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Bagram grows as Afghan war hub
Associated Press Writer
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AP) - Seen from a tiny village on a recent moonless night, the sprawling U.S. base three miles to the north looks more like a medium-size city than a military facility in a war zone.
Bagram Air Field, as the base is formally known, is the largest U.S. military hub of the war in Afghanistan and is home to some 24,000 military personnel and civilian contractors. Yet it is continuing to grow to keep up with the requirements of an escalating war and troop increases.
With tens of millions of dollars pouring into expanding and upgrading facilities, Bagram is turning into something of a military "boom town." Large swathes of the 5,000-acre base look like a construction site, with the rumble of building machinery and the scream of fighter-jets overhead providing the soundtrack.
The rapid growth here is taking place at a time when the Obama administration is debating the future direction of the increasingly unpopular war, now in its ninth year.
Among the options under discussion is a recommendation by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the overall commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, to bring in additional U.S. troops, perhaps as many as 80,000.
But even with current troop levels - 65,000 U.S. troops and about 40,000 from allied countries - Bagram already is bursting at the seams.
Plans are under way to build a new, $22 million passenger terminal and a new cargo yard costing $9 million. To increase cargo capacity, a new parking ramp supporting the world's largest aircraft is to be completed this spring.
Elsewhere at Bagram, construction has begun on permanent brick-and mortar housing for troops and headquarters for military units, according to Lt. Col. Troy Joslin, chief of Bagram's operations.
Bagram was a major Soviet base during Moscow's 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan, providing air support to Soviet and Afghan forces fighting the mujahedeen.
It also was fought over by rival factions during the country's civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal.
The view from the old Soviet-built air traffic tower, replaced last year by a new, $50 million tower, reveals a picture more akin to a busy commercial hub than a military facility in a war zone. So frantic is the pace at the air field that giant C-17 transport aircraft fill up with soldiers almost as soon as their cargo is emptied.
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