Tucked inside the cramped quarters that hold the gizmos that point and shoot the USS Shoup’s 5-inch gun, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Werner Mammen and Petty Officer 2nd Class Terrance Wright busily prepare for an inspection.
The two gunner’s mates — their talk a jumble of jargon and military acronyms that would leave a nonsailor stymied — get ready to undergo their chief’s scrutiny. But they take a quick break to talk in plain English about the Navy’s most modern base and the place the Shoup calls home when it’s not at sea.
"I’ve been on a lot of different bases. It’s one of the nicer facilities," Mammen said. "Being that it’s a small naval base … it’s like a small town instead of a big city."
The chorus of those singing the praises of Naval Station Everett will grow today. Navy officials from the Pentagon, Gov. Gary Locke and local leaders will honor the base’s 10th anniversary during an invitation-only luncheon at the Everett Events Center.
Although talk of a new Navy facility in Puget Sound started in the early 1980s, it was another decade before operations began at the base and dignitaries gathered for its dedication. The effort to land a Navy base took years of work by its biggest supporters, former Everett Mayor Bill Moore and the late U.S. Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson.
"Everett just did a superb job of going to the Navy and saying, ‘This is a good place,’" recalled Paul Roberts, a senior policy adviser for Snohomish County who was the state’s coordinator of the Everett Navy home-port project for former Gov. Booth Gardner.
While work continues on a daily basis to keep Everett’s five warships ready for deployment, local leaders also continue their struggle to save Naval Station Everett from potential closure.
The base — and military installations throughout the country — will be considered for possible closure when the Department of Defense starts the next round of base shutdowns in 2005.
Naval Station Everett escaped earlier attempts to shutter the facility, but local leaders aren’t taking anything for granted. They’ve already mobilized for the fight to keep the station intact.
Roberts recalled how the base survived two closure scares even before it even opened in 1994. Everett’s name also came up in base closure talks in 1991 and 1993.
When talk turned to closing a West Coast Navy facility in 1993, the focus widened to include not only Alameda Naval Air Station in California but the new home port in Everett.
"Everett wasn’t even on the list originally, but got pulled into it," Roberts said. "The base hadn’t opened yet, and so there was this big struggle between Everett and Alameda."
Roberts and others involved in the fight to keep Naval Station Everett open say they will stress its military value and other assets in their push to keep the base.
Locally, the stakes are high.
Naval Station Everett is the county’s second-largest employer after the Boeing Co. It has an annual payroll of $185 million, and the Navy spends approximately $10 million a year on construction and service contracts. The facility employs more than 650 civilians and more than 5,650 people in uniform.
Everett has plenty of company on the might-go list.
"Everybody’s name is coming up. The Department of Defense has been very clear that every base will be scrutinized for its military value," said U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
From a military standpoint, Everett has great access to training areas in the open sea as well as areas near shore.
"The base itself is the most modern and the most environmentally efficient base that the Navy has," Larsen said.
Larsen has pressed the Pentagon to look beyond military value when deciding which facilities to close. Keeping quality places where sailors want to serve can help the Navy retain sailors at a time when they and their families are facing longer deployments, he said.
Naval Station Everett has lived up to its nickname "the sailors choice," Larsen noted. "The region continues to provide a good quality of life for sailors and their families."
Capt. Dan Squires, commanding officer of Naval Station Everett, said the community’s support for Naval Station Everett has been impressive.
He noted the huge homecoming for the USS Abraham Lincoln last year when thousands packed the piers on Port Gardner Bay to watch the aircraft carrier come home from the war in Iraq. Hundreds later lined the streets for a parade for Everett’s sailors.
That’s a big contrast to other places where he has been stationed, Squires said. He remembered one duty assignment where his wife was reluctant to tell people what her husband did for a living.
On the inside, Naval Station Everett is different, too.
"It looks so new and modern. It looks like a college campus," Squires said.
Sailors’ opinions of the base may continue to improve in the years ahead. Proposed projects include building barracks with beds for 1,200 sailors, perhaps as soon as 2006. Junior sailors who usually live onboard ships would have more room in the barracks for personal gear such as skateboards or skiing equipment, Squires said.
If future funding is approved, a regional training facility also would be built at Naval Station Everett.
"It’s on the plan to be built in a few years so our sailors here won’t have to travel to San Diego," Squires said.
He also envisions other sailors throughout Puget Sound using the new training facility, staying for a week at the new barracks and using the base’s gym and dining facilities.
For many sailors, today will be another workday despite the birthday bash. Mammen and Wright, the gunner’s mates from the Shoup, said they have other duties.
Mammen will be helping train fellow sailors at a gun range. Wright will be at the Navy’s Jim Creek facility outside Arlington, helping prepare for a picnic and camping trip for the Shoup’s crew.
Still, there should be no shortage of success stories at the anniversary luncheon, all with Naval Station Everett at their center.
"It’s exceeded our expectations," Roberts said.
Not only has it helped the economy, it’s brought other positives, he said, such as the people from Navy families who have become part of the community through such things as volunteering in local schools.
"This is wonderful marriage. And, like all wonderful marriages, it is because both parties are working real hard at it," Roberts said.
Reporter Brian Kelly: 425-339-3422 or kelly@heraldnet.com.
MICHAEL V. MARTINA / The Herald
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