San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Camp Pendleton’s mission needn’t be tied to military
The American military is the world’s finest fighting force. But how long can it defend Camp Pendleton? Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is a major training center. But at 200 square miles — bigger than San Jose — it’s also the largest open coastal space between Santa Barbara and Mexico. And its location in crowded Southern California makes its land attractive for nonmilitary uses.
Pendleton’s future hasn’t received much debate, even though it touches contested congressional districts. Maybe that’s because Pendleton’s charms remain mostly hidden. Californians think of Pendleton as merely its 17 miles of coast along Interstate 5, but that’s only a fraction of a compound running 10 miles inland to Riverside County. The property offers scenery so diverse — mountains, canyons, mesas, estuaries, a bison preserve, a free-flowing river — that it feels like a militarized microcosm of California itself.
This diverse geography explains its military value. Pendleton accommodates a wide variety of training for Marines and other military branches. The grounds have prepared Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, landed at Inchon, and fought in Vietnam’s jungles, Afghanistan’s mountains and Iraq’s sands.
Less than 20 percent of the base is developed. The tens of thousands who live and work there don’t lack for services. There are theaters, museums, golf courses, a new naval hospital, a scuba center, a YMCA, food franchises (including Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf ), a lake, 11 fire stations, five public schools, 14 barbershops, and eight dry cleaners. The official base guide estimates the value of land and improvements at more than $1.7 billion.
That’s way up from the $4.2 million the military paid in 1942 after seizing an old rancho — once owned by Andrés and Pio Pico — as a Pacific training base. It’s named for Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Joseph Pendleton, a Coronado mayor who lobbied for a bigger West Coast Marine presence.
For decades, the Marines have successfully defended the base against those most rapacious of Californians — real estate developers. The military has made strategic concessions, allowing San Onofre State Beach and the nowclosed San Onofre nuclear plant to operate on its property.
And Pendleton’s record as environmental steward is strong. Base staff have protected endangered species and restored native habitats along the Santa Margarita River, writes Marilyn Berlin Snell in “Unlikely Ally: How the Military Fights Climate Change and Protects the Environment.”
But maintaining such magnificent land in Southern California is provocative. San Diego needs a new international airport as Lindbergh reaches capacity; Cal State San Marcos researchers say an airport on less than 5 percent of Pendleton land could produce 100,000 jobs. Pendleton’s location and size make it a possible target for expanding universities, new transportation links and addressing the housing crisis.
And now that wars are conducted by drone or the internet, how much does the military need Pendleton? The last major Marine amphibious assault was 68 years ago, and North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune also handles varied training. And does the United States, with $1 trillion deficits, require a secondary land force training on valuable California land?
Another problem: Pendleton serves a commander in chief who treats California like an enemy. Time reported Trump’s plans to detain 47,000 migrants at Pendleton. If the base were used for rights-violating border policies, California’s leaders should pressure the feds to leave.
Camp Pendleton with a diminished military footprint, or without the military at all, might seem unthinkable. But so was the idea of the military surrendering San Francisco’s Presidio or Fort Ord on Monterey Bay. Both have productively transitioned to civilian use. Like them, Camp Pendleton is big and beautiful enough to serve us all.