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Conversion of 181st Fighter Wing secures future of base in Terre Haute

By Sue Loughlin
The Tribune-Star

Two new Air Force missions for the 181st Fighter Wing employing up to 420 people have secured the future of the base in Terre Haute.

Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Indiana National Guard made the announcement Wednesday.

Members of the 181st Fighter Wing will be converted to an Air Support Operations Squadron and a Distributed Common Ground Station.

The new assignments will replace the F-16 missions that were eliminated as a part of the Base Realignment and Closure in 2005.

“This is very good news,” said Capt. Jim Jensen, public affairs officer for the 181st Fighter Wing. “This solidifies our presence and offers longevity for the wing, which has been part of Terre Haute for more than 50 years.”

The new missions are higher tech, which is the future of the military, he said.

Terre Haute Mayor Kevin Burke was elated by the news. “This is wonderful,” he said. It’s the culmination of two years of hard work involving the city, economic development leaders, Indiana’s Congressional delegation and state leaders.

He gave special credit to Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, adjutant general for the state of Indiana, for his efforts. Umbarger advised officials to seek new missions rather than to fight to keep the F-16s.

“We made a decision to go after something that creates long-term viability for the 181st,” Burke said.

Landing the new missions did not come easy. At times, it appeared favorable, but at other times, “It would slide off the radar screen,” Burke said. “It has been a struggle, a lobbying effort and a marketing job.”

The Distributed Common Ground Station provides real-time imagery, electronic information and intelligence analysis to battlefield commanders. About 350 staff will be assigned to this work.

The Air Support Operation Squadron will have about 70 people in an assignment to coordinate aircraft support for combat troops. Those assigned to ASOS will be trained, deployed and embedded with ground troops to coordinate aircraft support, said Lt. Col. Shane Halbrook, senior full-time adviser to the adjutant general for the Indiana Air National Guard in Indianapolis.

The two new missions do not represent an increase in positions at the 181st, but current employees can retrain for the new missions, Halbrook said.

The number of jobs will remain about the same, with potentially a slight decrease, he said.

“We’ll start to train people and start preparing facilities for the new missions as soon as possible,” Halbrook said. “A lot will depend on the budget,” which is determined by the Department of Defense and Congress.

A team from the National Guard Bureau will visit at the end of the month. Transition and training schedules will be determined by the Indiana National Guard, Air Force and National Guard Bureau.

The F-16 fighter jets are scheduled to begin leaving in September/October, and most will be gone by Christmas, Halbrook said.

The latest information is that the F-16s will be transferred to Atlantic City, N.J., rather than Fort Wayne, as was announced last year, Jensen said.

Jensen noted that the fighter wing currently employs about 960 people, with 500 in support roles that include civil engineers, a medical squadron, security forces, communications employees and others.

Base leadership is optimistic that most, if not all, the support positions will remain, Jensen said.

It’s the hope of the 181st that “we’ll continue to receive additional missions in the future and we’ll continue to grow these two new missions” to make the base even larger, Jensen said.

“That’s our optimistic view,” he said.

In a prepared statement, Gov. Daniels said the announcement “is great news for the Terre Haute economy … This confirms that our message got through that we have a great facility and an outstanding Air Guard.”

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I sent the same article and link into the editors/moderators hoping it would make the homepage.

The article in the paper had a few decent pictures that went along with the article.Kinda sad that the unit will lose the flying mission after 85 years of zipping around Hoosier skies and the globe.

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