In other decisions affecting Air Force facilities, the BRAC panel deviated from some Pentagon recommendations. Eielson AFB, Alaska, will keep its active aircraft unit and Galena Airport Forward Operation Location will close. Air Force Institute of Technology will stay in Dayton, Ohio; Onizuka AFS, Calif., will close; Seymour-Johnson AFB, N.C., gets F-15 engine maintenance work from Langley AFB, Va.; Air Reserve Personnel Center will move from the former Lowry AFB, Colo., to Buckley AFB, Colo. (the Pentagon had planned to send it to San Antonio). Hanscom AFB, Mass., will not get some 1,000 new high-tech jobs which the Pentagon had proposed moving there from other states; instead, it will lose 200 of its present workforce.
The roles and missions executed by Air Force warriors are essential to the nation’s security. Yet after three decades of constant demand and minimal replenishment, our Air Force is too small and too old. It needs to be rebuilt. The Trump administration and Congress must fund that modernization to ensure…