For a proud organization such as the Air National Guard, it has been a tough year. As if losing dozens of bases across the country weren’t enough, it is also giving up flying missions and taking on new, unfamiliar roles.
After getting over the shock of such devastating news, the chief of the Air Guard says it’s time to stop grieving and start building a new future.
The dramatic changes planned for the Air Guard is the work of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which called for the restructuring of 56 of the Air Guard’s 91 flying units, with 14 losing their flying mission, 33 units gaining or losing aircraft, five units converting to a different type of aircraft and four units sharing aircraft with Air Force active-duty units.
“This BRAC was probably the most extensive reallocation of assets that we in the Air National Guard have ever seen,” says Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley, director of the Air National Guard.
“When I first took this job a year ago, I really did feel that it was a blow to us, because it had shifted missions, it had moved people around, it had created some tension amongst units that had had stability for 60 years,” he tells National Defense aboard a C-17 preparing for departure. “But quite frankly, the grieving period is over for me, and most of our units have now moved on.”
As the Air Guard shuffles aircraft to different bases, units that have lost flying missions are transitioning into ground-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance duties, among others.
“It will probably take five to 10 years to fully implement and fully retrain and reset our force, but after it’s done, you’ll have a very highly capable and efficient Air National Guard that will integrate well with the active component and support the needs of the states and the territories,” says McKinley.
By law, all BRAC recommendations must be completed by 2011. The Air Force is responsible for implementing the changes affecting the Air Guard.
“We have budgeted for all BRAC-required actions to be completed by fiscal 2011,” says Lt. Col. Edward Thomas Jr., spokesman for the Air Force, in an email response to questions from National Defense.
Still, there are hurdles for the Air Guard.
“In this fiscally challenging environment, it’s going to be difficult to go through all the BRAC legislation, reset our force, and then move into all these new missions at the same time,” says McKinley.
Units are being uprooted from traditional flying duties and taking on new ones, such as intelligence operations.
The 163rd Air Refueling Wing, with a long history of flying fighters and tankers at March Air Reserve Base in California, converted to an MQ-1 Predator unit. It is now responsible for flying the unmanned aircraft from home station in surveillance missions overseas.
Likewise, the 119th Fighter Wing in Fargo, N.D., which McKinley says was instrumental in the defense of North America during the Cold War and after 9/11, also has become a Predator unit.
Though some aviators who have flown for years in cockpits have balked and resisted unmanned systems, McKinley believes the transition is a necessary one and will come to be accepted.
“I think you will see all of our units go through this, to the point where in four or five years, we probably won’t be talking about this anymore. We’ll be talking about this new reshaped Guard that is supporting its Air Force and supporting its governors in peace time, for natural disasters, and for man-made disasters,” he says.
But as units transition into new missions, the Government Accountability Office has raised concerns about staffing, training and equipment challenges that could impede the conversions.
McKinley echoes some of those concerns.
“What I’m a little nervous about is how long it will take us to convert an entire unit into a new mission. That will require a lot of training quotas that we presently don’t have,” he says.
The GAO study reports that about 3,000 Air Guard personnel need to be trained for intelligence functions, but the Air Force school can accommodate only a portion of this requirement.
“We are examining the possibilities of expanding training opportunities through distributed learning environments that would relieve the burdens, in part due to limitations of brick and mortar schoolhouses,” says Thomas, the Air Force spokesman.
The Air Force is augmenting training efforts by matching transitioning crews with experienced crews from other states.
“I’m confident the Air Force will fulfill its obligation to provide school spots for us,” says McKinley. “But we in the Guard need to understand that we may not get as many in the amounts as quickly as we would like, so patience is going to be important.”
The GAO report also suggested that there might be a readiness gap when some units will not be able to perform their new jobs.
“We have been able to close mission gaps by accelerating programs, developing interim bridge missions, or delaying the departure of existing weapons systems,” says Thomas. “We will continue to work these issues aggressively.”
