If there’s one sacred cow in this nation’s budget, it’s defense spending. About $719 billion of the $3.8 trillion-dollar U.S. 2011 budget went toward our armed forces.
The same generosity does not apply when it comes to preserving pieces of our past conflicts.
“Due to the challenging economy, donations are down and grants are extremely competitive,” said Lisa Jester, executive director of America’s first defense airfield.
For her, and for others trying to preserve the military heritage, the “perfect world” scenario of operating on private donations and grants just doesn’t exist.
The Blue Angel Blues
It’s a place the famed P-47 Thunderbolt, the World War II warbird affectionately known as the “Jug,” can call home.
But the Millville Army Airfield Museum depends on volunteers, tour bus trips, museum sales and fundraisers in order to function.
The U.S. Navy Blue Angels were scheduled to perform at the field’s “Wheels & Wings Airshow” last May. They canceled last minute due to a “lower-than-normal” maneuver at a performance prior to their Millville date, according to a Navy statement.
“There is a huge risk in hosting jet team air shows,” said Jester, recalling the recent incident. “However, they are somewhat necessary for the museum to survive.”
The show went on, with a price tag of more than $300,000. It raised $78,513 for the museum – far less than the several hundred thousand dollars they hoped for.
At the time, the May cancellation was said to be the museum’s final big air show. Jester said last week the Blue Angels have been invited back for 2013. The museum will know whether they are available by the end of this year.
The Blue Angels later refunded a $12,000 “daily appearance fee” and helped sell items purchased by the museum to accommodate them in May.
Attendance at big air shows in Millville is typically 15 times that of a static display on the landing strips, like the one hosted here on Oct. 15, Jester said.
“Therefore, the revenue is more than 15 times, too,” she added.
The risk involved is apparently necessary to support the museum’s mission.
A rained-out show in 2004 taught museum staff that sponsorships and cooperation with area organizations for both event requirements and financial support are integral.
“The last jet team air show the museum hosted before this year was in 2007. It takes a good 12 to 16 months to plan for such an event,” the director explained.
Saved in Salem
Designated as a key defensive location on the Delaware River, Pennsville’s Fort Mott was constructed more than 100 years ago along with Forts Delaware and DuPont.
New Jersey acquired the site in 1947 and opened it to the public after four years. Sixty years later, tourism remains on the front line.
“It’s a critical tourism site in the county for a number of reasons,” said James Turk of the Salem County Department of Tourism.
The site is important for more than just its military history.
Turk said Fort Mott is a “southern anchor” of the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail, providing an easily accessible public path to the Delaware River.
There’s river access to the fort as well.
The Delaware River and Bay Authority’s Three Forts Ferry, which connects Fort Mott with Fort Delaware and Fort DuPont, was little known until it was promoted through television commercials two summers ago.
Turk said ridership increased following the advertising campaign. More information is available at www.visitsalemcountynj.com.
“Governor Christie and DEP Commissioner Bob Martin have pledged to keep state parks and forests open in the face of extremely tight budgets all across state government,” said Lawrence Hanja, press officer for the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
That wasn’t always the case.
Former Gov. John Corzine proposed closing nine state parks, including Fort Mott, in 2008 to reduce state spending. It would have saved $4.5 million, though the plan was later scrapped with state Sen. Jeff Van Drew and Congressman Frank LoBiondo in opposition at the time.
State parks and forests are experiencing “all-time highs for visitorship,” Hanja said, noting nearly 19 million people during the last fiscal year.
“Much of this increase is driven by the fact that people are looking for more economical things to do closer to home,” he said.
Neglected Nikes
The fate of five South Jersey “Nike” missile sites, tasked with defending Philadelphia and Camden from flights of Soviet bombers, was anything but preservation.
At one time, the local bases were loaded with conventional Nike-Ajax warheads and/or the nuclear-tipped “Hercules” variety.
Both missiles bore the name of the mythical Greek goddess of strength, speed, and victory.
