Fort Bragg training, readiness topic of chamber roundtable

The training and readiness of Fort Bragg troops and whether the Army post is competing with private businesses were among the biggest concerns voiced by community leaders Friday.

An overflow crowd of business, community and government leaders posed questions on those and other topics to a special roundtable hosted by the Greater Fayetteville Chamber.

Providing the answers were Sen. Thom Tillis, Rep. Richard Hudson and Rep. Mac Thornberry.

Thornberry, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is a Texas Republican who visited Fayetteville for the event at Hudson’s request.

He is the most recent congressional leader from outside the district to visit Fayetteville or Fort Bragg.

Hudson and Tillis said they are committed to showing the nation’s leaders that the hometown installation is unique. Nearly every military installation can make that claim, Tillis said, but none share the quick response mission of Fort Bragg’s paratroopers and special operations forces.

Thornberry said community support was crucial to any military community, especially at the nation’s largest.

He noted that defense spending has decreased 23 percent in recent years, but the world has not become safer.

“Fort Bragg knows as well as any installation we were still asking a lot of our people,” Thornberry said. “I know how important Fort Bragg is. I want to hear what y’all think would be important for us to hear.”

Questions from local leaders focused on readiness, in particular the impact of the loss of the 440th Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit slated to be inactivated later this year.

Tillis and Hudson opposed the inactivation of the 440th Airlift Wing, which operated the only aircraft permanently stationed at Fort Bragg, and have more recently pressed for the Air Force to explain why it is failing to meet training requirements for local soldiers.

Thornberry said he has heard the concerns over Air Force support at Fort Bragg and is supportive of efforts to better track that support.

Provisions in the House and Senate versions of a pending defense bill would require the Air Force to submit regular reports on their support to Fort Bragg. Tillis and Hudson already receive some of that information, and they said the numbers are not improving.

“How are we going to keep our paratroopers trained?” Hudson said. “We’re going to stay on this doggedly and determinedly.”

Tillis said the data will likely lead to an “I told you so” moment, but he stopped short of criticizing Air Force leaders.

He said part of the problem is that Congress has imposed too many restrictions on the military.

“We beat these people until they bleed and then we beat them for bleeding,” Tillis said.

He said the inactivation of the 440th Airlift Wing was the “fifth or sixth” best option according to Air Force leaders. The Air Force would have preferred to inactivate other units, but each were protected by a prohibition on base closure or some other congressional restriction.

Thornberry compared the inactivation of the 440th to Air Force efforts to divest its A-10 fleet.

He said both issues show the military services need to take a more holistic look at their budgets, keeping the total force in mind.

But part of the blame, Thornberry said, falls on Congress.

“The Constitution says it’s Congress’s job to build and support, raise and maintain the military forces of the United States,” he said. “We have an obligation to look at overall force, not just what the Air Force needs but what the whole picture is.”

Thornberry said Congress must insist Fort Bragg’s paratroopers are adequately trained.

“Otherwise we are not preparing people for what the country asks of them,” he said.

Tillis, who also is pushing for an expansion of the runway at Fort Bragg’s Pope Field, said a possible solution if the Air Force doesn’t improve its support may be bringing another Air Force unit to the installation.

A longer runway would allow C-17s to be based at Fort Bragg. Those planes are much larger than the older C-130H planes used by the 440th Airlift Wing.

On the topic of business competition with Fort Bragg, some leaders expressed concerns that the installation was building retail establishments that would potentially take money away from Fayetteville and the surrounding region.

Kirk deViere, a Fayetteville city councilman, specifically referenced a conference and catering center that opened on post last year, and a planned theater complex.

Fort Bragg leaders have said the proposed theater would not be built with taxpayer funds. Instead, it is being built by the self-funded Army & Air Force Exchange Service. Fort Bragg leaders also have repeatedly said the Iron Mike Conference and Catering Center was built to replace the aging Fort Bragg Club.

The venue hosts commanders conferences, job fairs and other events that would be unsuitable for or inconvenient to be held at an off-post establishment, officials have said.

Tillis said installations need to think about what makes sense given the post and the outside community.

“What you want to do is make sure that if there’s money being invested on base it’s of the best and highest use,” he said.

A short time later, Tillis firmly rejected the idea that Congress could somehow impose a local sales tax on Fort Bragg retail establishments. He said that would never pass muster.

“For what they make, they still don’t make a lot,” he said of soldier pay. “And a couple of pennies here and there adds up.”

Instead, Tillis said leaders need to find some other ways to benefit military communities, working with the Department of Defense on economic programs and better counting the military population in censuses.

“That’s something I can get behind,” he said.