Worst (US) Military Bases

[11bee]

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/the-us-military-towns-you-definitely-dont-want-to-be-stationed-in-ranked

I can vouch for Ft. Drum being an armpit. Heard nothing but bad things about Ft. Polk from guys that had the misfortune of being stationed / deployed there. I believe some ex-USAF ARC'rs also posted some derogatory things about Cannon AFB.

[ALF18]

Interesting list. I found it ironic that number 2 on the list, Minot, is actually warmer than the Canadian air bases I lived in for many very, very, very, long years. Fort Drum as well.

There is one universal truth: when in the military, you have no choice of where you live. If the place doesn't suck, that's a bonus. I, for one, am sick and tired of living in places where "it's what you make of it." I long for the day when I live in a place that I don't have to make an effort to like it!

Hats off to those who have no choice but to suck it up and endure.

ALF

[fulcrum1]

I'd pick a good organization with the worst installation over a great post with a bad command. If you are married the more secluded the location the greater the reliance is on community which is the forcing function with families to be social making some of the "worst" bases the best.

[Collin]

Agree with Fulcrum. Been in Bragg and some other complete SH*THO%LES around the world with some "folks".... it's the people and mission that make a place bearable.

I remember in 1993 flying a cross country and on final approach into Cannon AFB (still had F-111's on the ramp)...I turned to my pilots and asked "who the hell would want to live here". I know some folks out there now...things haven't changed in 22 years.

ATIS

[Check Six]

https://www.thrillis...ioned-in-ranked

I can vouch for Ft. Drum being an armpit. Heard nothing but bad things about Ft. Polk from guys that had the misfortune of being stationed / deployed there. I believe some ex-USAF ARC'rs also posted some derogatory things about Cannon AFB.

You sure are consistent, I've give you that.......

[Scott R Wilson]

Agree with Fulcrum. Been in Bragg and some other complete SH*THO%LES around the world with some "folks".... it's the people and mission that make a place bearable.

I remember in 1993 flying a cross country and on final approach into Cannon AFB (still had F-111's on the ramp)...I turned to my pilots and asked "who the hell would want to live here". I know some folks out there now...things haven't changed in 22 years.

ATIS

I agree, I started out at George AFB, Victorville, California. The place was dirt, rocks and tumbleweeds. I occasionally got nosebleeds from the dry air. The lack of greenery was depressing, but the command staff motto was "make George a better place to live and work." It made the assignment bearable (and for an airplane nut like me, having Edwards AFB, Nellis AFB, Palmdale and Mojave airports within easy driving distance made it even better).

Then I was assigned to Ramstein AB, West Germany. There we had higher level enlisted and officers who seemed to be vying for the attention of USAFE Headquarters there on the base. The sortie numbers and Mission Capable rates were all important and we were constantly pushed to cut corners and sign off writeups that weren't really fixed just to get the unit statistics up to an "acceptable" level. We were often put on 12 hour shifts when there were too many jets not fully mission capable, nevermind that we had no spare parts to fix them. Morale was in the dumps, and our NCOIC, Chief Master Sergeant Cales, once told us directly, "We don't care about morale. All we care about is flying these jets." It was a miserable place to work.

Yet Ramstein was a fantastic assignment in every other way. Being able to tour Europe for not a lot of money, the local scenery, the history, and so forth were just wonderful.

My last assignment, McChord AFB, Washington, was the best of both. Morale was high, the local area was beautiful with an amazing array of things to do while off duty. The five years I spent there were great.

I was lucky in that I never had a completely awful assignment.

