Arnold AFB is Right for CBAT Transcript: Congressional Record October 2, 2007

Mr. LINCOLN DAVIS of Tennessee. I want to digress just a moment and talk about a particular situation that is being considered today, which will be what's called combat training for our airmen. In many cases we put our soldiers who are in the Air Force in the battlefield, the battle zones, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, in my opinion, without proper training for EMS, in the event there is something that happens that they are in the battlefield, they may be injured. I don't think they are properly trained, and, in many cases, we need to do that. So we are actually talking now about locating CBAT, which will be combat training for airmen in different areas.
I want to read a comment that I have prepared for the potential location of this particular facility.

From the Manhattan Project to TVA to the Apollo project to the Spallation Neutron Source and so much more, the Tennessee Valley Corridor and its key institutions, communities, businesses, and congressional leaders have always exemplified the phrase, "National Leadership through Regional Cooperation.''

Key leaders in our region continue to support our Nation by working to enhance and advance the corridor's key science technology and national security assets.

With that, one of the big challenges in warfare is adequate training for our combat troops. Afghanistan and Iraq have placed a new demand on the airmen of our Air Force for needed combat air support. These increased demands include prison guard duty, combat convoy support, and significant expanded security force duty.

With these additional responsibilities, the Air Force has acknowledged its airmen are lacking the ground combat skills necessary to meet today's demands. To address these needs, the Air Force has proposed, as former Air Force Secretary Roche has described it, a new program to "bring together our battlefield airmen under a common training and organization structure to strengthen the combat power they bring to the fight.''

Weapons training, tactical field cooperation operations and land navigation training, basic combat skills, physical fitness training and basic medical training will be a part of the core curriculum provided by new Common Battlefield Airmen Training (CBAT) program.

The proposed location for this new Common Battlefield Airmen Training program has now been narrowed down to three potential sites, one of which is in my district, Arnold Engineering Development Center in Arnold Air Force Base near Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Key leaders in the Tennessee Valley Corridor and I are convinced that establishing CBAT at Arnold Air Force Base would be the best course of action, an exceptional investment for the Air Force and the Nation. Arnold Air Force Base and the Arnold Engineering Development Center are already home to the world's premier flight simulations testing facility and continue to be vital national resources in the development of many of the Nation's top priority aerospace and national defense programs.

Arnold, with its history of extensive combat training during World War II, had abundant land available for CBAT training, with a dedicated 200-acre campus, small arms firing range and 9,000 acres for additional required training. In short, middle Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley Corridor have a world-class facility ready and willing to house this important new training operation.

The Coffee County community, the middle Tennessee/north Alabama region and, indeed, the entire Tennessee Valley Corridor strongly support our Nation's Armed Forces and their training needs as they continue to serve and defend our Nation. A better trained corps of airmen will not only give them the ability to operate more effectively in a combat zone and a better chance of survival, but will also help them better defend the United States in our post-9/11 world.

I strongly support and encourage all others to support Arnold Air Force Base's pursuit of this new CBAT program.

As we continue to train our soldiers who are on the battlefields throughout the world, certainly in the two hot spots today, perhaps we should say three, which would also include the area around the Balkans, we need to adequately train them. It's not right; it's not American to send someone into the battlefield without being properly trained.