Military Learning Center » Noble Eagle

Air Force cutting its fighter fleet

Angel — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:26:17 +0000

By fall, 250 fighters will be in the boneyard and the 4,000 airmen who fly or fix them will have new jobs, according to an officer overseeing the aircraft drawdown.The first planes head for retirement April 1; if all goes as planned, the last ones will be off the flight line by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.“Units have already started to put people on the move list,” said Col. Jack Forsythe, with the Air Staff’s strategic plans directorate.The Air Force unveiled the retirement plans in May but needed congressional approval to decommission the fighters, including primary, attrition reserve and backup inventory aircraft. The permission came Dec. 19, when President Obama signed the Defense Department’s fiscal 2010 budget.Included in the budget, however, are stipulations that the Air Force write several reports explaining, for example, the rationale for the retirements and the impact that the smaller fleet will have on Operation Noble Eagle, the military operations related to homeland security.“All the reports have been written and are under review,” Forsythe said. “We expect to have them to Congress in time for the 1 April deadline.” Retiring the planes — 135 F-15C/D Eagles, 112 F-16C Fighting Falcons and three A-10 Thunderbolts — should save $350 million in fiscal 2010 and $3.5 billion in the next five years, Forsythe said.The service hopes the saved dollars help pay for new aircraft.The positions assigned to the fighters will be transferred to growing missions such as surveillance and intelligence analysis, said Forsythe, who was operations group commander for F-117 Nighthawks at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., when those jets were retired two years ago.Planes will leave a few at a time and personnel will transfer when their fighters are retired. Maintainers and life support personnel will be reassigned to similar duties, Forsythe said.Most pilots will continue to fly but may have to cross-train into new planes.Last year, the Air Force identified many of the wings and squadrons to be decommissioned, but is still drawing up specific Air Force-wide retirement plans.WHAT’S IN, WHAT’S OUTChanges announced by the service last year*:F-15C/DEglin Air Force Base, Fla.: 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron loses two Eagles.Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska: 19th Fighter Squadron loses 24 jets.Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii: 199th Fighter Squadron loses 15 aircraft.Langley Air Force Base, Va.: 71st Fighter Squadron loses 18 airplanes.RAF Lakenheath, England: 48th Fighter Wing loses six Eagles.Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla.: 325th Fighter Wing loses 48 fighters.F-16Fort Wayne International Airport, Ind.: 163rd Fighter Squadron loses 18 fighters.Hill Air Force Base, Utah: 34th Fighter Squadron loses 24 Falcons.Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.: 188th Fighter Squadron loses 18 jets.Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.: 56th Fighter Wing loses 28 fighters.Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany: 52nd Fighter Wing loses 18 Falcons.A-10Barksdale Air Force Base, La.: 47th Fighter Squadron loses three fighters.Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.: 354th Fighter Squadron loses three Thunderbolts and 358th Fighter Squadron loses three aircraft.Moody Air Force Base, Ga.: 74th Fighter Squadron loses three aircraft and 75th Fighter Squadron loses three Warthogs.Fort Wayne International Airport, Ind.: 163rd Fighter Squadron gains 18 A-10s.Osan Air Base, South Korea: 25th Fighter Squadron loses three Thunderbolts.Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.: 303rd Fighter Squadron loses three jets.*The aircraft numbers don’t include the backup and attrition reserve aircraft the units are retiring.