[Jinxter13]

I've had a tour of some good bases and some that were thought to be on a list with a Charlie Brown "AAGGHHH!!! after the name, but I also remember an old adage used by many folks who endured reassignments long before me, and that is there's no base like the one where you were before the current one, I never got to Thule AB, Greenland; scuttlebutt had that as the people assigned there had really ticked off someone with enough pull to get them sent there, meaning it was no picnic, I've done time on Holloman, George, and found tons of stuff to do while off duty, Holloman however compared to Cannon was a paradise..I've seen Cannon, and the best thing it had going for it was the aircraft...(for aviation enthusiasts only). Before it closed Amarillo, AFB though it one no one wanted it was the stuff of reassignment nightmares...it was so flat (no hills or trees)......how flat was it? :D it was said going AWOL was not an option as the SP's could stand on top of a vehicle and see you for 3 days. An older relative did training at Ft. Polk and discussed the denizens that inhabited the place and seems fighting off mosquitoes was part of the daily regimen along with snake watching, when he left he thought he went to paradise; Ft. Bragg; another friend of mine was on Ft. Irwin, on occasion he said he went back to civilization...Barstow, CA . I'm a believer in what was said earlier, any military base is what you make it, some GI's wouldn't complain about being assigned to the 5 sided puzzle palace.

[nspreitler]

I've had a tour of some good bases and some that were thought to be on a list with a Charlie Brown "AAGGHHH!!! after the name, but I also remember an old adage used by many folks who endured reassignments long before me, and that is there's no base like the one where you were before the current one, I never got to Thule AB, Greenland; scuttlebutt had that as the people assigned there had really ticked off someone with enough pull to get them sent there, meaning it was no picnic, I've done time on Holloman, George, and found tons of stuff to do while off duty, Holloman however compared to Cannon was a paradise..I've seen Cannon, and the best thing it had going for it was the aircraft...(for aviation enthusiasts only). Before it closed Amarillo, AFB though it one no one wanted it was the stuff of reassignment nightmares...it was so flat (no hills or trees)......how flat was it? :D/> it was said going AWOL was not an option as the SP's could stand on top of a vehicle and see you for 3 days. An older relative did training at Ft. Polk and discussed the denizens that inhabited the place and seems fighting off mosquitoes was part of the daily regimen along with snake watching, when he left he thought he went to paradise; Ft. Bragg; another friend of mine was on Ft. Irwin, on occasion he said he went back to civilization...Barstow, CA :woot.gif:/> . I'm a believer in what was said earlier, any military base is what you make it, some GI's wouldn't complain about being assigned to the 5 sided puzzle palace.

I was stationed at Thule AB, I actually volunteered to go there. It is remote, the sun doesn't shine for three months, the wind and cold are horrible. But it was one of my best assignments. Only about 600 people on the base, of which about 200 were military. Extremely close knit units, morale was good, the job was pretty interesting, so despite being in possibly the worst geographical locations in the world it can be a great assignment.

Now I am at Fort Bragg, and personally I love it.

[ikar]

I've had three northern bases:

Ellsworth , 6 months total but only spent four there because I was sent back to Lackland for combat school when I got my orders for Danang. I actually had some people waning to take my assignment so they could get out of there. It had a bit of snow, but temperatures to 50 below.

Then there was Loring in very northern Maine. Much or the base had tunnels connecting the buildings and the ammo dump was underground. Once again 50 below, but more snow than I've ever seen before. Also called Boring Loring. It was so far north it would take weveral hours to drive there once you hit Maine's southern border. The only thing between you and Canada was the great metropolitan city of Limestone, then population listed in the hundreds.

Then there was Minot. The nearest town was the city of Minot some 15 miles away. To help out someone put in a trailer park just outside the perimeter fence, then a metal building with a recreation center of sorts to help out. The mistake came when they added a post office to the rec building. This automatically made it a town and for anyone on base making a call to the city was charged long distance because they were calling past the nearest town.

Up there the wind constantly blew at least 25-35 MPH and could go as high as 80. I watched one of our pilots going to his fighter carrying his bag and wearing his chute. He leaned into the wind and kept going in a straight line. I had my outside door ripped out of my hand one day and it broke off the wall, They had a saying, N.D. has five seasons: winter, winter, summer, winter, winter. Ice crystals drift through the air and blot out the sun , sometimes forming "Sundogs"

The S.A.C. guys would go out with two teams if they had to work on the tail sections of their aircraft or the ones completely exposed. One for maint. work and the other to watch for frostbite.

