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LaHood's congressional district
contains the 183rd Fighter Wing base at Abraham Lincoln Capital
Airport. LaHood will not be able to attend the regional hearing in
St. Louis as he will be escorting BRAC Commissioner Samuel K.
Skinner while Skinner tours the 183rd base at the same time on
Monday. Following is LaHood's
statement prepared for submission Monday to BRAC.
Testimony of the Honorable Ray LaHood,
18th Congressional District, Illinois
BRAC regional hearing, St. Louis, Mo
June 20, 2005
Adm. Gehman, Gen. Turner and
Congressman Hansen, thank you for the opportunity to submit a short
statement on behalf of the 183rd Fighter Wing, located at the Air
National Guard Station, Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport,
Springfield, Ill.
I would like to commend the men and
women of the Illinois Air National Guard, and the 183rd Fighter Wing
in particular, for their hard work in the defense of our nation.
Additionally, the local community strongly supports the 183rd. From
our U.S. Sens. Durbin and Obama, to Congressmen Shimkus, Evans and
myself, through the local leadership of Mayor Tim Davlin and the
many grass-roots supporters, no community is more proud of their
local unit than Springfield is of the 183rd.
We need to be clear on what the
Department of Defense's base closure recommendation is: It is a way
to move equipment, not reduce infrastructure. We have all heard the
many media stories about how this BRAC round will shed excess
infrastructure and save billions of dollars. Moving aircraft from
the 183rd Fighter Wing to the 122nd Fighter Wing does neither. It is
an attempt to go around the Congress and move equipment with no
oversight, no plan and no benefit.
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It will be pointed out in testimony
today that the Pentagon completely ignored their own announced
criteria when choosing to move aircraft from the 183rd Fighter Wing.
Simply put, the Pentagon plan moves the aircraft to a base with a
lower military value. Much has been made of the unprecedented amount
of data that this round of BRAC has generated. That data does not
lie -- Springfield has a higher military value, a higher fighter MCI
and a higher F-16 unit ranking than the 122nd Fighter Wing in Fort
Wayne.
One of the only reasons the Pentagon
gave in their recommendation for moving the 183rd Fighter Wing
aircraft is recruiting, which is not one of the 2005 BRAC selection
criteria. In fact, in this one case, the Pentagon says recruiting is
more important than military value. I say, go ahead and consider
recruiting. The 183rd Fighter Wing has outstanding recruiting
numbers and has for many years -- in times of peace and times of
war. The Springfield unit is more than 100 percent critically
manned. You simply cannot get much better than that.
The outstanding recruiting statistics
reveal much about the 183rd Fighter Wing and about central Illinois.
These men and women are eager to serve. They joined the Air National
Guard so they could serve both their community and their country,
and they have done both superbly. If we lose these planes, if we
lose the firefighters, we lose all of those who support them. These
folks will not move to Indiana. The Springfield area is their home.
It is where they chose to work, raise their families and serve our
country. The Guard will lose these fantastic men and women, and it
will be terrible loss for our armed forces.
I urge the commission to continue to
carefully scrutinize the Pentagon's recommendations. You will see
that there is no military, financial, political or practical reason
to move the 183rd Fighter Wing. We need them right where they are.
[News release from
Rep. Ray LaHood,
18th Congressional District] |
