Business, civic and government leaders are asking Southcentral residents to help them convince the Army it should leave Alaska soldiers out of planned cutbacks.
The Rally For Our Troops is an effort to pack the Dena'ina Center in downtown Anchorage with people Monday evening. The group organizing it hopes that a show of solidarity will convince the four-member Army committee visiting Alaska next week that it should not look to the Last Frontier as it searches for ways to eliminate 40,000 soldier positions by 2017.
The 2011 Budget Control Act and its sequestration requirements mean the Army must cut its force of 490,000 soldiers down to 450,000 by 2017, with the possibility of even more cuts by 2020. To make the cuts, the Army has identified 30 U.S. Army posts that could lose positions, including Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, near Anchorage, and Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks.
In a worst-case scenario, the main units of both posts could be cut, forcing the departure of as many as 10,800 troops and 19,000 dependents within a year and a half. That would amount to a loss of about 4 percent of the state's total population.
"We have to show an outpouring of community support," said Bill Popp, president of the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. and one of the rally's organizers. "It has to be a rally for our troops, a rally for our friends and a rally for our neighbors."
As for the likelihood of actually cutting Alaska's two main brigades -- JBER's 4/25 Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) and Fort Wainwright's 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team -- city officials and rally organizers aren't taking anything for granted.
"Remember, it was about a year or two years ago now they just took about 750 soldiers out of Fort Richardson in force reduction and we didn't think that was going to happen either but it did," said Anchorage Municipal Manager George Vakalis.
Popp said the economic impact of losing the Anchorage-based airborne brigade could top $500 million. If both Anchorage and Fairbanks lose their main Army units, the statewide impact could top $1 billion, he said.
Popp said that among the criteria the Army committee will be considering are the strategic importance of the troops, what kind of return on investment the Alaska-based troops offer the Army, what training facilities are available and even the quality of local schools for service members and their families. But Popp and other rally organizers said that community support for the Army will also be a major factor in the committee's decision on where to cut soldiers, and that is something local residents can help with.
"We need to get people in the most positive frame of mind so that when that delegation walks through the room, they know that Anchorage wants the Army to stay," Popp said.
And the competition is fierce among the 30 Army installations identified for possible cuts. On Feb. 10, more than 2,000 people turned out in Junction City, Kansas, to make their pitch to the Army committee in an effort to save soldier jobs on nearby Fort Riley. But Popp said this won't be a situation of Fairbanks versus Anchorage -- he said both communities are collaborating in their efforts to save Alaska-based troops.
"If the Fairbanks economy suffers, Anchorage suffers," Popp said. "It would mean less tonnage coming through transportation systems -- trucking, warehousing, distribution -- and less goods and services sold. It ripples. There are only 730,000 of us (in Alaska) -- we are all in this together."
The Rally For Our Troops will begin at 5 p.m. on Monday. The listening session for the Army committee is open to the public and will be 6-8 p.m.
A Fairbanks session will be held Tuesday.