During his tenure, McKinley wants to transition the Air Guard into relevant roles. “To do that, we have to be courageous enough to go to where the mission usually will be,” which means that in some cases Guard units will have to train and operate on active-duty installations, he says.
In some states, units will move from smaller civilian airports to Air Force bases to allow better access to new equipment. For example, in Virginia, the 192nd Fighter Wing is moving from its Richmond facilities to Langley Air Force Base to be the first Air Guard wing to fly the F-22A Raptor.
“We’re going to look for more opportunities to do that,” says McKinley. Sharing equipment is key to the Air Force’s total force integration initiative, which strives to consolidate airmen and aircraft.
During the past decade, the Air Guard has found itself with less discretionary income, and the immediate future also appears grim with looming budget cuts. The Air Guard’s budgets traditionally have consumed only 10 percent of the Air Force’s $128.8 billion budget.
“We are migrating our units to component bases so we can leverage that capability of using a single base, a single runway, a single hangar, a single operations building, so that we don’t have multiple bases and too much infrastructure around the country,” he says. “It’s going to take that kind of thinking to get us through these next 10 to 15 years of very lean budgetary times.”
Because the 107,000-member Air Guard must be ready to respond to crises in the homeland, critics have questioned the decision to share aircraft with Air Force units. If a significant disaster were to strike at home while military forces are fighting overseas, they worry that equipment would not be available for use.
“I suppose you can come up with a scenario where everything is tasked, and that would be a huge issue. But in a normal scenario that we’ve projected over 20 years, we believe we have enough assets where we can fight the away game and dedicate a significant portion of our assets to supporting a state emergency at the same time,” says McKinley.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is one example in which the Air Guard was able to redirect equipment for relief efforts while supporting combat operations.
One of McKinley’s initiatives is to improve communications and coordination with other agencies. The annual Vigilant Guard exercise, conducted in Indiana in May, tested the Air and Army Guard forces and other federal, state and local agencies in handling a national emergency.
“That’s a perfect example of training together, exercising together, so that we don’t exchange business cards at the scene of an incident,” says McKinley.
Last year, the Air Guard forayed into new territory on the home front. It contributed 1,500 troops to the Border Patrol’s “Operation Jump Start” on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Air Guard dispatched civil engineering, communications and medical specialists.
“That was tough work, but we were able to do it very quickly — to ramp up to 6,000, do our job and support them as they recruited more border patrol agents. And now we can go back to a normal tempo back in our home units,” says McKinley.
During the next decade, Guard and reserve units expect to transition into future weapon systems, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the KC-X aerial refueling tanker, and into cyber-warfare units, says Thomas.
Of particular interest to McKinley is the Joint Cargo Aircraft, which is being debated in Congress.
“We want to make sure that airplane is built. We want it to come to the Air National Guard. We think it will be a vital component to our war fighting strategy overseas, and it will be an integral platform for natural disasters here at home,” he says.
McKinley hopes the Joint Cargo Aircraft schoolhouse will come to the Guard as well. States including Mississippi, Florida, Ohio and Oklahoma are all vying for it, he says.
The Air Force’s recapitalization efforts will have a trickle down effect on the Air Guard. McKinley says part of the grand strategy is to re-equip units that lost their aviation assets because of BRAC.
Recruiting too, will be a challenge and will require a lot of effort and thought, he says. The Air Guard, along with the Air Force, is having a difficult time bringing in recruits.
“People are not going to walk through the gates like they did 20, 30 years ago. We’re going to have to go out and find them,” he says. The Guard will have to sell them on a viable product and give them rewarding things to do. That is why these next few years of transition in the Air Guard is so critical, he says.
“My vision for the future is to hang onto good people, let them have a mission they’re proud of that has a future, and transform ourselves into a force that makes us a 21st century Air National Guard,” says McKinley. “We’ve got a very bright future in front of us.”
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