Farmingdale combining LI National Guard, Reserve units

The National Guard is nearing completion of an $86-million facility in Farmingdale that by early next year will consolidate nearly all of Long Island's National Guard and Reserve units - some 1,300 personnel in all - at a single facility.

Military planners say the consolidated Armed Forces Reserve Center will save millions per year from the cost of maintaining separate facilities, and will make for better responses to natural disasters, such as blizzards or hurricanes.

"If there is a snowstorm, it's just one phone call here," said Capt. Stephen Kitchen, a National Guard soldier who is overseeing construction at the new facility.

But the planned move has not been well received by some guard members and their families, said Beth Delli-Pizzi, who heads a Family Readiness Group associated with the Guard's 69th Infantry Regiment.

Delli-Pizzi said the consolidation will erode support networks that have grown between Guard units and the communities surrounding the armories in which guard members serve, such as Bay Shore.

She and others also say the consolidated troop facility - a 4-story structure surrounded by parking lots on Route 110 just south of Republic Airport - could invite a terrorist's attack.

Guard officials downplayed the terror risk, saying the consolidated campus would be easier to protect. And Kitchen said the bigger facility would make it easier to do maintenance on the scores of Guard vehicles on Long Island, and improve coordination between the four National Guard companies based here.

"There are logistical advantages in addition to cost savings," Kitchen said.

The 225,000 square-foot facility - said to be the largest Reserve Center built since the U.S. Department of Defense ordered base closures and consolidations in 2005 - would absorb roughly 450 Guard troops, resulting in armory closures in Bay Shore, Freeport, Huntington Station and Patchogue. The fate of those buildings has not yet been determined.

It would also become the new home of some 400 Army Reserve troops serving with the 800th Military Police Brigade in Uniondale, and some 500 Marine and Navy reservists currently headquartered in Amityville and Garden City.

Delli-Pizzi said the local armories provide an emotional refuge and sense of community for spouses and children of troops preparing for deployment or off at war in Iraq or Afghanistan.

When members of the 69th were away in Afghanistan two years ago, spouses brought their children to armories in Bay Shore and Huntington for cake-and-ice-cream parties. On training weekends, children at armories can often be spotted kicking soccer balls or shooting baskets inside cavernous drill halls.

Delli-Pizzi also said having the armories based in communities encourages support from businesses, veterans groups, schools and individuals.

When a soldier with the 69th was killed in Afghanistan two years ago - Sgt. 1st Class Joseph A. McKay - a cook at the Southward Ho Country Club in Bay Shore arranged for a reception there following McKay's funeral.

"Our Post raised about $6,200 and the club helped us out," said the cook, Richard Bazzanella, who is the Bay Shore Post Commander of AMVETS, a national veterans organization.

Delli-Pizzi said the loss of community closeness could harm morale just as members of the 69th Infantry Regiment are preparing for its next deployment in 2011 or 2012.

"I don't know if you'll have the same sense of community once the armories are no longer in the community," Delli-Pizzi said. "I'm afraid that closeness may be lost."