Dear President Obama …

JEFF GRANIT staff Eighty-five seventh-graders from Maple Place Middle School wrote letters to President Barack Obama asking him to stop the closure of Fort Monmouth, as their end-of-the-year language arts project. OCEANPORT — "Dear President Barack Obama, please don't close Fort Monmouth."

That was the consensus in 85 letters that were sent to the president by seventh-graders at Maple Place Middle School.

The students prepared letters to the president as their final language arts project under the direction of Christine R. Specht, who has been the language arts teacher at the middle school for 10 years.

"Fort Monmouth has been part of my neighborhood for 90 years. It is basically an icon," wrote Teddy Malmgren.

The seventh -grader went on to write that he believes if the fort does close, the president "will disappoint many, many people."

"People will lose their jobs, as well as their income and ability to buy things," he wrote. "This will, as I said before, hurt my town and make it less enviable. People love this town, and you will be taking a very nice part of it away."

The students decorated their letters with American flags and stars. Specht then gathered all the letters, put them in a bound album, and hand delivered it to Congressman Rush Holt's office in West Windsor last week.

"We hope that the letters can be sent to President Obama," she said. "Many of the kids didn't know they could write letters to President Obama. These kids spoke straight from their hearts."

Specht said since 9/11 her seventh grade language arts classes have been writing letters to military personnel.

The letters to Obama project was spawned from the mock council meeting held in April where 13 seventh-grade students under the direction of social studies teacher John Vaccarelli tackled various borough issues for an hour.

Specht and Vaccarelli shared their project with the Borough Council at the July 16 council meeting.

Emma Feroce, 12, and Heather Tier, 13, who will enter the eighth grade next year, read their letters to the borough.

One of the issues discussed at the mock council meeting was the closure of Fort Monmouth, which by a 7-1 vote and one abstention in 2005, the nine-member Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission chose to accept the Pentagon's recommendation to close the U.S. Army base.

The recommendation stated that the fort would close within the next two to six years and the bulk of its Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM) would be transferred to the Aberdeen, Md., Proving Ground.

Borough officials in Oceanport, Eatontown, Tinton Falls and U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone (D-6th District) and Holt (D-12th District) fought against the closure.

Both representatives co-chair the Save our Fort advocacy group, which is made up of local political leaders, business owners and other Fort Monmouth advocates.

The closure of Fort Monmouth, which is made up of 1,126 acres, would mean displacing 5,085 civilians and 467 military personnel jobs. Fort Monmouth, according to an analysis done by fort personnel, is believed to be responsible for 22,774 New Jersey jobs.

The students talked about how the closure of the fort would impact the borough that they live in.

"Closing Fort Monmouth would be a disaster to the people that work for it," said Samantha Irace, who is the daughter of Councilman Joseph Irace. "If you close Fort Monmouth, many more people will lose their jobs and the businesses that are in the towns surrounding Fort Monmouth will lose business. The people who work for Fort Monmouth go to the local shops for lunch and those businesses will lose a lot of customers."

Irace added that her favorite pizza place, Enzo's, might succumb to the closure of the fort. "My friends and I always go to Enzo's after school to hang out," she wrote.

Liza Sidun, 13, asked the president why they should rebuild all the labs and facilities that are of top level at the fort and waste taxpayers'money.

Along with the economic crisis, the loss of the fort would be a "major put-down" to the employees at the fort, wrote Sidun.

"The scientists and technicians working at Fort Monmouth are very knowledgeable and losing them would hurt our military deeply," she wrote.

Heather Tier added that the closure of the fort would also mean the closure of the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (USMAPS).

"If Fort Monmouth closes, it would cost a great deal to move and rebuild this school," she wrote.

Tier wrote that the first estimate of the cost to move the school was calculated at $29 million and now it is estimated at $175 million.

"Some of these costs will come out of our taxes," she wrote. "The country cannot afford to waste tax money, since America is in a recession."

Matt Muh asked Obama to empathize with their position to not see the fort close.

"You always talk about fairness and empathy in your speeches," he wrote. "I hope that you can see that closing Fort Monmouth is not fair to us in New Jersey."

Alexandra Becker said another reason not to close the fort is the visits from soldiers to their school.

"The soldiers [at the fort] normally come to our school and talk to us about Fort Monmouth and the military," she wrote.

Kristin Dolan, in her letter, agreed.

"It is not every day that a young child can hear a true American soldier's story," she wrote.

Becker went on to write, "It's not only adults who want to keep the fort open, it's also children.

"We aren't just children who don't understand what is going on," she wrote. "We have feelings about Fort Monmouth, and my friends and I think that you shouldn't close it."