At JFCOM closing, Mullen says goal achieved

SUFFOLK

America's top-ranking military officer congratulated the U.S. Joint Forces Command on Thursday for successfully working itself out of a job.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presided over a ceremony marking the dissolution of the Norfolk-based command, whose mission was to promote cooperation among the different military branches.

JFCOM achieved its goal, Mullen said: "Through the course of two wars, we have built an incredible joint force.... Our young men and women in theater are now not only fighting and operating, but thinking jointly."

Mullen said JFCOM has "played a leading role in one of the most tumultuous chapters in our military's history. You made us think smarter, plan better, spend wiser and operate sharper across the joint spectrum of military capability."

The crowd outside the Joint and Coalition Warfighting Center in a northern Suffolk office park included several mayors and other local officials who worked to minimize the impact of the shutdown on Hampton Roads' military-dependent economy.

In the end, about half of JFCOM's nearly 4,000 local jobs were saved.

"It would have made us happier if we had been able to save all of it," said Terrie Suit, state secretary of veterans affairs and homeland security, who attended the ceremony on behalf of Gov. Bob McDonnell. "But we were able to mitigate the damage."

The 12-year-old command, which focused on joint training, experimentation and development of new warfighting concepts, was shuttered by the Obama administration as part of a cost-cutting initiative aimed at finding $100 billion in savings across the armed services.

"As tough as this may feel right now, I believe that the event we mark today is indeed in the nation's best interest," Mullen said.

Today, he said, "our greatest security threat is our national debt."

Army Gen. Ray Odierno, JFCOM's last commanding officer, called the closure of the command "a significant milestone."

"We no longer require a separate four-star command to oversee joint warfighting," he said. "We have progressed far enough and inculcated jointness deeply enough to realize efficiencies while simultaneously refining our efforts.

"But we're not walking away from jointness. Rather, we are adapting to a new reality.... Because this environment includes some stark fiscal and budget realities, we'll continually strive to operate more efficiently."

Closing JFCOM will save $450 million a year, Odierno told reporters after the ceremony, but its most important functions will still be carried out under different military commands.

The drawdown of the command should serve as a model for even bigger military budget cuts mandated by the debt compromise hammered out by Congress this week, Odierno said.

Odierno will be on the front lines of that further belt-tightening if he is confirmed as President Barack Obama's nominee for Army chief of staff.

"We were able to take out what we thought was excess or, in some cases, redundant, and keep those essential functions that are needed," he said. "Hopefully that's what we'll do as we continue to move forward with these larger cuts that we're facing. It's important that we take out the right things."

The JFCOM shutdown was the first-ever disestablishment of a U.S. combatant command. Created in 1999, its antecedents go back to the Atlantic Command, established in 1947 to oversee maritime forces in the North Atlantic and Caribbean.

The ceremony included a symbolic "casing of the colors." As a military band - made up of musicians from all five services - played a mournful tune, Odierno rolled up the JFCOM flag for the last time and placed it in a long black bag.

Suit said that about 450 laid-off JFCOM workers, mostly private contractors, have come into a state-operated job-placement office in Suffolk and about half of them have found new employment.

"We're trying to keep a positive face on it," she said.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com