General delivery: a native son who chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff discusses the military's impact on North Carolina.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Interview

From 1997 to 2001, Edgecombe County native Hugh Shelton, 62, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's top military post. Now president of international operations for a Reston, Va., manufacturer of metal buildings, he is executive director of the Gen. Henry Hugh Shelton Initiative for Leadership Development at N.C. State University, where he earned a bachelor's in textiles in 1963.

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How would you describe North Carolina's bases and 107,000 active-duty troops?

The cutting edge of the armed forces. You have Fort Bragg and the Special Operations Center, which you've seen lately in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the 18th Airborne Corps, which leads the way in rapid deployment of forces anywhere within 18 hours. Contiguous to Fort Bragg is Pope Air Force Base, from which they deploy. At Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, you've got the fighter jets. At Camp Lejeune, you've got the lead elements of the U.S. Marines and Marine aviation. At the Military Ocean Terminal at Sunny Point, which doesn't get much publicity, you've got shipping for ammunition and supplies. Plus you've got Cherry Point Marine air station. These are all pre-eminent bases. Several years ago, when I was [commander] at Fort Bragg, the secretary of the Army told me, "If it came to it, this would be the last base ever to close."

Aren't closings forecast?

Yes. But Gov. Mike Easley and the N.C. congressional delegation are attuned to developments, and I'm co-chairman of the N.C. Advisory Commission on Military Affairs. We are looking at how North Carolina can present itself in the most favorable light. One issue is encroachment, where a developer comes in and starts building houses right up to the edge of a base, which happens to be where the firing range is, and then people complain about noise. When I was at Fort Bragg, we bought the Rockefeller estate, about 11,000 acres next to the base, for a buffer and to expand. That's one thing you can do. If you can't train and keep ready, that makes your base a probable candidate for base realignment and closure.

Why is the military so important to North Carolina's economy?

The economic stimulus [$8 billion or more a year] is self-evident. Seven years ago when I was at Fort Bragg, we'd say in the greater Fayetteville area that about 55 cents on the local dollar came out of Fort Bragg and Pope. But it's more important than that. The armed forces are rich in quality people. People out of the upper 50% of the...