“How we maintain our installations shows how we value our soldiers,” the assistant secretary of the Army for installations and environment told 500 attendees during a Contemporary Military Forum at the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting in Washington, and three major challenges are converging on installations in the next six years.

Speaking Oct. 3, Keith Eastin said that affecting installations are the pending of the outcome of the Base Realignment and Closure process, the global repositioning of forces from Germany and Korea and the creation of modular brigades. The Army “must maintain its focus on facilities that our soldiers call home.”

He estimated that 40,000 soldiers and 20,000 Department of the Army civilians will be affected in the base closure process, 70,000 soldiers in the return from Germany and Korea and adding 30,000 soldiers in building the new modular combat brigades.

“All of these people movements require places where they can move to.”

Keith College, who headed up the Army’s BRAC study, said that the one-time costs of the process will be $13 billion and will have a direct impact on more than 70 active force installations and have “the opportunity to close 387 guard and reserve sites and replace them with 125 readiness centers.” He added “We only scratched the surface” in looking at facilities for the reserve components. He estimated that the recommendations covered about 10 percent of the guard and reserve inventory.

“BRAC gives you the intellectual tools, BRAC gives you the political tools” and the Defense Department is setting aside money to pay for it.

The upfront cost is about three times higher than the previous four rounds, College said, but the savings will be twice as great as the earlier rounds for domestic installations and four times for earlier overseas closures.

Joseph Whitaker, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations and housing, said that among the basic operating principals for this round are: accelerating the movement of units and quickly disposing of property.

To support BRAC, the return of soldiers from Europe and Asia and modularizing the force, he put the price between $30 billion and $40 billion in military construction funds over six years.

Fiscal Year 2006 will be the first year of BRAC, but most actions and money will be visible in the FY 2007 budget to FY 2011.