Here’s a Box Score on Air Guard Fighters

ANG took some hits. The key dispute centered on ANG’s fighter units—A-10s, F-15s, F-16s. We present a preliminary box score (click box at left) of who won and who lost. Best we can tell, ANG started with 39 fighter sites. (Add Hickam AFB, Hawaii, a non-fighter base which will get ANG fighters, to make it 40.) The BRAC commission agreed with DOD that 12 of these bases should be stripped of fighters. The remaining 27 kept some fighters, and, in 12 cases, DOD and the panel were in total agreement about what kind and how many. In the case of 15 bases, however, there were disputes. Some bases got lucky and BRAC added fighters. Others got fewer than the Pentagon had prescribed. Still others got different kinds of fighters than the Pentagon wanted to give them. For all the of tugging and hauling, however, BRAC kept open only four fighter bases that DOD had marked for extinction—Ft. Smith, Ark.; Duluth, Minn.; Great Falls, Mont.; and Portland, Ore. For the entire Air National Guard, there was a net gain of only 12 fighters.