Across America, War Means Jobs

FAIRFIELD, Ohio -- Along a quiet strip of gray corrugated metal buildings, across the street from a La-Z-Boy distribution center, Gary Allen and his ever-expanding crew are running one of the most urgent operations of the Iraq (news - web sites) war.

Around the clock, seven days a week, O'Gara Hess & Eisenhardt churns out heavily armored Humvees, designed for the guerrilla combat and roadside bombs bedeviling U.S. troops. Last August, a back-lot warehouse held excess inventory. Now, after a $1.5 million investment, 30 new workers on two shifts produce 500 sets of three-inch-thick bulletproof glass a week. As many as 10,000 sets are on back order.

In November, the company snapped up a 40,000-square-foot building down the road, moved its entire commercial armoring operation there and in three days, with an additional $1.5 million, it doubled the Humvee operation.

In six months, employment has more than tripled, to over 600, and 250 more people in this part of southwestern Ohio work as direct suppliers. Production manager Ronnie Carson figured he interviews 15 job applicants every day and hires 10 to 12 of them. Just yesterday, the company's parent corporation, Armor Holdings Inc., announced it received an additional $16.6 million from the Army to ramp up production yet again. The clocks setting the pace on the assembly line were reset, from one vehicle every hour and a half to one every hour and 15 minutes.

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Reporters always try to claim this. War creates some industry jobs, of course, but those jobs require tax dollars that either create a deficit or take money away from another spending program, thus jobs are lost at the other end.

ammunition contracts because American firm cannot keep up with demand. War may mean jobs but not necessarily for Americans. Peace means far more jobs if the nineties are any indication.