Military Town Economies Wither as Troops Ship Out : Home front: From Fayetteville, N.C., to Killeen, Tex., apartments, used cars and fast food go begging.

Not long ago, shopkeepers and residents of this dowdy, semi-rural city adjoining Ft. Bragg had a classic love-hate feeling for the troops who were stationed here--not far removed from the “soldiers-and-dogs-keep-out” mentality of military towns in years past.

But these days, people are far more conciliatory about the paratroopers who are home-based here, and store windows along Bragg Boulevard sport new placards with far more caring messages. Says one, almost pleadingly, “Bring Our Troops Back Home.”

The change of heart is understandable. The U.S. venture in the Persian Gulf has resulted in the deployment of at least 25,000 service personnel from Ft. Bragg and adjoining Pope Air Force Base and has devastated the economy of this quiet Southern community of 70,000.

Auto dealers in Fayetteville report their car sales are down as much as 70% from last year’s levels. Gun racks in the pawn shops are chock-full. And new loans are off by 60%--while mortgage payments and other bills simply aren’t being met.

Slowly but steadily, the Fayetteville area’s economy is drying up. Pope’s Family Center, a thriving department store in nearby Spring Lake, is holding a going-out-of-business sale. John Mason closed his Plantation Laundromat after suffering $1,000-a-week losses.

And real estate agent Charles Wellons found himself with 300 vacant mobile homes and 80 apartments on his hands literally overnight when the troops abruptly pulled out for Saudi Arabia.

As a result, local residents’ attitudes about “those damn soldiers” are decidedly more positive than they were--possibly even nostalgic, some Fayetteville residents suggest.

“Whenever the 82nd Airborne goes out for more than 25 days, people start appreciating the military a lot more,” concedes Marion (Rex) Harris, a local entrepreneur who has seen his own dry-cleaning business and fast-food restaurant wilt in the absence of the 82nd.

Fayetteville isn’t the only military community to feel the pinch in the wake of Operation Desert Shield. All across the country, communities that serve large military installations are finding that their main sources of business have unexpectedly evaporated--and may not reappear for months.

Killeen, Tex., lost 20,000 of its 120,000 potential consumers when troops from nearby Ft. Hood were sent to the gulf. In the past two weeks, 14 businesses there have closed, and unemployment--which was at 12% before the gulf crisis--is rising rapidly, local officials say.

Jacksonville, N.C., lost 11,000 troops from Camp Lejeune and the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in August, and local analysts say future deployments could slash the number of military personnel in the city by up to 30,000 more.

What’s more, these cities haven’t lost just the soldiers. For all practical purposes, they also lost many of the soldiers’ spouses and youngsters, as many families return to grandparents’ homes with the approach of the holiday season.

“Wives don’t buy houses when their husbands are overseas,” says real estate agent Charlie Wilkes, who has seen his business drop 60% this fall while Fayetteville’s 673-page listing book for real estate properties is at near-record thickness.

And of those spouses who are staying in Fayetteville, many are young newlyweds who have never written a check or balanced the family accounts. “Some can’t even drive,” says Debbie Roberts, part of a support group that helps young mothers with checkbooks and budgeting.

The spouses of deployed soldiers who stayed behind did so in part because “you’re better off staying in a military town so you get the little bit of information that comes out right away,” says Donna Poynter, manager of a community military message center.

Since her own husband, Ron, a warrant officer with the 82nd Airborne, left in the middle of the night several weeks ago, Poynter has taken on duties she has never had before.

“I do the handiwork and the yard work now,” says Poynter, who has 11-year-old twins. “I’m making sure my car is in working order and, when I take it in, trying not to get a full transmission job when I just need the oil changed.”

Part of the economic crunch comes from the dwindling--and in some cases non existent--paychecks of military dependents.

Debbie Roberts’ husband, James, left with the 35th Signal Brigade three months ago, and the family is due $110 a month in hazardous-duty pay. But they have yet to receive the extra money. Instead, their check is short $182. The food subsidy has been withheld because the Army is now feeding James.

“That $200 can go a long way when you need it, too,” says Debbie Roberts, who has three children. “Families don’t have money,” she laments, adding that a friend, who also is an Army wife, didn’t receive any military paycheck this month.

The last big exodus of troops from Fayetteville was last December, when the 82nd Airborne Division was deployed to Panama for about a month to help overthrow the government of strongman Manuel A. Noriega.

But locals here say that was nothing compared to what they are facing this year.