All operations would shut down at 98 below. If you were home fine, if at work, you went nowhere until it was safe. SOmetimes the only running vehicle was a snowcat and those engine block heaters were useless.

[11bee]

You sure are consistent, I've give you that.......

Err... ok buddy.

Have no idea what you are talking about but regardless, between this and your other recent posts, you sound a bit out of sorts.

Hope things work out for you.

[11bee]

Then there was Loring in very northern Maine. Much or the base had tunnels connecting the buildings and the ammo dump was underground. Once again 50 below, but more snow than I've ever seen before. Also called Boring Loring. It was so far north it would take weveral hours to drive there once you hit Maine's southern border. The only thing between you and Canada was the great metropolitan city of Limestone, then population listed in the hundreds.

I was up at Loring doing some closure work a few years ago. Massive base in the middle of nowhere. Most of it, including the weapons storage area was still completely intact when I was there. Pretty spooky at night. I heard mention of a lot of tunnels and underground bunkers, never got a chance to go exploring.

Supposedly the AF had just sunk a ton of money into infrastructure upgrades and then decided to close it. Really killed the local economy, primarily the city (town?) of Limestone since, aside from growing taters, there isn't much of anything for work within a hundred miles or so.

It's nice country tho.. If you are into hunting or winter sports, I imagine it would be a pretty decent posting.

[Grey Ghost 531]

MCAS El Toro was actually a pretty crappy base: poor chow hall, crummy barracks, horrible E-club until the new one opened in '79 ( I think they sprung for a half-decent club because the rules were you could drink on base at 18 while in town it was 21) Gym was crappy, too. But...no one cared. It was in the middle of Orange County, CA and no one stayed on base unless they had to. Newport Beach and Huntington Beach were less than 20 miles away.

[ikar]

When I left in 77 there was a foundation to the left side of the road only a couple hundred feet from the above ground storage area. Just before I left to go back to Littlerock I drove over to it and walked down the steps that were still open. There was a series of tunnels going off in all directions with signs painted on the entrances to show the destinations. Most of the tunnels were pretty flooded by that time. In the center was a post office that had all its brass doors on the compartments and there was even a couple pieces of mail that could be seen through the glass.

The tunnels were off limits and you were not supposed to be using them although our squadron had a couple rooms close to the barracks that were called frustration releasing chambers. If you cleared it with the day room or whoever was acting as a building guard(?) you could sign out a room, and go yell, or smash things that you took down there until you calmed down. You did have to sign back out and take any broken items with you. One day someone went into a nearby room and decided to see how far the tunnels went. He found a old wallet that had been down there for several years. I got a chance to look at it while the room custodian called the L.E. desk to report the finding and its reported location. To our surprise we got a call back from the O.S.I. with orders that no one was to look in the wallet and they were on their way to pick it up. At that point I decided to put it down and be somewhere else when they showed up. Never did get the story on what was going on.

Loring was much bigger than what you probably saw. I had heard that it had been cut back a few thousand acres and found some old defensive gun emplacements and a few very sturdy doors out in the middle if nowhere on former base property. They were just concrete blocks maybe 7 feet high and 5-6 feet wide with a imposing steel door that had been secured to the point that somebody coming across one would not be able to open the door. Not far from the base was a satellite tracking facility we had to guard Very interesting to see when we had to go inside.

On the way there we would pass an abandoned Bomarc Missile battery. You could park right outside the gate and walk through the smashed barrier and walk around. The few buildings above ground had been stripped and some of the missile bay doors were wide open with a couple launch racks partly extended and a couple still closed.

