Naval Auxiliary Air Station (NAAS) Liberty, Colorado
©1999 Doug Iannelli

Naval Auxiliary Air Station Liberty traces its origins to 1942, when the Civil Aviation Administration and the Army Air Corps began construction of several airfields as part of the Western Defense Program, initiated to repel an anticipated Japanese attack on the west coast of the continental United States. The existing Civil Aviation Airfield located near the small town of Liberty, Colorado was among the sites chosen to participate in this program.

As the war in the Pacific developed, the individual aviation branches of the United States military were recognizing the need to train growing numbers of pilots. With all existing coastal installations and air stations already taxed and fully committed to operations in support of the war effort, the War Department soon found itself beseiged by requests from the Navy for additional facilities. In 1943, the United States Navy assumed control of the Liberty Civil Aviation Airfield and its two 5,200-foot runways. Construction soon began on barracks, hangars, air traffic control facilities and target ranges. By June of 1944, Naval Auxiliary Air Station Liberty, Colorado was commissioned.

The mission of NAAS Liberty was the training, servicing, and support of Navy air groups deployed there for air combat instruction. To fulfill these objectives, the Station was provided with a torpedo bombing range at Deadman Creek Reservoir and operated three satellite fields. Soon after taking in its first classes of trainees, two more free gunnery ranges as well as rocket bombing and ground-straffing targets were established, including the Cold Creek Range (Sierra 6).

Operations at NAAS Liberty reached their peak in 1945 with thousands of take-offs and landings recorded at the Station. Ironically, just as construction of the initial airfield project was completed and the training program in full gear, the Japanese surrendered and brought an untimely end to the growth of the facility. Perceived necessity for the facility waned and by mid-1946 the Navy had abandoned all operations there, removing the official designation of Naval Auxiliary Airfield. Control of the facility was transferred to the local regional office of the National Forestry Service.

The Korean Conflict brought renewed military activity to the installation. In 1951, Liberty Airfield became a joint USN/USAF Auxiliary Landing Field for military aircraft making use of existing ranges in the area. In October 1953, NAAS Liberty was reestablished by order of the Department of Defense and additional bombing ranges, Sierra 3, 4, and 5 were created.

In 1956, the United States Air Force established a permanent presence at NAAS Liberty as part of the country's fledgling early warning radar system. The Air Force would share commands with the Navy at Liberty until the mid-1980s. During this time, the airfield's most sophisticated range, the electronic warfare (EW) range, was established in 1967 for joint Navy/Air Force use and the La Veta Military Operations Area (MOA) was approved to incorporate all existing military airspace over Colorado and Kansas.

With the departure of the Air Force and the establishment of the Fighter Weapons School at NAS Coronado (TOPGUN), NAAS Liberty was again deprived of its operational life's blood. In October 1989, the Navy placed the facility on "reduced operation status."

The end of the Cold War and the era of military downsizing heralded by the Clinton Administration would write the final chapter for NAAS Liberty. It was among the first Navy installations identified in the 1994 Base Realignment and Closure List; target date for decommissioning: 01 May 1998. Liberty was further reduced to "maintenance status" that same year and was designated as a temporary repository for obsolete aircraft; there to be refurbished prior to purchase by foreign governments or cannibalized for parts by a Navy and Marine Corps growing ever more desperate to maintain a level of readiness in the face of sweeping defense budget cuts.

NAAS Liberty served in its capacity as a Department of Defense used car lot until May 1997, when with decommissioning date one year away, it was further reduced to "caretaker status" and all non-essential staffing reassigned to other facilities or the Fleets.

Life at NAAS Liberty

When you stepped off the C-130 transport six months ago, the station at least had the semblence of an active military facility. But as the old staff made way for the new, the whole demeanor of the place seemed to change - to become depressed - as if, despite the natural scenic beauty within which they were nestled, the old World War II-vintage structures of the Station could sense their doom.

That was six months ago. Today, NAAS Liberty, six-months shy of its complete decommissioning, is a ghostly shell of its former glory. A little more than a dozen buildings remain, centered around two pothole-pocked runways. The "graveyard," a collection of metallic corpses of helicopters, trainers, and jet aircraft nearly a football field in size, litter the southern portion of the facility. There they lie unpurchased and eviscerated, for even those functions have ceased. The twelve remaining staff members at Liberty are here to serve in a different capacity - they are the Navy's morticians carrying out the last rites on this terminal piece of military real estate.

