the cuts are already beginning and it looks a bit rough
Des Moines Register
March 7, 2012
Air Force Asks Congress To Cut 459 Jobs From Iowa Air Guard
By William Petroski
The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday asked Congress to eliminate 459 positions within the 132nd Wing of the Iowa Air National Guard as part of a broader reduction in Pentagon spending and a realignment in military forces.
Col. Gregory Hapgood Jr., the Iowa National Guard’s public affairs officer, said Tuesday night the Air Force’s proposal would result in the loss of 81 full-time jobs associated with the Des Moines-based unit, plus an additional 378 part-time military positions. The fighter wing, which dates to the early 1940s, currently has nearly 1,000 airmen.
The Air Force’s announcement on Tuesday follows a Pentagon recommendation last month to eliminate all F-16 combat aircraft in Des Moines. The Air Force has proposed replacing the fighter unit with one that remotely controls unmanned combat aircraft. But the Predator or Reaper drones wouldn’t be based in Des Moines and would probably be located outside of the United States.
Buffalo News
March 7, 2012
Pentagon Plan Cuts 845 Jobs At Falls Base
By Jerry Zremski, News Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON — Some 845 jobs, including those of 580 part-time Air National Guardsmen, are targeted for extinction at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station under an Air Force budget-cutting plan detailed Tuesday.
The Pentagon personnel plan would eliminate the jobs at the Air National Guard’s 107th Airlift Wing, one of two major units at the base, starting in fiscal 2013, which begins Oct. 1.
The number of C-130 cargo planes at the base would shrink from 11 to eight next year as well.
Pentagon documents also did not specifically say that the personnel proposal will “disestablish” the 107th. That narrow loophole in the language will make it easier for local lawmakers to continue their frantic search for a new mission for the unit.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon announcement came as a huge disappointment both to federal lawmakers and to community activists supporting the base.
Oklahoma City Oklahoman
March 7, 2012
Air Force To Shut Down Award-Winning Communications Unit At Tinker AFB
By Chris Casteel
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has decided to shut down an award-winning unit at Tinker Air Force Base that has flown to combat zones for more than 50 years to establish communications systems. About 600 uniformed positions are expected to be lost at the base because of the deactivation.
The Air Force announced Tuesday that the 3rd Combat Communications Group, known as the 3rd Herd, would be eliminated. The unit, which has five squadrons and is part of the Air Force Space Command’s 24th Air Force, has won numerous service awards. In 2009, it sent 361 combat airmen to 38 locations, including Iraq.
Col. Joseph Scherrer, commander of the 689th Combat Communications Wing at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, said, “In accordance with the President’s National Security Strategy, the Air Force is reducing deployable communications capabilities to match the reduction in combat air forces.
“Our primary responsibility right now is to take care of our airmen and their families in the 3 CCG as they begin to transition to other units.”
The announcement about the 3rd Herd came as the Air Force released personnel changes proposed for all of its domestic bases over the next 18 months. Tinker is expected to lose nearly 700 active-duty positions and 177 civilian jobs; those include cuts on top of the unit deactivation.
The elimination of the unit is the latest in a series of budget-related moves forced by cuts of nearly $500 billion in projected military spending over the next 10 years.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 7, 2012
Gulf States’ Governors Ask Obama To Keep Transport Aircraft In Fort Worth
By Chris Vaughn
FORT WORTH — Fierce opposition to an Air Force proposal to permanently ship a squadron of Texas Air National Guard C-130s out of Fort Worth and plant the transport aircraft in Montana continues to blossom across the Gulf of Mexico.
The Gulf states’ governors — Rick Perry in Texas, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Phil Bryant in Mississippi, Robert Bentley in Alabama and Rick Scott in Florida — sent a letter to President Barack Obama earlier this week, requesting that he step in and alter the Air Force’s plans to take “away a powerful airlift asset for saving the lives of Gulf Coast States’ citizens” during natural disasters.
A growing chorus of congressional representatives in Washington, D.C., is also pointedly questioning Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz as they make the rounds of committee hearings. One Capitol Hill staff member said “there will not be a hearing where they will not be questioned by a Texan or Gulf Coast representative.”
Mastermind Century Group 