188th base could be target of budget cuts

story by Michael Tilley
[email protected]

The 188th Fighter Wing based in Fort Smith may be one of the many military cuts possibly to result from Congressional failure to reach a deficit-cutting agreement.

According to a statement form the Arkansas National Guard, Major General William Wofford, the state’s adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard, met Tuesday (Nov. 22) in Fort Smith with members of the 188th Fighter Wing to talk about how pending military budget cuts could impact the 188th. The statement said the cuts could be the largest since World War II. (See the complete statement at the end of this story.)

The base has a full-time contingent of about 350 service members.

A bipartisan, bicameral “super committee” of Congressional leaders announced Monday (Nov. 21) that they had failed to reach an agreement to tackle the country’s deficit spending and $15 trillion debt crisis.

When the super committee was established earlier this year, it was structured in a way to institute across-the-board spending cuts in the federal government should the group fail. Those cuts won’t start for at least another year. The cuts include more than $1 trillion in cuts to federal budgets during the next decade. The nation’s military would bear the biggest brunt of the deep cuts, as much as 10%, or $450 billion over the next 10 years.

‘EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE’
"We wanted to clarify some rumors that are floating around,"  Wofford said in the statement. "The reality is, after visiting with the director for the Air National Guard, the 188th could potentially be under consideration. What we’ve been told is that anything and everything is on the table. At this point we don’t know what the cuts are going to be in the DoD budget."  

Continuing, Wofford noted: "We’ve got to show that the Fort Smith unit is the most cost effective A10 unit in the Air Force. We think we’ve got a good argument. With Fort Chaffee right next door, they can be on the range in just a matter of minutes. From a flying hour perspective, we’ve got a good argument for taxpayers."

The news comes four years after the 188th converted from the F-16 fighter jet to the A-10 ground support aircraft. The 188th recently completed its first combat tour in the Warthog. The 188th’s accomplishments during the aircraft conversion and subsequent deployment earned the wing the coveted Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for the period Oct. 1, 2008, to Sept. 30, 2010.

Conversion to the A-10 was the product of a last minute reversal of a decision to close the 188th. During May 2005, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission was faced with 834 closings or realignment recommendations from the Department of Defense. Closing the 188th and reassigning its F-16 fighters was one of the DOD choices. The commission had to review the DOD info and make its own recommendations to President George Bush by Sept. 8, 2005. BRAC members visited 184 locations and held nine regional hearings in the process.

A contingent of Fort Smith business and civic leaders lobbied to keep the base open, saying the training area in Fort Smith, room to grow at the Fort Smith Regional Airport, the firing range at Fort Chaffee and training airspace in the area was too valuable for the military to abandon. The BRAC members agreed, and moved a squadron of A-10 Thunderbolts to Fort Smith.

The Air Guard recently opened an $8.3 million support building on the 188th base that was constructed with federal stimulus dollars. During the February grand opening, 188th Wing Commander Col. Tom Anderson said more than $30 million has been invested in the base since the BRAC closure recommendation was overturned.

CONTINGENCY PLANNING
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, said Tuesday he was not surprised by the announcement.

“Speaking only from a logical point of view knowing how large organizations plan for contingencies,” it is only reasonable to conclude “there has been a lot of contingency planning has been going on which the super committee was meeting,” Womack said.

Continuing, he said it is likely that “all of the services have been carefully scrutinizing their respective budgets” to develop “a number of scenarios” on how to cut their budgets.

Womack said the military cuts are “potentially hurtful to the nation’s security,” and are the result of both parties being unable to reach compromise on deficit reduction.

“Any time our political process fails on something so important to the future of our nation, I don’t think you can just say it’s one side or the other,” Womack said.

NEW MISSION?
In the Guard statement, Wofford said the location of the 188th base would make it an ideal candidate strategically for the F-35 strike fighter, as it was for the F-16. He said the F-35 is not now an available mission for the unit, but could be in the future.

"Nobody knows what’s going to happen yet, "said Wofford, "but whatever happens is not going to occur until after the unit’s upcoming deployment."

The unit is slated for an Air Expeditionary Forces rotation to Afghanistan in 2012, after having already logged 2,870 combat flight hours there in 2010, noted the Guard statement.

Wofford said his Fort Smith visit was to “help ease rumors in the unit” while it prepares for its future mission.

"I wanted the people to know we were going to be up front with them," Wofford said of his Fort Smith meeting. "We’ve heard the same rumors they have. We’ve got the same concerns they do. The earliest we would probably know would be February, when the president’s budget comes out. We can’t wait till February to tell our story and make the case. We’ve got to work now."

Fort Smith Mayor Sandy Sanders issued the following statement about the possible 188th cut: “The 188th Fighter Wing, Arkansas Air National Guard, is a vital component of our region’s economy. Even more importantly, members of the unit have proven time and again their military value to our nation’s defense, through combat zone deployments, and implementing maintenance procedures that are now saving the entire Air Force more than a million dollars annually. Earlier this year, the 188th earned the Air Force’s second-highest unit-wide honor – the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award. It’s absurd to think that this stellar unit – based in a community with one of the lowest costs of doing business in the nation – could once again be considered a candidate for closure. Rest assured the City of Fort Smith will work in concert with the 188th Fighter Wing / Fort Chaffee Community Council to pursue every potential avenue of attack to protect our unit from any potential threat – as they so ably protect our nation.”

ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD STATEMENT
Rumors addressed with Fort Smith’s 188th Fighter Wing ~ A-10 units among discussion of Department of Defense budget cuts

"I wanted the people to know we were going to be up front with them," Wofford said of his meeting with the troops today.  "We’ve heard the same rumors they have.  We’ve got the same concerns they do. The earliest we would probably know would be February, when the president’s budget comes out. We can’t wait till February to tell our story and make the case. We’ve got to work now."