HAFB girds to avoid closure

"We are trying to position ourselves in the transformation period, not just during BRAC but for years to come, to make sure we receive new missions and work," she said.

The first step is surviving. And Hill officials want to make sure the Pentagon realizes that, unusually for a depot base, Hill also has a huge training range and two fighter wings, offering "military importance" hard to match elsewhere.

"I also look at the work they do on the Minuteman missile, and I don't think that could be done anywhere else easily," Hansen said. "But I could see moving a lot of the work that the Navy and Marines do on their aircraft to Hill."

Everything is uncertain so early in the process.

How will Hill do? "The only way I can answer is: nobody knows," McCall said. "So we have to do all we can. Are we efficient? Absolutely. We have a good work force . . . Hill is strategic and a national asset or we wouldn't defend it."

That's the good news. But the bad news, again, McCall said, is, "Even though the process last time was not supposed to be political, it certainly was. So we have to be ready on every front."