The presence of several military and federal installations along the Mississippi Gulf Coast continues to have a strong impact on the local economy and nowhere on the Coast is the military more deeply rooted than in Biloxi, proud home of Keesler Air Force Base.  Keesler, the John C. Stennis Space Center, the Naval Construction Battalion Center, the Army and Air National Guard, and the Biloxi VA Hospital generate a combined economic impact of more than $2 billion annually and employ an estimated 19,000 active-duty personnel. Besides active-duty personnel, there are more than 6,600 civilian employees and thousands of dependents and retirees of the government who reside on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.