately 75 marines are training four Georgian battalions in counterterrorism.
(Sources: Military officials, Globalsecurity.org)
Map of Guam highlighting Hagatna: The military controls almost a third of Guam's 209 square miles.
Copyright © 2003, The New York Times Company