The string of U.S. Army sites – located in Lumberton, Marlton, Erial, Mantua and Woolwich – were shut down by the mid 1970s as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) became the newest model.
“Most of the sites had little further military value once they were closed,” said Don Bender, a Cold War researcher in Livingston. “Some were used as parking areas for National Guard vehicles.”
“Others, transferred to local communities, were adopted as schools or used for township offices and facilities. Some sites were retained by the federal government but essentially abandoned,” he continued.
Paul “Pop” Kraemer bought the launcher area of the former PH-49 Nike Battery from a contractor in 1975. The site, located along Jefferson Road in Mantua Township, Gloucester County, was inactivated during the early 1960s.
The site is now home to American Industrial Maintenance company. Inside the only building there not erected during the Cold War years, Kraemer’s crew was welding steel last week to be used in air pollution controls.
Two of the three underground missile magazines at the Mantua site are still accessible, he said, though one is retaining water and hallways in the others descend into complete darkness.
The control area of the large Mantua installation is now home to the Gloucester County Christian School. Principal Don Netz said all of the base’s original buildings had been put to use over the years.
“In the late 1960s, an association of parents got together to buy 14 acres inside the fenced area from the government,” said Netz.
As Cold War threats grew colder, operational Nike sites nationwide were shuttered in 1974.
Radar and guidance equipment was often sent to U.S. or Allied Forces as the process of decommission unfolded over several months, Bender explained.
Also to be removed, or simply cut, was the inter-area cable that connected the launcher and control areas.
“After the nukes were gone, you could take away the guard dogs and their handlers,” said Bender.
The Namesake
To be berthed at the Camden Waterfront, the Battleship New Jersey went through hell and back – not only World War II, Korea, and Vietnam but the New Jersey state budget.
Much like Fort Mott, the battleship has survived multiple threats following decommission in 1991, and we’re not talking about enemy aircraft.
“I mean it when I say that we would need to shut down if the [state] funding stopped,” Jim Schuck, CEO and president of the Battleship New Jersey Memorial and Museum, told the Newark Star-Ledger earlier this year.
It remains unclear what financial straits the ship is currently sailing.
Schuck, who arrived onboard in 2005 as chief financial officer, could not be reached for an update by deadline.
Jack Willard, vice president of marketing and sales, referred comment concerning financial matters to Schuck.
The on-board museum opened a decade ago and had been receiving $3 million a year in 2004 and 2005.
In 2007, $200,000 was cut from a budget already shrunk to $1.3 million.
A proposed cut of $150,000 in 2009 was made under former Gov. Jon Corzine.
Gov. Chris Christie’s 2010 budget proposed slashing the ship’s $1.74 million grant, though it was later restored.
That figure is approximately 40 percent of the museum’s budget and is about half of what it received from the state just three years ago.
The battleship staff has jettisoned their excess to stay afloat. Only five salaried employees and three full-time maintenance workers staffed the ship as of January 2011.
There were 58 full-time employees in 2006.
Schuck said hundreds of volunteers now log thousands of man-hours onboard.
“When I first came here, I remember getting our ‘80 percent’ check from the state, and a good part of it going to a bill that was two or three years old,” Shuck would later say.
“So over the past five years, we’ve reduced a lot of debt and we’re running it like a business,” he added.
But business aside, “It’s all about the ship,” Schuck said.
“When you see a veteran come to the ship and they come across that bow with tears in their eyes, that’s when you know it’s here for the right reasons and we’re doing this for something.” Keeping the Heritage Alive
About three weeks ago, Pitman resident Jim Foley pulled into the Wawa there driving a pick-up truck with an image of the USS New Jersey airbrushed on the tailgate.
It was his father-in-law Jim Zubert’s truck, he said. He had her painted on.
Zubert had been a gun captain on the Big J’s 16-inch cannons during World War II, serving on the ship from 1943 to 1946.
“They could launch a Volkswagen from here to Camden,” he said.
As for the older man’s feelings for his former ship, “That was his pride and joy,” said Foley.
No comments:
Post a Comment