Nearing Taps for Tustin Base

In these immense caverns 18 stories high and three football fields long, half a century of American naval air power--from the fat sausage blimps of World War II to the heavy helicopters of Vietnam and Desert Storm--awaited the country’s call.

Now, the two huge hangars at Tustin Marine Corps Air Facility are empty and eerily silent, except for the family of finches warbling way up in the wooden rafters. Outside, the tarmac is barren and the once-bustling military base is being taken over by a new population: Hawks circle overhead, preparing to divebomb ground squirrels, and thin coyotes furtively cross the nearby field, pausing to nervously glace behind.

Only 92 Marines are left to rattle around the 1,561-acre base where most of the buildings are closed and latched and the very last helicopter, a Super Stallion, is being prepared to fly out later this month, symbolically consigning the air station to history.

Once, 3,000 Marines tending 144 copters carried on their duties here. But now Tustin is headed toward the scrap heap along with 96 surplus military bases throughout the nation, 24 of them in California, more than any other state.

Most of the attention has gone to the El Toro Marine Air Station seven miles south because of a wildly controversial plan to convert it to an international airport when it’s retired next year. Meanwhile, small Tustin--whose two old hangers are considered the world’s largest unsupported structures--is quietly fading away.

This could just as well be Bodie or Dogwood for the forlorn few who keep the base secured until next June, when the flag is lowered for the last time and the facility is officially turned over to the city of Tustin for likely redevelopment as a commercial-industrial park.

“It’s real lonely,” said Lance Corp. Phillip Brooks, a military policemen who rotates between guarding the gates and patrolling the base’s abandoned buildings and housing areas. “We could call it a ‘ghost base.’ It’s like, tumbleweeds should be blowing just in front of the hangars.”

Paying Final Respects

Military bases aren’t exactly built for beauty, but they have a character, of sorts, and something lingers in the memories of servicemen and -women who passed through, often en route to harm’s way.

In his green cammies and gun belt, Brooks these days waves many retired Marines onto the facility for a final look around the place where they once served.

“It’s a kind of melancholy, downtrodden attitude. They’re all going to miss the base,” said Brooks, who admits he’s grown attached to this, his last duty station before he leaves the corps when his hitch is up. “It’s a real quaint kind of base. It’s got a kind of a little personality of its own.”

Compared to other bases--like El Toro currently with 3,200 Marines and Camp Pendleton with more than 30,000, Tustin was intimate enough for many leathernecks to know one another. To gather at the park area, the baseball diamond or the enlisted men’s club for beers after the job.

That life is gone, dwindled away over the past two years. Signs are falling down; the auditorium marquee is blank. Minutes pass before a pedestrian or a vehicle appears, and when it’s the latter, usually it’s another U-Haul carrying a Marine’s belongings to the next post. Most have been reassigned to the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

Over at the base cafeteria, Lance Cpl. Justin Olsen works in the food storage area. He arrives in the dark of early morning and leaves in the dark of evening. Going on three years at Tustin, he mourns that the end is near.

“When I first got here, it was a big family with all the Marines,” he said. “I miss the camaraderie we had. It’s gotten depressing.”

Even at headquarters, a compact, two-story building, the energy level is on simmer and a minimal staff keeps the base running until it becomes civilian property.

Computer specialist Clarence Johnson, a sergeant with stubble for a haircut, is going a bit stir-crazy. He used to occupy a room with two others, but now he’s alone, a blinking cursor for a companion.

“The work is getting slim now, there are so few people here,” Johnson said. “It feels a little desolate.”

At the heart of Tustin, the helicopter facilities, Maj. Ron Colyer, a Marine for 17 years, is tying up loose ends and preparing to move out. Wearing a flight jumpsuit, he is getting the last copter--a transport and troop-carrying craft--ready to leave.

“A lot of guys started their Marine Corps flying career out here,” he said, eyes scanning the motionless horizon. “This is an absolute shell of what it used to be.

“This is definitely closing a chapter in Marine aviation history.”

That history began in 1942, when Orange County was mostly small towns and open fields and the Navy needed land for a blimp base to patrol the Southern California coast for enemy submarines.

It became a Marine helicopter facility in 1951 and in later years played a key role in developing helicopter equipment and tactics. The station became an important training site for copter crews headed for duty in the western Pacific.

Tustin’s two huge hangars are 1,088 feet long, 178 feet high and 297 feet wide and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Tustin is pondering demolishing the south hangar for its redevelopment plan, but city officials are reviewing the structure’s historic significance. The other hangar is likely to be preserved.

The Few, the Proud

Even now, in the twilight of its days, Tustin must be run by military rules and discipline, and that’s largely the job of Master Sgt. Mervyn Best, the senior enlisted man remaining at this tiny outpost of the 174,000-person Marine Corps.

Trinidad-born and standing rifle straight, he exercises a quiet authority as he makes his daily rounds.

Best checks the perimeter to make sure it’s secure. He swings by the mess hall, surveys the gardeners and looks in on whatever operations are left--mostly MPs and the base crash and rescue crews who stand by in case of an emergency at John Wayne Airport.

“I don’t like it here, I love it,” said the Operation Desert Storm veteran.

Master sergeants typically may be ferocious and feared, but Best has few words and easy ways and undertakes his solo patrol with affection. Near a hangar, he scans the sky and smiles up at a hawk.

“They just sit up there and wait,” he said, spreading his arms and sticking out his head like a bird of prey.

It is so silent now, at day’s end. The only sound is the distant hum of the freeway. The shadows are long, and last light paints its blinding yellow on hundreds of window panes.

Best becomes pensive and talks about the old days aboard the base.

“It was jumping,” he said. “It’s different now, you know.”

He moves on, and promptly at 5 p.m., Best stops by the flagpole. Right on cue, a tape recording plays “evening colors” and two Marines march out and solemnly lower the banner. At this instant, all Marines outdoors stand and salute Old Glory. Passing vehicles are expected to stop for the ritual.

This day, there are only two cars.

Said Maj. Richard McKenzie, Tustin’s officer-in-charge: “We’re sorry to see this part of the book close. We’re trying to leave this community with grace and dignity.”