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Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach, flanked by other area mayors, speaks about the importance of Fort Carson to the community, at an Army listening session Tuesday. Bach said there is no separation between military and civilian in the region: "We are one family."

Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach, flanked by other area mayors, speaks about the importance of Fort Carson to the community, at an Army listening session Tuesday. Bach said there is no separation between military and civilian in the region: "We are one family." (Jennifer Hlad/Stars and Stripes)

Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach, flanked by other area mayors, speaks about the importance of Fort Carson to the community, at an Army listening session Tuesday. Bach said there is no separation between military and civilian in the region: "We are one family."

Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach, flanked by other area mayors, speaks about the importance of Fort Carson to the community, at an Army listening session Tuesday. Bach said there is no separation between military and civilian in the region: "We are one family." (Jennifer Hlad/Stars and Stripes)

Col. Karl Konzelman, Brig. Gen. Roger Cloutier Jr., and Maj. Gen. Paul LaCamera listen to feedback Tuesday at a community listening session in Colorado Springs, Colo. The session was No. 14 of 30 the Army is holding across the country to gather information in advance of possible troop cuts.

Col. Karl Konzelman, Brig. Gen. Roger Cloutier Jr., and Maj. Gen. Paul LaCamera listen to feedback Tuesday at a community listening session in Colorado Springs, Colo. The session was No. 14 of 30 the Army is holding across the country to gather information in advance of possible troop cuts. (Jennifer Hlad/Stars and Stripes)

An Army panel listens to presentations from state and local politicians, business leaders and community members Tuesday at a listening session in advance of potential cuts to Fort Carson. The vast majority of the speakers expressed their support for Fort Carson and asked the Army leaders to spare the post any cuts.

An Army panel listens to presentations from state and local politicians, business leaders and community members Tuesday at a listening session in advance of potential cuts to Fort Carson. The vast majority of the speakers expressed their support for Fort Carson and asked the Army leaders to spare the post any cuts. (Jennifer Hlad/Stars and Stripes)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — More than 300 people packed a county auditorium here Tuesday afternoon to support Fort Carson, and ask Army leaders to spare the post from future cuts.

The community listening session — No. 14 of 30 the Army is holding near bases across the country — allowed senior military officers the chance to hear from the community before deciding where and how to make personnel cuts.

The Army is in the process of reducing end strength to 490,000 by 2017, but if sequestration is not repealed, the service will lose about $95 billion over 10 years and will likely be forced to drop to 420,000 soldiers by 2019, said Col. Karl Konzelman, chief of the Army force management division.

That could include cutting up to 16,000 soldiers from Fort Carson, said Ed Anderson, a retired three-star general who moderated the session.

Anderson opened the meeting by stressing that it was “not a BRAC hearing,” and Brig. Gen. Roger Cloutier, the Army’s director of force management, said “not a single decision has been made” about where cuts might be made. But the three and half hours of presentations and support from the area’s Congressional delegation, the governor, regional leaders and the overflowing crowd suggested the community fears otherwise.

And for the first two hours, the message the Army received was clear: The region, and the entire state, stands united in support of Fort Carson.

Colorado has “a long, proud history of military here in the Centennial State,” said Gov. John Hickenlooper, and the state provides “floor to ceiling, total support” to returning veterans.

Colorado Springs’ “love affair with the Army” began 142 years ago, when a retired Civil War general came to the area and founded the town, said Mayor Steve Bach.

“I honestly think it’s in our DNA” to love the Army, he said. “We are one family,” with no separation between military and civilian.

The military “is part of our collective soul,” said Bill Cadman, president of the Colorado state Senate. “This is not about removing dollars from our pockets. This is about removing members from our families.”

Still, cuts at the base would have a major economic impact on the community, said Andy Merritt of the Colorado Springs Regional Business Alliance.

Cutting 16,000 soldiers would mean a loss of $1.07 billion, he said, but even a cut of 3,500 soldiers — a brigade — would be significant.

Organizers asked the community to wear green to show support for the base, and showed photos of clubs and businesses full of green-clad employees on a screen above the Army representatives after the official presentations were over.

But despite the overflow crowd and sea of green clothing, not everyone stood in support of the base.

Several farmers and ranchers pointed out that land in the Piñon Canyon area was taken by the Army in the 1980s for a maneuver training facility, and they want it back.

A woman who identified herself as a member of the organization “Not One More Acre” said that for years, her family lived in fear that their farm would be taken for the training facility.

“We are asking you to close Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site,” she said.

But most community members expressed support. A man who said he had served in the Army and was stationed at several bases told the panel he never felt like he was part of the community anywhere else, and chose to leave the Army in part because he would have had to move back to Fort Bragg, N.C.

In Colorado Springs, he said, he feels like part of a family.

A little more than three and a half hours after the session began, Cloutier closed it with reassurances that all the comments had been heard and would be taken back to the Pentagon.

“For us and the senior leaders of the Army, this is not about numbers,” he said. “We know it’s about soldiers and families and hopes and dreams and lives.”

The Army has not released a schedule of remaining listening sessions, but dates and times will be announced in each affected community. The sessions will continue through March.

hlad.jennifer@stripes.com Twitter: @jhlad

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