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Obama to speak in N.C.

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on February 27, 2009 - 9:06am.

President Obama will arrive in North Carolina this morning.

Air Force One will land at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station near Havelock, N.C., at 11:10 a.m.

Obama is scheduled to speak at the nearby Camp Lejeune Marine base a half-hour later.

He is expected to announce that a substantial number of the roughly 100,000 U.S. combat troops scheduled to leave Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, will instead stay through the end of the year.

That suggests the withdrawal of U.S. troops may be more backloaded than previously expected, with more troops leaving later.

Dome will be live-blogging from the event.

What is the Senate Armed Services Committee?

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on January 22, 2009 - 11:41am.

Answer:

A committee of the U.S. Senate that oversees the military and defense policy.

Created in 1946, the Senate Armed Services Committee has legislative oversight on the U.S. departments of Defense, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force; military research and development; military uses of nuclear energy; pay and benefits for members of the military, among other things.

Because North Carolina is home to the Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point Marine stations, Pope and Seymour Johnson Air Force bases and the Fort Bragg Army base, the committee is often sought after by the state's U.S. senators.

Former Sen. Elizabeth Dole sat on the committee.

In 2009, Sen. Kay Hagan was named to the Democratic majority on the committee. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican, is also a member.

Brief:

A committee of the U.S. Senate that oversees the military and defense policy.

Proposal to move base could impact OLF

Submitted by bkrueger on May 9, 2007 - 11:15am.

Tags: Cherry Point | Navy | OLF | Solomon Ortiz | Under the Dome

The chairman of a key House Armed Services subcommittee wants the Secretary of the Navy to consider new locations for Oceana Naval Base in Virginia, including possibly moving its operations to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Eastern North Carolina.

U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, a Texas Democrat and chairman of the readiness subcommittee, is pushing to have such language included in the defense authorization bill being considered by the full committee today, Barb Barrett reports.

The language asks the Navy secretary to consider alternative locations for the jet base, including sites in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi and Texas.

The move could have implications for a proposed outlying landing field in Eastern North Carolina to serve as a practice landing strip for the fighter jets from Oceana Naval Air Base and the Cherry Point base.

“If the fate of Oceana is in question, it does not seem to be in the national interest to construct a landing field that may not be used,” Plymouth Mayor Brian Roth said in an interview.