Vets face blizzard of red tape, group says

Angel — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:20:05 +0000

Combat veterans returning to the U.S. often find themselves facing a new, complex and frustrating enemy: red tape.That is the assessment of a new report released Friday by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Here are some examples of the problems faced by veterans:• Drew Brown, an Iraq veteran who returned from a 2004 deployment struggling with anxiety and depression, says he asked the military five times over 16 months for mental health counseling before he got a call back. When he tried to get help from the Veterans Affairs Department, he says he was told it would take three weeks to schedule an appointment — which could only be at a far-off location between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m, requiring the former Army sergeant first class to take time off work.• Air Force veteran Aimee Sherrod, medically retired in 2005 as a result of post-traumatic stress related to a mortar attack on her unit on her second day in Iraq in 2003, received a 10 percent disability rating that she accepted because she thought she would get better. But when she got worse in 2008 during a pregnancy, she discovered that a VA hospital would not admit her as an inpatient because they weren’t prepared for maternity care. Instead, they told her to drop out of school and relax.• Navy veteran Richard Sanchez, a veteran of Operations Enduring Freedom, Noble Eagle and Iraqi Freedom, left the service in 2006 on disability with a recommendation for back surgery for treatment of injuries suffered when heavy equipment fell on him. It took three years for VA to schedule the surgery, about the same amount of time he has been struggling with a disability claim related to post-traumatic stress.• Army veteran Matthew Hamilton, who did two tours in Iraq, is one of about 1,500 student veterans still waiting to receive their fall GI Bill payments. “My claim has been with the VA over 200 days,” said the graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They have acknowledged they have all the information needed but cannot give me a reason why it has not been processed,” he said, calling it a “nightmare.”VA officials confirmed Hamilton’s claim has languished, apparently because of a dispute involving how to count credit hours for graduate students. “No one at VA wants a student veteran waiting for their check instead of focusing on their studies,” said VA spokeswoman Katie Roberts. The department “will do everything it can to resolve any outstanding issues and make sure this veteran gets the benefits he has earned.”The report says the four examples are not isolated but are representative of the kind of bureaucracy that the nation’s newest generation of combat veterans is facing.“More than 35,000 troops have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of them have suffered injuries not recorded in the official military tally,” the report says. “These new veterans and their families are shouldering an unacceptable burden, recovering from their injuries while navigating antiquated and deeply flawed military and veterans’ health care and disability systems.”The report is expected to be the centerpiece of a campaign next week as Iraq and Afghanistan veterans arrange meetings with members of Congress to talk about their needs.Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director and a founder of IAVA, testified Thursday before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee that while the nation is doing far better today to help veterans than when he returned from Iraq in 2004, “our work is far from done.”“Right now, thousands of veterans are unemployed, more than 100,000 are homeless and hundreds of thousands are desperately waiting months — sometime years — for their well-earned VA benefits,” he said.Improving the veterans’ benefits claims process is the top priority for 2010 of all major veterans groups, and several, including IAVA, are trying to draw up a comprehensive plan to address claims delays.The system is “archaic,” Rieckhoff said, with a lingering heavy reliance on paper-based military personnel and medical records that create numerous opportunities for key documents to go missing.“Hundreds of thousands of wounded troops and veterans are forced to wait months, and sometimes years, for disability compensation” because there is no electronic records system, he said.The report says troops wounded in service can face delays at every step, beginning with a military medical tracking system that doesn’t always have updated information available to treating physicians, which can result in redundant tests, misdiagnoses and delayed treatment.Other conclusions:• Troops placed in medical holding units can find themselves lingering without purpose if they arrive during a surge of wounded.• The military’s disability evaluation process seems to be aimed at making things hardest for those with the most complex injuries by generally rating only one condition when deciding a disability, so that a person with several problems may not get a fair rating.• For those leaving the military and needing care from VA, the transition is “anything but seamless,” in part because neither the Defense Department nor VA maintains complete records.• The wait for VA benefits and care can be lengthy because demand already exceeds capacity and is increasing as a result of the flood of new Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and the downturn in the economy. More than 450,000 veterans have waited more than 30 days for a doctor’s appointment, and more than 423,000 veterans are waiting for compensation claims to be paid.

