WASHINGTON — More than a hundred Navy Reserve Centers across the country will continue to operate after Congress reversed course on a controversial proposal to eliminate the military centers that have long been the backbone of the naval reserves.

The decision to save the facilities came after U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio and other top lawmakers wrote to House and Senate leaders about the significance of the sites, which have been a key training ground for generations of sailors.

A panel of senators originally proposed cutting the sites because of allegations they were wasteful, ineffective and threatened the country's warfighting abilities — concerns that were challenged by those who oversaw the program.

The plan was originally tucked into the massive National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the U.S. military every year, but it has now been removed.

"Wisdom has prevailed," said retired U.S. Navy Capt. Byron King, Pittsburgh council president of the Navy League of the United States, who rallied support around the issue.

The move to salvage the program, which was created in the throes of World War I, began just days after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in October first reported the move by the Senate to shut down the centers and redirect training to other facilities.

King, a lawyer and former naval pilot, immediately launched a letter-writing campaign to key members of Congress, including Deluzio, saying that the Senate was provided wrong information before a final vote about the facilities and that they were important to the nation's military.

Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, a former Navy officer, responded to the effort, saying he would use his connections on the House Armed Services Committee and beyond to strike the language from the defense legislation.

Other lawmakers from both political parties joined the congressman, including U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.

"To me, it's about readiness," Deluzio told the Post-Gazette in an interview. "It's about making sure that people in Western Pennsylvania who want to serve, who are patriots, can still do it without having to foot the bill to go travel somewhere much further from home."

Deluzio's efforts to salvage the system came in the wake of his own controversy.

The representative has faced backlash from President Donald Trump over a video that the congressman released with five other lawmakers encouraging service members to refuse illegal orders. Trump called the message "seditious," leading to a wave of threats against the elected leaders — all former service members themselves — whom the FBI is now trying to investigate.

"I'm not going to be intimidated from doing my job," Deluzio told the Post-Gazette. "Whatever goes on politically with the president or anyone else, it never changes the job I'm elected to do."

Negotiations over the naval reserve centers also came as lawmakers hashed out other aspects of the defense bill, such as proposed limits on artificial intelligence regulation — a suggestion that also was scrapped.

A final vote on the legislation is expected this week.

"Maybe this one didn't reach as much national attention, but it mattered to communities like ours all across the country," Deluzio said. "There's a reason a lot of our members really got engaged and once we started spearheading that pushback, we were able to get support and ultimately kill this provision."

The centers, including one in Moon and others in Erie, Harrisburg and Avoca (near Pittston), serve as training facilities for reservists as well as outreach posts where families of reservists who are deployed at sea can receive updates about their relatives.

More training later takes place at Navy bases, including the U.S. Fleet Forces Command headquarters in Norfolk, Va., where the reservists are sent.

The closures would have been unprecedented in the decadeslong history of the Navy Reserve, King said.

"When we realized what it was, it was like 'holy smokes,' " he said. "I don't know who else around the country did anything like what we did."

The move to close the centers also sparked anger from Tim Flecker, a longtime Navy pilot who once served as commanding officer of the Pittsburgh-area center.

Forcing the sailors to commute longer distances to serve would have added undue stress and may have led some reservists to choose not to re-enlist, he said.

During his stint as commanding officer, Flecker said Western Pennsylvania sent more than 100 reserve sailors into conflicts in the Middle East.

While those reservists were deployed, Flecker said he and his staff remained in constant contact with family members — one of several "little functions" the center carried out that helped Pennsylvanians feel connected to the country's war efforts.

Launched in the 1930s to prepare the nation for war, the facilities helped deploy hundreds of thousands of men and women — many who later shipped out in World War II — in what was once hailed by military leaders as a critical support system to the Navy.

The reserve center near Pittsburgh is one of 107 facilities in U.S. states and territories.

The Navy Reserve force now staffs about 48,000 members — including 280 who drill at the Pittsburgh area center — and another 10,000 involved in training and other duties.

©2025 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.