Budgets & ‘Betrayal’: National Guard Fights To Keep Apache Gunships

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/01/budgets-betrayal-national-guard-fights-to-keep-apache-gunships/



Budgets & ‘Betrayal’: National Guard Fights To Keep Apache Gunships
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on January 23, 2014 at 1:27 PM

“To be honest, we feel betrayed.”

That’s what one National Guard gunship pilot told me when I asked him about the Army’s plan to strip the Guard of all its AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. That plan — still awaiting approval by President Obama before he includes it in his budget request for fiscal year 2015 — is just one part of a radical overhaul that includes complex downsizing and reshuffling of the Army’s entire helicopter force.

All told, the Army is losing 898 helicopters, 215 of them (24 percent) from the Guard. Driven by the cold realities of budget cuts, the plan has stirred fiery emotions that push the Army leadership and the National Guard community closer to all-out political war.

“Here’s the issue: The Army has to pay a $79 billon bill over the next five years,” Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Ray Odierno said this morning. “I can’t afford all the fleets of aircraft I have right now. We can’t afford them.…It is impossible under the budget that we’ve been given.”




unhappycamper comment: Stop bitching, you still have 57% of all non-discretionary funding.