On 139th Airlift Wing, Air Force Agrees with McCaskill Plan for Funding, Budget Certainty
Air Force responds to Senator’s request with plan to help secure long term funding for base operations, programs
WASHINGTON – Following a request from U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill after her visit to the 139th Airlift Wing as part of her recent Security & Defense Tour of Missouri—the Air Force has agreed to develop a funding strategy to help secure budget certainty for the 139th Airlift Wing in St. Joseph.
“This month I am sponsoring a Total Force team of senior leaders from the National Guard Bureau, Air Force Reserve Command, and [Air Mobility Command] on a visit to St. Joseph, Missouri to assess both the [Weapons Instructor Course] and [Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center] manpower, funding, infrastructure, and airframe requirements for the near term and future years,” wrote General Carlton Everhart, the Commander of the Air Force Air Mobility Command, in a letter to McCaskill. “We intend to develop an enduring funding construct for this Total Force training in future Presidential Budget submissions. Thank you for your continued support of the 139th Airlift Wing, the Airmen and their families.”
McCaskill last month had written General Everhart, saying, “I sincerely hope you will work with the Air National Guard to ensure these strategically important courses are explicitly programmed in the fiscal year 2018 budget and subsequent budgets.”
McCaskill is a longtime advocate for the Missouri National Guard’s 139th Airlift Wing. This summer, as part of her Security & Defense Tour, McCaskill visited the 139th where she received a classified briefing from base leaders and heard directly from intelligence analysts examining the actions of America’s adversaries. Last month McCaskill raised budget uncertainty concerns she heard on her tour with top Pentagon officials, discussing the uniquely important role of the base’s Advanced Airlift and Tactics Training Center and Weapons Instructor Course in training fliers from the National Guard and Active Duty, as well as visiting pilots from international partner countries—and why that means it’s critical these courses get long-term funding for their long-term mission.
In her push to call for an “honest defense budget our men and women in uniform deserve,” McCaskill has consistently called on Republican leaders in Congress to properly budget for military operations. Under the plan proposed by the House of Representatives, the Department of Defense is slated to run out of war funding halfway through the 2017 fiscal year.
Because the 139th Airlift Wing has tactics development experts working in the same facility as intelligence analysts, changes to policy can be quickly assembled and disseminated to elements in the Active Duty, Air Force Reserve, and National Guard. Currently, the Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center and C-130H Weapons Instructor courses—the only ones in the Air Force—are not explicitly programmed for in the budget and are funded year-to-year, leaving the critically important programs without long-term certainty.
Full text of letter HERE.
Visit mccaskill.senate.gov/defense to learn more about McCaskill's fight to protect our national security.
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