Free Republic

The Air Force’s plan to retire its entire fleet of A-10C “Warthogs” could make Davis-Monthan Air Force Base vulnerable to the next round of base closures. In its proposed budget, the Air Force would eliminate the close air support jet, including 55 active-duty A-10Cs at D-M, by fiscal year 2016 and 28 Air Force Reserve A-10Cs at D-M by fiscal 2019. In 2019, 21 F-16s would be moved to a Reserve unit at the base. The Pentagon also plans to cut its fleet of EC-130H Compass Call electronic warfare planes — based solely at Davis-Monthan — roughly in half, to...

Hundreds of Germans will lose their jobs through US Army troop withdrawals under cutbacks announced by the American military. The military announced last week that 554 Germans directly employed by US forces would be made redundant. But the communities around the army bases warned the knock-on effect would be far greater than the headline job loss figure. …

President Obama is backtracking from his campaign promise that “I don’t think now is the time” for another round of military base closures across the country. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday presented the $526 billion defense budget request for fiscal 2014, which explicitly calls for shutting down facilities in a process called Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC). “BRAC is the only effective means of achieving infrastructure consolidation,” the Pentagon said. “This BRAC round adds $2.4 billion to costs in the next five years but would eventually save substantial sums. The actual closing of bases would involve a multiyear...

FORT SMITH, Ark. — A plan by Air Force officials would remove the A-10 aircraft mission from the 188th Fighter Wing in Fort Smith next year and possibly replace it with one involving remotely piloted aircraft. The proposal released by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz on Friday would give the 188th Fighter Wing an MQ-1/9 Remote Split Operations Squadron that would be made up of unmanned aerial vehicles commonly referred to as drones. The MQ-1 and MQ-9 wouldn't be assigned to the base, only a ground control operation station from which the unmanned aircraft are operated. [snip]...

[snip] Air Force Secretary Michael Donley met Tuesday with Michigan Reps. Candice Miller and Tim Walberg, who concerned about losing the A-10 mission at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. “Secretary Donley indicated that the Obama Administration is not open to making any alterations to their proposed cuts and all of the cuts outlined last week will be included in the budget the President plans to send to Congress next week,” the two Republicans said in a joint statement. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, left a Thursday meeting with Donley still frustrated with the Pentagon’s plans for the Iowa National Guard’s 132nd...

One of the proposals for the Department of Defense to cut costs is having a Base Realignment and Closure round in fiscal year 2013, which begins on Oct. 1. While there is a possible impact on Fort Huachuca, exactly what it could be — closure, reduction of missions or new units being assigned — is unknown. The BRAC possibility is leading the co-chair of the Arizona Military Affairs Commission and former president of the Fort Huachuca 50 Tom Finnegan of Sierra Vista to issue a call to arms to not only defend the post but other military installations in the...

SIERRA VISTA — At noon, Arizona time, the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chefs of Staff, the top uniform officer in America’s armed forces will be holding a press conference to discuss proposals to reduce the military budget. Part of the proposals include the potential of having two Base Realignment and Closure rounds, one starting in 2013 and the other in 2015 Pentagon sources said. The Defense Department has to reduce its budget, as part of the overall reduction of federal spending to lower the nation’s growing deficit, which currently exceeds $15 trillion. There have been...

In one of his last ceremonial duties as the Naval Support Activity’s final commanding officer, Capt. Brian Harrison encased the service’s blue flag in a sock-like sleeve Friday morning, bringing to a close a 110-year naval presence in the Crescent City and an end to his three-year tour as skipper of the installation he knew as a child growing up in Algiers. As a Marine Corps band ensemble played “Auld Lang Syne,’’ a Navy color guard carrying that flag solemnly marched away. And shortly afterward, Lt. Col. Todd Ford and Sgt. Maj. Chris Bloebaum, commanding officer and the highest-ranking of...

The combined magnitude of our economic and fiscal problems dwarfs any of the politically sticky problems we've faced in the past, and our situation is complicated in ways past crises were not. Tough times call for a new mechanism for achieving the large spending cuts necessary to avoid an economic collapse. Fortunately, a successful model exists for making difficult cuts. The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission process was created by Congress to deal with the politically sensitive problem of shuttering domestic military installations.  After public comment and review, BRAC reports accepted by the President are deemed approved by Congress...

