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Defense budget boosts
Hawaii’s appeal to
military families,
Abercrombie says

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By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie says about $300 million worth of military housing and other Hawaii projects in fiscal 2001 will be the largest amount spent for such construction here since World War II.

Sen. Daniel Inouye has received bum raps for so-called pork-barrel projects, Abercrombie told about 50 members of the Hawaii Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

"There's not a single penny of pork-barrel legislation in the defense budget where Hawaii is concerned," he said in his talk last night at Treetops Restaurant at Paradise Park.

Some years ago, Hawaii was viewed as a bad assignment for a family, Abercrombie said. Schofield Barracks is undergoing a tremendous makeover, setting standards the world over, and is now seen as a prize assignment, he said.

Enlisted housing at Kaneohe is so fine officers are envious, Abercrombie said.

"It looks more like a college campus," he added. "We don't have a draft now. We have an all-volunteer force that is heavily married and married with children."

Ford Island began to bloom with the causeway that was built to it, and now in concert with the private sector, the Navy will develop family housing and other amenities on the island, Abercrombie said.

The public-private partnership for Ford Island development is unheard of, said Abercrombie, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee.

"This is utterly and totally unique in the Department of Defense. ... We are the pioneers. ... That's saving money for the people of the United States," he said.

Barking Sands is the premier missile testing and training facility in the world, Abercrombie said.

"It can't be done on the mainland. You have to have the facilities and the range that can accommodate that kind of training and the testing."

That means ships based at Pearl Harbor, he said. "It had nothing to do with pork barrel. It has everything to do with foresight and the game plan."

In his 10 years in Congress, Abercrombie claims a key role in bringing about $2 million to Hawaii for long-term military construction.