Mmmmm,
As for all the blah about wife/kids/job/mortgage/cat stability, get real - you can, and should reasonably expect, to be moved whenever they like if you want a full Service career.
First off, many folk join the services to enjoy world travel and a regular shift from base to base. If you were a kipper fleet NCO you got sent to Kinloss (since DG closed) and rotted there until Andy Stewart became Emperor. Having resolved themselves to accept this lack of movement, many tried desperately to enjoy curling, caelidhs, and various winter sports - which every sensible chap knows are uncomfortable at best and dangerous otherwise. Don't tell folk who have been denied the opportunity to enjoy our dwindling number of far flung bases over the years that they're somehow at fault for counting on the moribund stability they've endured for several decades now that the goalposts have been moved - overnight.
The problem with an airbase closure, which is what we are almost certainly looking at, is that your house is on the market along with a hell of a lot of other houses, all at the same time.
Moray is currently aghast, I think it'd be fair to say - it's not just the RAF personnel, but the local towns are having nightmares about the loss of income from the RAF, at the same time as local government cuts are biting deep and about to draw blood. Now dump lots of houses on the local market, which is far from buoyant anyway....I'm sure many a serviceman is currently imagining being permanently away from home, if he/she is posted elsewhere, as it will probably take years and years to break even on the house.... when it finally sells... and the wife/hubby and kids can join them.
Now throw in the closure of RAF Lossie, which everyone thinks is a foregone conclusion, and the problem doubles.
An individual being required to exit - well, tough luck, dry your eyes princess etc (I dislike that phrase, it seems to denote the self abusers in our community frankly) - but when you close a station the problems magnify tremendously, and I think it's more than a little stupid to not realise that this isn't a 'you are all subject to posting' type problem but a major upheaval that should never have been required....had our finances been appropriately managed.
So, my sympathy is with the personnel of RAF Kinloss, I expect to extend that sympathy to Lossie 6 months or so down the line, the people of Moray who will suffer the double whammy of harsh cuts in local government spending coupled with the deletion of a large part of the local community will also need - but I guess won't get - some help too.
Almost unnoticeable in all this, is the impact of losing so many folk who spent their spare time contributing to virtually every local charity, every local initiative - a LOT of the things that improved the lives of all around here will go when Kinloss dies.
Yes, I think NCA - but also everyone else at Kinloss - should be given a break. The defence review (bollerks, it was a spending review) has incidentally probably economically blighted a large part of Scotland, which call me Dave probably doesn't care about as there's more chance of Bin Laden getting the local seat than a Tory... as an englishman living and working in Forres, following a career ('he careered downhill') as NCO aircrew, I think we should all currently be booing and hissing the politicians, not servicemen.
Dave