I was going to go down into the complex but stopped a few steps down when I noticed that it was almost completely filled with crystal clear water. I didn't notice at first because I was looking at the furniture and picture frames at the bottom. The only other time I saw such clear water was in the woods on base during a combat training session. We came to a stream and the instructor pointed out a log under the surface and told us it was several feet deep. To prove it he dropped a stone and we watched it settle all the way down. From several to many feet deep.

We had a beaver dam near base H.Q. and Moose would sometimes walk down the sidewalks. I even saw one chase a BUFF one day.

What a place

[Kevan Vogler]

Then there was Minot. The nearest town was the city of Minot some 15 miles away. To help out someone put in a trailer park just outside the perimeter fence, then a metal building with a recreation center of sorts to help out. The mistake came when they added a post office to the rec building. This automatically made it a town and for anyone on base making a call to the city was charged long distance because they were calling past the nearest town.

Up there the wind constantly blew at least 25-35 MPH and could go as high as 80. I watched one of our pilots going to his fighter carrying his bag and wearing his chute. He leaned into the wind and kept going in a straight line. I had my outside door ripped out of my hand one day and it broke off the wall, They had a saying, N.D. has five seasons: winter, winter, summer, winter, winter. Ice crystals drift through the air and blot out the sun , sometimes forming "Sundogs"

The S.A.C. guys would go out with two teams if they had to work on the tail sections of their aircraft or the ones completely exposed. One for maint. work and the other to watch for frostbite.

All operations would shut down at 98 below. If you were home fine, if at work, you went nowhere until it was safe. SOmetimes the only running vehicle was a snowcat and those engine block heaters were useless.

That reminds me of something I once heard said; that for all of Minot's shortcomings and the weather, people would take a transfer there to get out of Seymour Johnson AFB.

From all I can find online, Seymour Johnson and the adjoining town of Goldsboro are about as dull as can be.

[ikar]

Never been there, but the town of Jcksonville, right outside of Littlerock was a dry town which some people complained about.

One good thing about Minot was that the Squadron I was in, the 5th F.I.S. had good people that got along together.

[82Whitey51]

I can vouch for FT Bragg/Pope AFB..."FayetteNam". Operated out of there for a couple of days (Navy TACAMO crew) and the entire area around sucked. Outside of Norfolk VA I've never seen a more typical "military town"; "We Finace E-1 and Up!!", "Pay Day Loans!", "Donate Blood for $$$!!"...and the Army wives hitting on you at every bar. Good times.

Out of that list...I'm sure I could deal with life at Minot or Loring.

[boom175]

As others has said about Fayetteville, I spent 6 months there on a 1 month TDY! However I did meet some nice guys from a IPMS club about a hour away from the base. Ft. Drum is fine for 1 week at a time used to go upthere every year since 1990, for live weapons training. Ft.Hood was no fun either.

[TaiidanTomcat]

I'd pick a good organization with the worst installation over a great post with a bad command. If you are married the more secluded the location the greater the reliance is on community which is the forcing function with families to be social making some of the "worst" bases the best.

This^^

Attitude has a lot to do with.

29 Palms is notoriously awful, but I had a Marine stationed there point out it was strategically located to be near LA, Las Vegas, and Lake Havasu and he loved it for that reason. Its also relatively out of the way, so inspections and their attendant dogs and ponies were less frequent. More shooting guns and having fun. The East for the USMC is a lot more rigid traditionally, closer to HQMC, 2 boot camps there with PI and Quantico, HQMC, and the basic school is there. far more officers and oversight. Ive heard from many the West Coast is where you want to be.

Okinawa is horrific by all reports, Iwakuni is supposed to be a hidden jewel.

[Scott R Wilson]

, Iwakuni is supposed to be a hidden jewel.

I was TDY to Iwakuni for two weeks back in 1990. I agree, the base was well-kept, and the location just a few miles from Hiroshima was excellent. I would have enjoyed being stationed there permanently.

