Illegal takeover of Greenland raises a memorny about an alternative: Re-Open Loring Air Force Base instead!

Viewing aurora borealis in Aroostook County, Maine
Echo opinion letter published in The County.
https://thecounty.me/2025/03/26/caribou/greenland-or-loring/

To the editor:  As Donald Trump blusters about illegally seizing Greenland for America’s national defense, maybe every resident in Aroostook County, Maine can call the White House and remind them about the Loring Air Force Base*.

In 1993, they deployed the Base Realignment and Closure [Commission], which was originally meant to decrease the defense budget. But what happened❓ They closed down Loring, which was a major economic driver for this region of the state of Maine, besides a strategic location for national defense. They moved all the planes and staff and money to the southern states of Alabama and Mississippi and left Aroostook barren without any federal economic driver to build up and maintain the region.

I know the MAGA cult crowd loves to do their own research, so I invite them to look up the numbers for defense budget from 1993 to 2024. How much was each year as we get to today? All that money, not spent in Aroostook over the time period.

In 1960, Aroostook County had a population of 120,000 residents. Today, we barely scratch at 70,000 people. Granted the base was comprised of a maximum of 7,000 military personnel for its capacity. But, how many residents, working, running businesses were an offshoot supporting the base and its staff? Many.

Every resident in Aroostook County, especially the cult MAGA [proponents], should be lighting up the White House switchboards (202-456-1111) demanding the reopening of Loring Air Force Base and to STOP wasting time by going after Greenland.

Call Senators Susan Collins and Angus. Call Representative Jared Golden. Tell them that Loring base needs to reopen, period, now. Aroostook prosperity depends on it and America’s national defense requires it.

From John Orlando in Van Buren, Maine (Aroostook County)

*Limestone, Maine: 30 years after its closure, veterans share memories of Loring Air Force Base: Those who served at Loring will always remember the base for the crucial and sometimes frightening role it played at the height of the Cold War. Two veterans who were stationed at the base and still live near it recently shared stories of their service and the base’s history.

In 1947, the U.S. Air Force chose Aroostook County to host one of the new Strategic Air Command bases, meant to house and possibly deploy nuclear weapons. The move came when the U.S. was engaging in a nuclear weapons arms race against the former Soviet Union, now Russia.