JaBraun and Courtney were in the home stretch. He'd be home soon, in a few weeks. Instead, they called her out of class and sent her home to find two soldiers in their Class A uniforms.The head of the Indiana National Guard endorses the Pentagon’s plan to reduce spending and retire aircraft. He just doesn’t think Fort Wayne’s Air National Guard base is a good place to do it.
Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger vowed Wednesday to try to keep A-10 jet fighters stationed at the 122nd Fighter Wing on Ferguson Road rather than trade them in for intelligence aircraft.
The Department of Defense seeks to mothball 102 of its 348 A-10s as part of $487 billion in military spending cuts required by the Budget Control Act.
“We are in support of that. We’re not taking on the Air Force on that,” Umbarger said Wednesday during a news conference at the local base.
“We just say, why would you reduce those A-10s at an Air National Guard base when it is so cost-effective? We can be there when you need us,” he said.
As an aircraft that blasts tanks and provides close-air support to ground troops, “it’s the last plane you’d want to cut. That’s on the tactical side,” said Umbarger, a self-described “infantry guy.”
And with the 122nd Fighter Wing costing only 28 cents for every tax dollar spent at an active-duty Air Force base – largely because the base uses civilian airmen and flies out of neighboring Fort Wayne International Airport – “that ought to carry the day,” Umbarger said.
“I believe this is a dialogue that needs to go on with the Air Force to keep the A-10 fighter wing here in Fort Wayne,” Indiana’s adjutant general said.
Under a proposal unveiled last week, the Air Force would trim $50 billion in spending by sidelining 286 aircraft of various types and reducing its ranks by nearly 10,000 people, including 5,100 in the Air National Guard.
The 122nd Fighter Wing and Guard bases in Selfridge, Mich., and Fort Smith, Ark., would lose their A-10 squadrons – at least 20 planes at each base – and replace them with other craft.
Fort Wayne would receive nine to 11 MC-12W Liberty planes starting in October 2013. The twin-engine turboprop, which carries a crew of four, is used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
“We are very thankful that we do have a mission of that type that will be here, and it’s a very relevant mission,” Umbarger said. “It’s one that the Air Force is wanting to grow. We still feel like the A-10 mission is the best for us here.”
He said the conversion likely would mean staffing cuts – “I do not think it will be large” – at the 122nd. About 1,200 people work there, 364 of them full time. Without the A-10s, the complex would no longer need to maintain the missiles, bombs and machine-gun rounds carried by the planes.
Col. David Augustine, the base commander, told reporters: “We’ve got an amazing infrastructure here for fighter airplanes. But should that (mission) turn, we could use that infrastructure for different airplanes.”
The 189-acre base switched from the F-16 Fighting Falcon to the A-10 Thunderbolt II, nicknamed the Warthog, in the past three years.
“I thought that would give us a long and extended future to ultimately be able to compete for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,” Umbarger said about the next generation of jet fighters.
The Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce and the Fort Wayne Base Community Council announced a letter-writing campaign Wednesday to keep the A-10 squadron. The letters are being sent to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley.
“The business community recognizes the economic importance of the 122nd Fighter Wing in our community,” Chamber CEO Mike Landram said in a statement. “We are asking for their immediate help.”
Augustine said last week the federal government spent more than $58 million on the fighter wing in fiscal year 2011, including $43.7 million in pay and benefits. The White House is expected to release its fiscal year 2013 budget proposal Monday. Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress have said they will fight military cuts.
Umbarger noted the 122nd recently received an Outstanding Unit Award from the National Guard Bureau, the fifth time it has won the honor.
“It’s kind of ironic,” Umbarger said, considering the base might face another conversion.