Speaker Mop & Glo made headlines for her call to investigate opponents of the Ground Zero mosque, but there was something else about her remarks that should have raised your hackles: “There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we...

Kirtland Air Force Base will lose 18 ANG F-16Cs from the 188th Fighter Squadron & hundreds of jobs as part of the federal government's plan to cut its fighter fleet. By the end of this autumn the USAF will have reduced its fighter fleet by 250 jets. The first jets begin to leave as of April 1st and the government hopes the last will be retired by the end of September. The hope is that some of the money saved will allow the USAF to purchase new aircraft such as the F-35. Retired Col. Charlie Thomas a military analyst and...

WHAT COULD THIS MEAN ! IS MARTIAL LAW RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER ?

While the Democrats appease Senator Lieberman, they still have to worry about other recalcitrant Democrats including Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. Though Lieberman has been out front in the fight against the public option and the Medicare buy-in, Nelson was critical of both. Now that those provisions appear to have been stripped from the bill, Lieberman may get on board, but Nelson's demand that taxpayer money not be used to fund abortion has still not been met. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson...

Quite an explosive leak! I wonder how this will affect things? It is certainly a thuggish and dangerous thing for Obama to play with National Security over this craptacular idea of socialized medicine. Quite a desperate move. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn’t fall into line. Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.”...

The job surge at Fort George G. Meade will turn the sprawling west county Army installation into one of the largest workplaces in the nation, making it well more than double the size of the Pentagon. By Paul W. Gillespie - The Capital Bob Hodge, a safety inspector with the Army Corps of Engineers, has kept a watch on the frenzy of construction at Fort George G. Meade that started several months ago. Work is continuing on millions of square feet of office space, including the Defense Information Systems Agency’s new building where Hodge is standing. Advertisement By 2015, an...

End of an era: Aircraft depart Brunswick Naval Air Station as Maine base readies for closing. The two last planes at Maine's Brunswick Naval Air Station lifted off Saturday in blustery winds, ending nearly 60 years of maritime patrol operations at New England's last active-duty military air base. The P-3 Orions of the VP-26 squadron lumbered down an 8,000-foot runway before heading off to a six-month deployment in Central America. After that, they fly to their new home at Florida's Jacksonville Naval Air Station. The planes took off without any speeches or fanfare ... Brunswick, once home to 4,000 sailors...

Politicians with ties to land developers are trying to force the Navy to hand over one of the most valuable pieces of property in the country for free. The House version of the 2010 Defense authorization bill scheduled for conference today contains language that would speed the transfer of Naval Station Treasure Island to the city of San Francisco at no cost.

As part of our special investigation "Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide," we asked a host of military thinkers to contribute their two cents on topics relating to global Pentagon strategy. (You can access the archive here.) The following dispatch comes from Katherine T. McCaffrey, an assistant professor of anthropology at Montclair State University in New Jersey and author of "Military Power and Popular Protest: The US Navy in Vieques, Puerto Rico".

As the military prepares to close Fort Lawton, an Army Reserve base nestled in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, a city proposal to develop a 200-home subdivision that includes housing for the homeless angers some residents. ___ A newly released city plan to redevelop the soon-to-be-closed Fort Lawton in Seattle calls for building a 200-home subdivision of market-rate and affordable housing on about 18 acres. At a final community meeting Saturday at Fort Lawton, those living near the Army Reserve base said they didn't oppose housing for the homeless, but they worried that the total number of homes proposed and the percentage...

Munitions pose no danger FORT KNOX — World War I-era munitions found at a construction site at Fort Knox pose no danger, Army ordnance experts determined. Construction workers at the site of the future Human Resources Center of Excellence discovered the mortar shells Friday while moving soil for a sewer system. As an additional safety measure, an expert from the Army Corps of Engineers was brought in to inspect the site and present the post with options for proper site clean up and disposal. Based on inspection findings, Col. Mark Needham, garrison commander, directed an ordnance expert be hired to...