“Operation Just Cause (in Panama) was nothing like this,” says Mary Cates, a Fayetteville auto- and life-insurance agent. “That was short--it didn’t have any effect, really. There’s not been anything like now. I don’t think you can even compare it.”

Expectedly, by far the hardest-hit places in Fayetteville are those usually frequented by off-duty enlisted men and their families--restaurants, particularly fast-food places, pawn shops and used-car lots.

Two of the area’s more popular restaurants, the Silver Heron and Western Steer, have closed since the Persian Gulf deployment. Fast-food places, no longer jammed at lunchtime, are laying off workers. And the troop deployment has left Domino’s Pizza with 30 fewer drivers.

But there also have been other consequences. The local Cablevision franchise lost 5,000 cable television subscribers in a matter of weeks, and appliance stores--their shelves now brimming with unclaimed layaway items--are cutting back sharply on orders.

The seedy side of town is in a deeper recession. Tips are less than half of what they used to be for Buffy, a topless dancer at Rick’s Lounge on Hay Street. The Skin Fantasies Tattoo Shop has lost 90% of its business and currently is closed four days a week.

And, in the doorway of the deserted Seven Dwarfs Bar near Rick’s, a miniskirted woman named Pat says her business is also off from previous levels. “Just bring back the GIs--then we’ll make up our losses,” she says.

But the grinch of recession has spread to the other parts of town as well. Local economists say longtime Fayetteville residents--anxious over talk that the city’s economy is in a slump--have begun penny-pinching on their own shopping too.

“No one is escaping from this--from real estate to lawyers, it’s affecting everyone,” says Henry Zangrilli, the owner of Z’s Pizzeria, whose red-and-white-checkered tables were almost empty last week.

Fayetteville Mayor J. L. Dawkins agrees. “Everyone, whether they believe it or not, is directly or indirectly affected” by the deployment, Dawkins says. About 170,000 of Cumberland County’s population of 270,000 depend in part on business from the military.

Although his own real estate business doesn’t serve many military families, Dawkins says he lost a sale to an accountant recently because of worry about the impact of the deployment.

The call-up of reserves has affected even Fayetteville residents. Fayetteville-area physicians and lawyers who are being called to reserve duty at Ft. Bragg are leaving their patients and clients in a lurch.

And the reservists who are left in town “aren’t going to buy a home or a give a long-term lease on a rental,” real estate agent Wilkes laments.

To be sure, not everyone in America’s military ghost towns is hurting as a result of the deployment to the Persian Gulf. Some businesses actually are profiting from the sendoff, often in strange--sometimes sad--ways.

In Killeen, for example, Chamber of Commerce President Rick Murphy reports that greeting-card stores are doing a landmark business. So, unfortunately, is the local psychiatric hospital, as stresses become too much for some families to absorb.

In Fayetteville, sales of burglar alarms have jumped 10% since the deployment began, and social worker Pat Richards at the Concord Professional Group has taken on 30 new clients, most of them children and military wives, since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August.

Since almost every scrap of news is precious here--especially when every other resident has a friend, relative or neighbor overseas--the 24-hour Cable News Network flickers almost continually from many a TV screen.

And in one mall, where managers have set up a community message center to serve military families, hundreds of people pour in each weekend to sit and watch TV screens that continually air greetings from soldiers in the gulf. The center sends fax messages to soldiers daily.

Fayetteville is a patriotic town, and many local residents express pride at having the welfare of the country and of the U.S. troops in the gulf come before their own economic interests.

American flags adorn the lampposts along Bragg Boulevard. The Krispy Kreme doughnut shop sports a sign, “USA All the Way.” A clothier offers 10% off on all sales to military families.

“I hate to complain because they are on the front lines,” says “Stash” Gondro, manager of the Tai Sho Japanese restaurant, which, being just a mile from Ft. Bragg, has been hit hard by the deployment.

“They’re putting it on the line for us. I can’t be selfish thinking about my business,” Gondro says. “It’s sad that it takes this for people to see the military as heroes.”

“The uncertainty is the worst thing,” says Killeen’s Murphy, musing about that city’s current slump. “The not knowing creates difficulty for not only the business community, but schools and the social and city organizations.

“If we knew when they would be back, it would give us something to make plans on,” he says.

In Fayetteville, Rita Kimmel, manager of a coin laundry that lost two employees--and more than half its nighttime customers--to the troop deployment, echoes most business people up and down Bragg Boulevard.

“The big question,” Kimmel says, “is whether we can hold on till they get back.”