[TaiidanTomcat]

I was TDY to Iwakuni for two weeks back in 1990. I agree, the base was well-kept, and the location just a few miles from Hiroshima was excellent. I would have enjoyed being stationed there permanently.

My uncle was saying that a Marine Colonel that was about to retire basically said "before I leave I'm going to create the nicest base any Marine has ever seen," and basically "spoiled" everyone by doing things that would have killed his career otherwise, but since he was leaving and wanted to leave something nice, it has great facilities that aren't found in most Marine bases now and were unheard of at the time

I just never knew anyone that could confirm it, and all my friends with VMFA-121 which is going to be stationed there in a couple years already got orders to stand up VMA-211, so I wouldn't be able to ask.

Thanks for the input

[nspreitler]

I can vouch for FT Bragg/Pope AFB..."FayetteNam". Operated out of there for a couple of days (Navy TACAMO crew) and the entire area around sucked. Outside of Norfolk VA I've never seen a more typical "military town"; "We Finace E-1 and Up!!", "Pay Day Loans!", "Donate Blood for $$$!!"...and the Army wives hitting on you at every bar. Good times.

Out of that list...I'm sure I could deal with life at Minot or Loring.

While Fayetteville is certainly a military town, it has improved a lot. I was here TDY in the mid 90s and now I've been stationed here since 2011. The downtown area has been really cleaned up, there are a lot of nice subdivisions, and the post has a lot to offer. I did 11 years in the Air Force and you often hear about quality of life and facilities. While it is true AF facilities tend to be nice, AF bases also tend to be very small so there aren't many of them. Every Air Force base I was on had a nice gym, chow hall, etc, but only one of them. Army posts, especially large ones like Bragg have facilities that may not be as nice but there are a lot more of them. Bragg has two large PXs and two commissaries. There are a dozen gyms, several of which are really good, there a multiple swimming pools.

With more stores being built north of the post I rarely go into Fayetteville, plus Raleigh/Durham is only about an hour away. It is just two to three hours to the beach, and about the same to get into the mountains. Plus we get to jump out of planes so that makes up for a lot.

[82Whitey51]

While Fayetteville is certainly a military town, it has improved a lot. I was here TDY in the mid 90s and now I've been stationed here since 2011. The downtown area has been really cleaned up, there are a lot of nice subdivisions, and the post has a lot to offer. I did 11 years in the Air Force and you often hear about quality of life and facilities. While it is true AF facilities tend to be nice, AF bases also tend to be very small so there aren't many of them. Every Air Force base I was on had a nice gym, chow hall, etc, but only one of them. Army posts, especially large ones like Bragg have facilities that may not be as nice but there are a lot more of them. Bragg has two large PXs and two commissaries. There are a dozen gyms, several of which are really good, there a multiple swimming pools.

With more stores being built north of the post I rarely go into Fayetteville, plus Raleigh/Durham is only about an hour away. It is just two to three hours to the beach, and about the same to get into the mountains. Plus we get to jump out of planes so that makes up for a lot.

Well then that's good to hear. Glad the area has improved. I was last there in the late 90s.

As a squid, I've had to deal with Norfolk, VA and Jacksonville, FL...both of which I couldn't put in my rear view quick enough. On the other hand, I also was stationed at Tinker AFB in OK and NAS Brunswick, ME. Both of those were great.

[305swag]

Ft. Stewart. I was there from 91-93.

[admiralcag]

I was stationed at two bases while on active duty, Keflavik and Moody. When I got my orders to Kef, we were in a large auditorium at Lowry getting our first assignments. I hear "Clark - Iceland. Iceland?! Who'd you piss off?!" Turned out to be a great place, because everyone knew it sucked and we all tried to make it better. But Moody... If there's a screwed up way of doing something in the Air Force, it was invented at Moody. When I went to 7 level school, they had us meet a group of students in the armament fundamentals class. Their instructor was pointing out where they were going and one was going to Moody. He looked really excited and, without thinking, I said "I'm so sorry..." The kid looked like I popped his balloon.

