When Col. Mike Lundy, commander of the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, first arrived in Hawai'i, he was struck by what he saw as a "phenomenally close" relationship between the U.S. military, the local government and the community at large.

"Of all the places I've been to in 23 years of service, Hawai'i has the most unique relationship with the military," Lundy said. "There is no separation. People see us every day. We're part of the daily life here."

It's a relationship that has endured despite a strained past that includes U.S. military involvement during the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy in 1893 (162 armed sailors and Marines from the USS Boston took up positions on land in support of a group of conspirators led by Honolulu Advertiser publisher Lorrin Thurston), the imposition of martial law during World War II, and modern conflicts over land use and environmental concerns.

And as supporters and critics both concede, it's a relationship perpetuated largely out of mutual necessity: strategic for the military, economic for the state.

"Hawai'i has a tremendous amount of strategic value," Lundy said. "You can't underplay that a bit. Hawai'i is the optimal power projection platform. It gives us an unbelievable ability to project forward. That's why it will always be important to maintain a presence here."

Historians note that U.S. annexation of Hawai'i, which had been rejected by President Grover Cleveland, who favored a reinstatement of Queen Lili'uokalani, was pursued by Cleveland's successor William McKinley as a means of giving the U.S. a base of operations during the United State's war with Spain in the Pacific.

Forty-three years later, Hawai'i's high value as a strategic location for U.S. Navy operations made it a target for the Japanese attack that ultimately drew the United States into World War II.

The war years brought a surge of military personnel, defense funding and development to the Islands. And, from 1940 to 1944, the population doubled, rising from 429,000 to 858,000. The close of the war in the Pacific found population figures fell almost as quickly as they rose (even though tourism steadily increased as returning soldiers and others passing though Hawai'i during the war increasingly chose the Islands for their family vacations).

Thus began a cycle of influx and withdrawal that would repeat through the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War and the post-9/11 war of terrorism as the military repeatedly found justification for bolstering its forces for deployment in Asia and the Pacific.

Even during those periods when operations in Hawai'i were scaled back, military spending tended to rise steadily due to the increasing cost of living and the development of new and expensive technologies.

"Statehood didn't really change anything," said Charlie Ota, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai'i's Military Affairs Council, which serves as the official liaison between the military and the state. "What determined military presence in Hawai'i was what was happening in Asia and the Pacific. What's happening now in North Korea, India and with terrorist cells in the Philippines and Indonesia has created an environment in which the military needs to maintain a strong military presence here."

That presence includes some 250,000 military personnel from the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard. The U.S. Pacific Command, established as a unified command in 1947, is the oldest and largest of the U.S. unified commands with an area of responsibility that covers roughly half of the Earth's surface.

At last tally, defense spending ranks second only to tourism as the top revenue generator for the state, contributing some $8.2 billion each year with direct and indirect impacts totaling $12.2 billion.

The military also accounts for more than 110,000 jobs and an estimated $7.6 billion in household earnings in Hawai'i.

"The military has had a significant impact on the economy and the workforce," said Ota, who served in the Air Force for 25 years. "On top of that, they are a tremendous contributor to the community through their participation with local charities like Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Great Aloha Run and other causes. And on top of that, they support 265 public schools through partnerships and help to improve public education by working with the (Department of Education)."

Lundy said community outreach, whether through formal programs or by simply attending neighborhood board meetings to listen to concerns, is part of the military's responsibility to its host community.

"This relationship is absolutely vital to our national defense," he said. "And it's important for us to remember that we have to be good neighbors."

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STATE

Kathy Ferguson, a professor of women's studies and political science at the University of Hawai'i, identified myriad ways in which the military contributes to the state — from direct investments in facilities to job creation to community service projects — but said the overall impact of the military's presence requires examination of more than just the obvious benefits.

"Each of these contributions has a downside that we often don't hear about," Ferguson said. "The biggest one is the environmental destruction. The militarization of our schools and university (Hawai'i has one of the biggest JROTC programs in the country) skews education toward uncritical accounts of history and politics. All those military families do more than put money into the local economy. After all, they spend much more at the PX than in local stores. When they do live off base, they put pressure on local housing markets, driving prices up."

She continued: "The impact aid from the federal government that is supposed to offset the cost of educating military kids in local schools is a very small fraction of the actual cost. The military's 'good neighbor' projects are often welcome in financially pressed schools and communities, yet why is it that the military, and not the educational system, has money to paint schools? Why does the military, and not local government, have resources to repair bridges? The seeming largess of the military's 'good neighbor' projects makes people grateful for small favors and keeps them from asking larger questions about who has resources and who does not."

Ferguson said the implications of the state's reliance on tourism and military spending are "huge," in that such reliance perpetuates investment in those areas at the expense of research and development in possible alternatives. This, in turn, makes the state economy especially vulnerable to fluctuation in either industry.

"Because the military is the biggest polluter in the state, the environmental damage to our fragile ecosystem is extensive," she said. "We are caught in the contradictions: Our biggest industry, tourism, depends on 'selling' our beautiful environment to visitors while our second biggest industry, the military, damages that environment. To become less dependent, we need to invest in alternatives, but we don't have or aren't willing to dedicate resources to alternative ways of life because all the money is tied up in the military and tourism."

GATEWAY TO THE REGION

Ota said the amount of land designated for military use has declined exponentially since World War II, accounting for about 4 percent of all land in Hawai'i. Ota said he considers the military "the best stewards of the land and natural resources, better than any agency in Hawai'i."

"The military understands that what they do can harm the environment, but by the same token you can't put an American soldier in harm's way without preparing him for combat," he said. "They do what is necessary and then try to remediate whatever damage there is as much as possible."

Ferguson also noted the role of Hawai'i's senior U.S. senator, Daniel Inouye, in assuring a steady flow of federal defense projects to the Islands. Inouye, a decorated war hero who served with the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, has served in Congress since Hawai'i became a state and has wielded significant influence through his roles as chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations and Subcommittee on Defense.

"He has an iconic status, as a wounded veteran who helped break the barrier for Japanese-Americans in the U.S. military, as well as an effective political presence," Ferguson said. "He has more or less singlehandedly organized an enormous flow of resources to our state from military coffers, a situation that both brings in resources while binding the state's economy to this often destructive institution. When the senator retires, it will be very difficult for any other elected official to maintain this relationship at this level."

Ota said the long history of the military in Hawai'i serves as a demonstration that both the military and its host community are learning to live together in ways that are mutually beneficial.

"In the past, the military did things environmentally and culturally that we would not consider appropriate today," Ota said. "But we've progressed to understanding things better and working together better. It's about learning and understanding how to cooperate so that we can all do the right thing."

As Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, wrote in an e-mail statement to The Advertiser:

"Hawai'i is the gateway to the Asia-Pacific region making it an ideal home for U.S. Pacific Command's Headquarters and other important military headquarters and units. More importantly, more than 110,000 service members and their families call the Hawaiian Islands home; we raise our families here; our children learn and play here; and we are part of the communities in which we live. Nowhere else is 'ohana more vividly displayed than in the eyes of our families and neighbors when our Marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen return from deployments to our island home."