[extropy-chat] base housing

[spike]

> Joseph wrote:

> ...I was frequently put up in a hotel
> that had been built just outside the base, at the Air Force's expense,
> of course... So, yeah, I'll tell the USAF it's wrong...

Another military anecdote Joseph, since you started it.

The navy base at China Lake was a bit of an exception to the
usual situation, since it was out in the middle of nowhere,
so there was never sufficient housing for the civilians
that supported the operations, i.e. the restaurants, the
stores, the professional services in town.  So in that
case they allowed civilians to live on the base itself,
even if no family members actually were in the military
or were government employees.  This made for a curious
security situation, where civilians living on base were
issued passes to get to their own homes.

At the end of the US involvement in the Vietnam war, the
Navy began manning down to peacetime personnel levels,
which left large numbers of military housing vacant.
A couple years later at the fall of Saigon, there were
enormous numbers of legitimate political refugees;
Uncle Sam had to figure out how to accommodate them.

The base captain anticipated the intractable security
nightmare that could be created by having perhaps hundreds
of Vietnamese families living on a US military base.  With
little or no English skills and lacking the proper military 
socialization (every military guy knows *exactly* what I
am talking about here) it just wouldn't work.  He issued
orders.  The vacant housing was physically ripped out of the
ground, scooped onto trucks and hauled out into the desert 
off base, south and east of Ridgecrest.  

According to local legend, the director of Housing and Urban 
Development called the captain a few days after the last unit 
was removed:

HUD head:  "Captain, I understand that China Lake NWC has 
several hundred vacant housing units."

Captain: "No sir, that is not correct.  As of last week
we had 100% occupancy."

As it turns out, I was down there just this past weekend
on a motorcycle trip to Death Valley.  Some of those 
houses are still out there where they were placed over
30 years ago.  Things decay slowly in that environment.

As an aside, perhaps you have heard that Death Valley is
experiencing a century bloom.  A few weeks ago they had
nine straight days of rain, which resulted in the normally
dead brown desert to look like a new lawn.  I have been out
there scores of times, but have never seen anything close
to this.  China Lake old timers say they have never seen
anything like it either.

http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/ca.html

spike