BILL HATFIELD introduced Bill Grider, DDS, Kokomo President Indiana Air Force Association who spoke on the topic "Downsizing the United States Air Force"
Dr. Grider stated that he came to the club as a concerned patriot and citizen. He speaks as an advocate for a strong defense. Grider began by detailing parts of his recent briefing by the US Air Force. He titled it one of "Shock and Dismay".
Grider gave statistics that were presented in the fall of 2008 that show that only 3% of today's GDP is spent on defense. It was 14% during Korea, 9% during Vietnam and 6% during the Reagan military buildup, comparatively. He told how in the past 10 years AF personnel has gone from 750,000 to 324,000 and that thousands of airmen are doing non-traditional airmen jobs today. Limited personnel numbers are of further impacted by that.
The average age of the AF aircraft is 25+ years old. B-52's are the average age of 46.6 years. Grider asked how many drive a car that old?
Many planes have all new avionics but the mission for which the aircraft housing the new avionics is designed, is out of sync. Therefore the stresses on the structural components makes these planes mission incapable. Approximately 1/2 of the total fleet today is mission capable.
For many reasons, this is a national security issue.
On the topic of unmanned aircraft, Grider said that these only work/survive in an area where we enjoy air superiority. We need both manned and unmanned inventory. In private conversations at the highest level, Grider says the AF leaders state that there is no guarantee should the US ever enter war, and if we were not successful, would our opponents look at us with the same rebuilding, or Marshall Plan - approach, as we looked at our adversaries?
Dr. Grider commended Purdue's ROTC program as one of the finest AF ROTC's in the nation, being the 4th largest, and recognized Colonel Mike Silver. He concluded the program by encouraging legislator contact.
