The missing wing

Where is the 188th Fighter Wing in this bill?

Monday, January 7, 2013

— THE CURIOUS workings of the military mind grow curiouser and curiouser. Amidst all the authorizations, major investments and obscure pork projects in the 2013 defense authorization bill that finally cleared Congress (Whew!), there’s no provision for keeping what may be the consistently highest-rated outfit in the Air National Guard: the 188th Fighter Wing out of Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Conspicuous by its absence from the bill, the 188th doesn’t rate an authorization. And neither does its support staff, including the hundreds of well-trained and highly accomplished maintenance personnel who keep its A-10 Warthogs flying, fighting and in general destroying anything and everything the infantry needs destroyed. Completely.

The Warthog is a legendary American aircraft and deserves to be, what with its 800-mile range, record of reliability, famed endurance, and its ability to stay over a battlefield just as long as it needs to lest the enemy be fool enough to show itself.

Anyone who has watched a demonstration of a Warthog in action with its machine guns, rotary cannon, antitank and air-to-air missiles, plus high explosive bombs, to mention just some of its lethal features, isn’t likely to forget it. It’s not that the target is merely destroyed. After a Warthog has made its run, there’s nothing there. Except maybe a crater full of cinders. It’s a kind of flying arsenal, an armory with a plane attached. And the 188th is the best in the Air National Guard, or maybe the Air Force itself, at using these battleships of the air. No wonder the 188th regularly, almost uniformly, gets the highest ratings the inspectors can give a unit.

BUT THE 188th failed to make the cut when it came to this year’s authorization bill, though it was good enough to call on when two other units, one after the other, weren’t ready to deploy in Afghanistan. The 188th took their place, which is getting to be a habit. It can be counted on to be ready and able when other outfits aren’t. Yet both those other A-10 units are to keep their planes under the Air Force’s latest plan to restructure its National Guard wings, but not the 188th,whose 20 A-10s could be diverted to other units, or, if they’ve been found unfit for action, just retired.

The best A-10 outfit in the country may be told to switch to pilotless drones, the latest thing in air war. And a mighty welcome and useful innovation drones are, too, with their ability to pinpoint targets and take them out with great precision but without endangering any pilots. Because there are none. Despite the inevitable innocents killed in drone attacks (it’s called Collateral Damage in the euphemistic vocabulary of modern warfare), drones have their place. But so do the fabled Warthogs and those who fly and maintain them, especially for the 188th. What’s wrong with authorizing both?

Whatever the instincts of modern efficiency experts who think redundancy is just a synonym for waste, it can come in mighty handy for a military that needs all the back-up it can summon when the latest, snazziest, remote-controlled weapons somehow fizzle.

The same principle applies to civilian life. Just ask the folks on Long Island who were sufficiently fuddy-duddy to hold on to their land lines when everybody up to date had switched to cell phones-and the cell phones proved useless when Hurricane Sandy tore down the East Coast ruining cell-phone reception, while those old, retro phone lines allowed their lucky owners to keep in contact with the rest of the world. Handy thing, a little redundancy. Call it insurance.

Closer to home, ask anybody who has a generator of his own at the house in case of emergencies-like the snowstorm that just covered a good swath of the state in time for Christmas night. There’s nothing like being prepared, and having a tried and tested back-up when you need it. Like, say, the best A-10 Warthog wing in the United States Air Force. And now it may be lost, or at least completely changed. Call it the price of success: Let an outfit perform its mission surpassing well, and sure enough, the brass changes the mission. Also its equipment. And everything else about it.

THE STATE’S two senators are doing what they can to restore some sanity to Air Force planning, and Mark Pryor describes himself as “livid” at the news that the Air Force is proceeding with this ill-conceived plan to sacrifice the old 188th and its A-10s on the altar of what’s called (and only called) efficiency. And livid the senator should be. So should a lot of us, like all those who want this country’s military to stay the best-and to keep the best doing what they do best.

The masterminds who came up with this switcheroo of a plan to substitute the 188th’s trusted Warthogs with drones, however jarring the changeover or however long it may take or however uncertain the results may prove, were supposed to be shoring up the nation’s security. Not shaking it up. That kind of “planning” surpasseth all understanding, which may be the only thing it has in common with the peace of God.

It’s all enough to make one hope, and pray, that Otto von Bismarck was right when he said that God looks after fools, drunkards and the United States of America. ’Cause it’s hard to believe the hot-shot executives who came up with this idea are up to the job.

HAPPILY, the Air Force’s chief of staff, General Mark Welsh, is due in Fort Smith come Friday the 18th to look over the storied 188th himself. Welcome!

Sir, you’re about to see one of the Air Force’s finest units, and just about the best when it comes to flying one of the most formidable weapons in this country’s arsenal.

There’s a reason enemies of the United States of America in far distant places have heard of the A-10 Warthog, and waste no time running for cover when they hear its distinctive, high pitched buzz. That’s the tips of the turbofan blades breaking the sound barrier. By the time they hear it, it’s usually too late. No wonder the GIs on the ground love that sound; it means not just that help is on the way but it’s here. NOW! We think of it as the sound of freedom, and it’s music to our ears.

Maybe the general will have some influence on the final decision about whether the old 188th will keep making that assuring hum-and be allowed to keep doing its superlative job in general, General.

Editorial, Pages 10 on 01/07/2013