At Large

Even from this aerie, it’s impossible to take in all of Oceana, a sprawling naval complex that is one of America’s largest and most important military installations. Located on more than 5,000 acres of land in Virginia Beach, Oceana is the Navy’s East Coast Master Jet Base, one of two installations in the United States (the other is NAS Lemoore in California) devoted exclusively to housing, servicing and deploying the Navy’s combat-ready, or tactical, jets. Its westerly neighbor, Naval Station Norfolk, might be better known—it’s the largest Navy base in the world—but Oceana is equally vital to national security. “Fifty percent of the Navy’s tactical aircraft, give or take a few, are located here at Oceana,” explains Capt. MarkRich, the 49-year-old commanding officer of the base, sitting in his tidy ground-floor office on Oceana’s main street, named Tomcat Boulevard. Dressed in his black naval officer’s uniform, Rich is an unassuming and mannerly officer who appreciates the gravity of his command. In the event of an international crisis, it’s possible that pilots and aircraft from Oceana would be the first physical U.S. military presence on the scene, the so-called “tip of the spear.”

A former F-14 Tomcat pilot with combat experience in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, Rich is effectively the mayor of a small, aviation-oriented city. He is certainly well suited for the challenges, but acknowledges they are far different from anything he’s done before in his 27-year military career. For example, he must manage civilian and military contractors and labor unions, in addition to the dozens of military commands and facilities he oversees. “When all you do is go to your squadron, fly your airplanes and work in the field,” he says, “you have no awareness of the complexities and breadth of issues [at a major military base].”