Saved in Terre Haute: Indiana Air Guardsmen of the 181st Fighter Wing in Terre Haute still have to give up their F-16s (to neighboring Fort Wayne, no less) under BRAC 2005, but they get two new missions in exchange, reports the Terre Haute Tribune-Star. The Pentagon plans to put an intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance data analysis unit (called a Distributed Common Ground Station) and an Air Support Operations Squadron (read that battlefield airmen) at Terre Haute. Combined, the two new missions will require about 420 Air Guardsmen.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…