Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson told hundreds of central Arkansas airmen what was to come in the military branch's future Tuesday from inside an airplane hangar.
Wilson, the 24th secretary of the Air Force, has been in the Natural State since Monday. She met with the Arkansas Air National Guard's 188th Wing in Fort Smith and visited the University of Central Arkansas to learn about a $500,000 grant to educate students on cyberattacks.
On Tuesday, Wilson began her town-hall-style meeting at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville by telling the roughly 700 airmen in the audience about her military roots.
Wilson's grandfather came to America in 1922 and flew for his new country in World War II, she told the crowd. Her father got his pilot's license as a teen and enlisted out of high school, she said.
In Wilson's junior year of high school, the U.S. Air Force opened its doors to women, and she enrolled in the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Wilson went on to represent New Mexico's 1st Congressional District from 1998 until 2009. In 2013, she became president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, a position she held until she was sworn in as secretary of the Air Force last year.
Wilson is now the Air Force's top civilian as the federal government, through a $1.3 trillion spending package passed by Congress last week, attempts to "restore the readiness of the force," she said.
The recent budget windfall is helping shore up a significant depletion of the Air Force's personnel that occurred about 5 years ago during a budget sequestration, she said. The Air Force lost about 30,000 people, she said.
"We haven't recovered from that," Wilson told a reporter after the meeting.
The bill, which is more than 2,000 pages, was criticized by both political parties for being passed with little time for review.
The bill appropriated about $700 billion to the Department of Defense. President Donald Trump said on Twitter that because of that money, "many jobs are created and our Military is again rich."
Included in the budget are 19 new C-130s, one of several approved aircraft expenditures, Wilson said. One airman asked if Wilson knew to which base those C-130s will be sent.
"No clue," she said.
Little Rock's base is known as "Home of the C-130" and has the largest active fleet of C-130 aircraft for the Department of Defense in the world, roughly 58 at any given time, according to a 2016 economic impact statement.
"Team Little Rock" is comprised of the 19th, 314th and 189th Airlift Wings, plus the 913th Airlift Group. The base supports roughly 6,370 military personnel, with 12,790 total personnel.
Those service members at Little Rock Air Force Base, and all Air Force military service members worldwide, will see a 2.4 percent pay increase, Wilson said.
"We are continuing to increase the amount of money that's coming to the Air Force. And now we have to use it well," Wilson told her audience.
Along with a beefed up budget, the Air Force is confronting the "re-emergence of great power competition," Wilson said. A major priority will be on space.
"Our adversaries know that every mission that we conduct in the military in some way depends on space," Wilson said. "And they know that we're the best in the world at this. ... They will seek to deny us the use of space. So we have to be ready for that."
Wilson also touched on something she's mentioned in prior speeches: The Air Force needs to streamline instructions.
There are more than 1,400 individual official agency instructions, including one on how to build an obstacle course, Wilson said.
"You probably don't need somebody in Washington, D.C., to tell you how to build it," she said.
One of those instructions required Wilson's personal approval when someone wanted to take a high-water vehicle to his home during a hurricane so he could return to work the next morning.
"This is nuts," Wilson said. One hundred of those instructions have already been rescinded, she said.
During the question-and-answer portion of Tuesday's event, Staff Sgt. Levi Sortomme asked whether the Air Force would be launching any programs geared toward single parents.
"As our society is moving forward; it's a lot more common to have these single parents than when the Air Force was formed years ago," he said.
"I don't have a magic answer for you," Wilson said. "But if there are things that would help, don't hesitate to say so."
When Capt. Mark Davis asked about the retention of intelligence analysts, Wilson told him that was less of a challenge than the impending "shift" in intelligence priorities.
Instead of "tracking down individual bad guys in central command," which will generally decline in the coming years, the intelligence focus will be on issues in China and Russia, she said.
Before the meeting ended, Wilson offered a few words of advice.
"Anybody who's in the Air Force who is not taking advantage of the educational benefits available to you is nuts."
She asked everyone who was working toward a bachelor's degree to raise their hands.
"I don't know of any company in America that would have that many hands in the air," Wilson said. "We are blessed that the American people would do that for us."
"Choose to never stop educating yourself."
Metro on 03/28/2018