Vets face blizzard of red tape, group says

Angel — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:20:02 +0000

Combat veterans returning to the U.S. often find themselves facing a new, complex and frustrating enemy: red tape.That is the assessment of a new report released Friday by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Here are some examples of the problems faced by veterans:* Drew Brown, an Iraq veteran who returned from a 2004 deployment struggling with anxiety and depression, says he asked the military five times over 16 months for mental health counseling before he got a call back. When he tried to get help from the Veterans Affairs Department, he says he was told it would take three weeks to schedule an appointment — which could only be at a far-off location between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m, requiring the former Army sergeant first class to take time off work.* Air Force veteran Aimee Sherrod, medically retired in 2005 as a result of post-traumatic stress related to a mortar attack on her unit on her second day in Iraq in 2003, received a 10 percent disability rating that she accepted because she thought she would get better. But when she got worse in 2008 during a pregnancy, she discovered that a VA hospital would not admit her as an inpatient because they weren’t prepared for maternity care. Instead, they told her to drop out of school and relax.* Navy veteran Richard Sanchez, a veteran of Operations Enduring Freedom, Noble Eagle and Iraqi Freedom, left the service in 2006 on disability with a recommendation for back surgery for treatment of injuries suffered when heavy equipment fell on him. It took three years for VA to schedule the surgery, about the same amount of time he has been struggling with a disability claim related to post-traumatic stress.* Army veteran Matthew Hamilton, who did two tours in Iraq, is one of about 1,500 student veterans still waiting to receive their fall GI Bill payments. “My claim has been with the VA over 200 days,” said the graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They have acknowledged they have all the information needed but cannot give me a reason why it has not been processed,” he said, calling it a “nightmare.”VA officials confirmed Hamilton’s claim has languished, apparently because of a dispute involving how to count credit hours for graduate students. “No one at VA wants a student veteran waiting for their check instead of focusing on their studies,” said VA spokeswoman Katie Roberts. The department “will do everything it can to resolve any outstanding issues and make sure this veteran gets the benefits he has earned.”The report says the four examples are not isolated but are representative of the kind of bureaucracy that the nation’s newest generation of combat veterans is facing.“More than 35,000 troops have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of them have suffered injuries not recorded in the official military tally,” the report says. “These new veterans and their families are shouldering an unacceptable burden, recovering from their injuries while navigating antiquated and deeply flawed military and veterans’ health care and disability systems.”The report is expected to be the centerpiece of a campaign next week as Iraq and Afghanistan veterans arrange meetings with members of Congress to talk about their needs.Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director and a founder of IAVA, testified Thursday before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee that while the nation is doing far better today to help veterans than when he returned from Iraq in 2004, “our work is far from done.”“Right now, thousands of veterans are unemployed, more than 100,000 are homeless and hundreds of thousands are desperately waiting months — sometime years — for their well-earned VA benefits,” he said.Improving the veterans’ benefits claims process is the top priority for 2010 of all major veterans groups, and several, including IAVA, are trying to draw up a comprehensive plan to address claims delays.The system is “archaic,” Rieckhoff said, with a lingering heavy reliance on paper-based military personnel and medical records that create numerous opportunities for key documents to go missing.“Hundreds of thousands of wounded troops and veterans are forced to wait months, and sometimes years, for disability compensation” because there is no electronic records system, he said.The report says troops wounded in service can face delays at every step, beginning with a military medical tracking system that doesn’t always have updated information available to treating physicians, which can result in redundant tests, misdiagnoses and delayed treatment.Other conclusions:* Troops placed in medical holding units can find themselves lingering without purpose if they arrive during a surge of wounded.* The military’s disability evaluation process seems to be aimed at making things hardest for those with the most complex injuries by generally rating only one condition when deciding a disability, so that a person with several problems may not get a fair rating.* For those leaving the military and needing care from VA, the transition is “anything but seamless,” in part because neither the Defense Department nor VA maintains complete records.* The wait for VA benefits and care can be lengthy because demand already exceeds capacity and is increasing as a result of the flood of new Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and the downturn in the economy. More than 450,000 veterans have waited more than 30 days for a doctor’s appointment, and more than 423,000 veterans are waiting for compensation claims to be paid.