Vern

[11bee]

When I left in 77 there was a foundation to the left side of the road only a couple hundred feet from the above ground storage area. Just before I left to go back to Littlerock I drove over to it and walked down the steps that were still open. There was a series of tunnels going off in all directions with signs painted on the entrances to show the destinations. Most of the tunnels were pretty flooded by that time. In the center was a post office that had all its brass doors on the compartments and there was even a couple pieces of mail that could be seen through the glass.

The tunnels were off limits and you were not supposed to be using them although our squadron had a couple rooms close to the barracks that were called frustration releasing chambers. If you cleared it with the day room or whoever was acting as a building guard(?) you could sign out a room, and go yell, or smash things that you took down there until you calmed down. You did have to sign back out and take any broken items with you. One day someone went into a nearby room and decided to see how far the tunnels went. He found a old wallet that had been down there for several years. I got a chance to look at it while the room custodian called the L.E. desk to report the finding and its reported location. To our surprise we got a call back from the O.S.I. with orders that no one was to look in the wallet and they were on their way to pick it up. At that point I decided to put it down and be somewhere else when they showed up. Never did get the story on what was going on.

Loring was much bigger than what you probably saw. I had heard that it had been cut back a few thousand acres and found some old defensive gun emplacements and a few very sturdy doors out in the middle if nowhere on former base property. They were just concrete blocks maybe 7 feet high and 5-6 feet wide with a imposing steel door that had been secured to the point that somebody coming across one would not be able to open the door. Not far from the base was a satellite tracking facility we had to guard Very interesting to see when we had to go inside.

On the way there we would pass an abandoned Bomarc Missile battery. You could park right outside the gate and walk through the smashed barrier and walk around. The few buildings above ground had been stripped and some of the missile bay doors were wide open with a couple launch racks partly extended and a couple still closed.

I was going to go down into the complex but stopped a few steps down when I noticed that it was almost completely filled with crystal clear water. I didn't notice at first because I was looking at the furniture and picture frames at the bottom. The only other time I saw such clear water was in the woods on base during a combat training session. We came to a stream and the instructor pointed out a log under the surface and told us it was several feet deep. To prove it he dropped a stone and we watched it settle all the way down. From several to many feet deep.

We had a beaver dam near base H.Q. and Moose would sometimes walk down the sidewalks. I even saw one chase a BUFF one day.

What a place

Never knew there was a BOMARC site up there. Only one I ever saw was the one down at Otis ANGB in Mass. Maybe you are thinking Snark? There was a large Snark cruise missile facility in Presque Isle, ME (on the way to Loring). I've worked up there a few times, the missile assembly buildings are still intact and are mostly in use for light industry. The launch pads attached to each building are still there as well. Not much else around except for the old alert hangers at the adjacent airport. If you are interested in how they look today, check this thread out:

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=248257&hl=cold%20war%20relics&st=0

Yeah, Loring was a bit weird. I saw some of those bunkers in the middle of nowhere. If it wasn't such a long (and boring) ride from MA, I'd love to take a drive up there and spend some more time exploring the place.

Funny you mention that satellite tracking complex - one of my admin's husband was station there back in the early 70's. She said they loved it. Quiet, beautiful country. She mentioned that during potato harvesting season in the fall, they closed down the schools so the kids could help in the fields. Pretty much the entire town turned out.

Regarding Keflavik, I passed through there for a few days before heading out in the boonies for a short field exercise. Thought the base was pretty decent (except for the Marines who broke into our barracks and stole some of our gear). Iceland was beautiful but back in the late 80's, the people seemed to hate the US military with a vengeance. Never saw so many one-fingered salutes. Also was nosebleed expensive so we limited our time off-base to a bit of quick sight seeing.

Edited December 8, 2015 by 11bee