Three National Guard members last week described the faults in the Army’s plan known as the Aviation Restructure Initiative, saying, among other things, that the nation would lose the decades of experience Guardsmen have flying and maintaining the complex AH-64 Apache helicopter.
“In my opinion,” said Col. J. Ray Davis of the South Carolina Guard, “ARI trashes this experience and it makes an irreversible and permanent move to a temporary problem.”
Davis, an Apache pilot with combat experience in Iraq and the director of military support for the South Carolina Guard, was joined by Maj. Gen. Michael T. McGuire, the Arizona adjutant general, and Chief Warrant Officer 5 Kenneth S. Jones, an Apache pilot with the Utah Guard.
They made up a panel at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., offering the state perspective on the Army’s plan, which is part of the president’s fiscal 2016 budget. The plan would remove all Apaches from the Guard and eliminate the entire OH-58 Kiowa fleet.
Davis pointed out that instructor pilots in his unit average 16 years of experience. Test pilots average more than 20 years and maintainers average 23 years repairing Apaches.
The panel spent much of its time responding to a study done by the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office which found that the Army plan would save money. McGuire agreed, but said the CAPE study fails to consider the experience found in the Guard and its role as the combat reserve of the Army.
“I don’t believe that the American citizens that we’re sworn to protect and defend believe that the only factor we should consider when making strategic choices for the country is money,” he said.
A plan from the National Guard Bureau looked at by CAPE included 20 percent more capacity than the Army plan.