The term "staff," with regard to the personnel currently assigned to NAAS Liberty, is a misnomer. With the exception of the Station Commander (and even this is questionable), everyone at Liberty is serving mandatory time for screwing up in some capacity in their individually colorful Navy or Marine Corps careers. The way you see it, Liberty's the last stop on the road to a dishonorable discharge and only one step away from Leavenworth. . . the Navy's way of getting the last remaining ounce of productivity out of a bunch of losers before releasing them back out into society.

The lifestyle at Liberty is one of enforced and geographic isolation mixed with a heavy dose of boredom and industrial-strength janitorial work. All leaves and passes have been suspended pending the successful closure of the Station by the deadline of May 1st. To stray beyond the gates is to risk a charge of AWOL compounding whatever problems the staff member might already have with regard to his current service status. Not that anyone really has anywhere to go. If you blink, you'll miss Liberty on 811 and Crestone (if local television news reports are accurate), might be less than hospitable towards military personnel since the Colorado Air National Guard proposed its Colorado Airspace Initiative to expand the boundaries of the La Veta MOA over much of the San Luis Valley. Everybody's been promised a break (or a discharge, if so desired) when the job is done, but until then it's assholes and elbows at NAAS Liberty.

Daily operations undertaken by the staff include the demolition of unsafe or uninhabitable structures, the draining and removal of above- and below-ground fuel storage tanks, the inventorying of equipment still felt to have viable use by the Navy, and the "subsurface relocation" (burying) of hazardous materials to avoid the expense of proper disposal and scrutiny of crybabying environmentalists. On top of these duties, any aircraft in the "graveyard" still thought by the CO to be potentially sellable are to be maintained and spit-shined for some third-world bigwig everybody knows will never show up. All in all, there is little done at NAAS Liberty these days that does not involve some sort of Class A shit detail.

As if that weren't enough, the notorious San Luis Valley's weather is beginning to show its true colors. Even when you arrived last summer, warm layered clothing was required for protection against the sun and wind. After dark, temperatures sometimes dropped as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and that was the middle of July! Now, with winter in full swing, the weather is downright brutal. Frigid temperatures have been the norm since October, with wind chills and cloud cover driving the daytime temperatures into the teens and nighttime temperatures into the -20s. Fortunately, the snow hasn't begun to fall yet, but it's only a matter of time.

The only real high points at Liberty (other than Baywatch) are Saturday nights, because rain, shine, or whatever the hell else Mother Nature decides to grace this God-forsaken place with, it's poker night at the Exchange. Even the CO plays, and only those in the dutch for misconduct and pulling gate duty (as many as half the staff, from time to time) would ever dream of missing it. Poker night is the one bright shining light in this pit of despair and discontent and is greatly anticipated if for no other reason than everyone has a shot at collecting the next asshole's predominantly unspent paycheck.

Location

NAAS Liberty is located at the end of State Highway 811 in southeastern Saguache County, Colorado and is nestled against the northwestern border of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in the heart of the Colorado portion of the San Luis Valley at an altitude of 8,200 feet. The nearest community is Liberty proper, about six miles north of the installation. A collection of necessary ammenities and a post office serving the local ranchers, Liberty's resident population numbers a mere 56. It is roughly 25 miles north to the nearest true urban center of Crestone. 811 outside the station is a lonely stretch and it is rarity to see traffic more than once or twice a month. Supplies are flown in monthly.

The Station itself lies on the eastern edge of a five square-mile, roughly rectangular military reserve that encompasses a portion of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument with which it shares its southern and eastern boundaries. To the north and west lie miles of rugged pastureland interrupted only by barbed-wire fencing and Highway 811. The Sand and Cold Creeks (the latter a seasonal wash) flow out of the jagged Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east and reach a confluence in the southwestern portion of the reserve. On clear days, the majestic Blanca Massif, home of the fourth tallest peak in Colorado, is visible on the southern horizon.

The Cold Creek Range (Sierra 6) reaches eastward out of the northeastern corner of the Liberty Military Reserve approximately 8 miles into the magnificant sand dunes spilling forth from the National Monument.

The geologic phenomena that is the Great Sand Dunes National Monument is the world's highest dune field. Rising 700 feet above the valley floor, the age of this 50 square-mile pile of shifting sand is not definitively known. It is believed that the dunes probably began to form as glaciers from the last Ice Age began to melt. The Rio Grande, swollen with glacial melt-water and debris, spread sand and gravel across a large portion of the San Luis Valley. Today, as yesterday, the prevailing southwest wind sweeps across the valley and carries the sand toward a natural barrier, the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range. Here, at the foot of the mountains, the sand is deposited as the wind loses velocity and funnels through several low passes.