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The Air Force will no longer have C-130s permanently based at Fort Bragg by the end of the year.


Army leaders have thrown their support behind a plan that includes the inactivation of the 440th Airlift Wing.


Army and Air Force leaders announced the decision in a letter to Congress dated Thursday.


The letter was sent to members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee and was signed by Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, acting Secretary of the Army Patrick J. Murphy, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley.


The leaders said increasing budget pressure was requiring the Air Force to manage its airlift fleet in the "most efficient manner possible."


The decision means the unit's planes and its remaining 550 airmen - who are meeting on post this weekend - will need to find new homes.


Maj. Lisa Ray, a spokeswoman for the unit, said Congress has 90 days to review the certification before officials can start moving aircraft and taking other actions associated with closing the wing.


"The 440th has been and will continue to plan for inactivation this September," she said. "Closing a wing is a complex task with a multitude of associated actions. Once the 90-day timeline is elapsed, we will work closely with Air Force Reserve Command to execute the necessary steps of closing the wing."


A Reserve wing, the 440th owns the last Air Force planes based at Fort Bragg's Pope Field, which was previously known as Pope Air Force Base.


The C-130 has been a fixture in the military community for 50 years, but is far from its peak in the 1980s when four C-130 squadrons called the Cape Fear region home.


As late as 2005, 50 C-130s regularly dotted the ramp at Pope. Today, only eight permanently based C-130s can be seen on the ramp.


Those planes are expected to be gone by September, when the 440th is expected to shutter its doors.


The Air Force contends it can support Fort Bragg training with out-of-town units through the Joint Airborne/Air Transportability Training program, which matches air crews from across the country to training on post.


In the letter, Army and Air Force leaders said they were confident in the latter's support of training at Fort Bragg.


North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, whose amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act required the certification from both services, said he would keep a close watch to make sure that is the case.


"For as long as I am a U.S. senator, the Air Force can fully expect me to require that they demonstrate, on a monthly basis, how they are meeting their obligation to provide assets at Pope Airfield and fulfilling the training requirements of our brave men and women," Tillis said.


Some airmen are less convinced the Air Force will be successful.


One member of the 440th Airlift Wing, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, said the Air Force already cannot support Army training requests at Fort Bragg.


The 82nd Airborne Division has requested 60 training missions between now and April through the JA/ATT program.


Only 21 of those missions are assigned to Air Force units, with several training exercises scheduled for the next week still unfilled.


The remaining missions will not be supported by Air Mobility Command, which oversees the nation's airlift wings, unless a unit decides to support the missions on its own time and with its own funding.


That appears to mesh with worries from Fort Bragg leaders at several levels who have expressed concerns over the availability of Air Force planes in recent months.


Rep. Renee Ellmers, Fort Bragg's representatives in the House, said she has been told the Air Force could potentially require Fort Bragg paratroopers to travel to other locations to hitch a ride back to local drop zones to conduct airborne operations.


"I've heard everything, including a plan to bus soldiers to Charleston then fly back to Fort Bragg," Ellmers said, referring to Joint Base Charleston in South Carolina. "That's absolutely ridiculous."


The 440th Airlift Wing has a regularly scheduled drill set this weekend.


Ray, the spokeswoman for the unit, said the wing commander, Col. Karl Schmitkons, would address the unit's remaining airmen during that time.


Ray said the wing will take every measure to assist airmen in finding employment and retraining if it is required.


"Support teams from Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command and 22nd Air Force have regularly visited the 440th Airlift Wing to work with our citizen airmen to find follow-on assignments," she said. "Every effort is being made to assist our personnel in continuing their careers."


The letter appears to end a nearly two-year fight to save the 440th, which was marked for inactivation as part of the 2015 Air Force budget proposal.


The inactivation has been delayed several times. Air Force Reserve leaders have previously said the unit would shutter its doors at the end of the fiscal year in September.


The 440th Airlift Wing moved to what was then Pope Air Force Base as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act.


When the Air Force base was absorbed into Fort Bragg, the wing continued operations as the only conventional unit with airplanes in the home of the airborne and Special Operations.


At its peak, the wing had approximately 1,200 airmen and civilians supporting 12 aircraft.


The decline to about 550 airmen has occurred because the unit has been blocked from welcoming airmen into the unit, even as hundreds have left for more sure jobs.


Airmen with the unit have said the loss of manpower has slowly drained the life from the wing, which has been unable to keep all of its aircraft flying due to fewer crews and maintenance workers.


The inactivation also effects the hundreds of airmen who wished to keep serving locally. They must find jobs in other units, or potentially lose benefits that come with their military service.


In the letter, officials said they consulted with the commanders of the 18th Airborne Corps, 82nd Airborne Division and Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.


The Air Force had not consulted those commands when it first announced the decision to close the unit.


The letter pledges that the Air Force will meet the training and contingency support demands of Fort Bragg units "with no adverse effect to these units' daily training requirements or readiness."


"The Air Force remains fully committed to providing tactical airlift support to the Army, now and in the future," the letter reads. "Realistic training is the cornerstone of readiness, and the Air Force is proud of the role it plays in Army combat readiness."


Local leaders, including Army commanders at Fort Bragg, have said the inactivation of the wing would have a detrimental effect on training, citing the benefits of having a "hometown" air wing on hand.


Airmen from the 440th also have questioned the ability of the Air Force to provide more efficient service to units on Fort Bragg.


"There is absolutely no way this can be financially beneficial," one airman said earlier this week. "Who will hold the Air Force leadership responsible when three to five years from now they are trying to reinvent the wheel and spend even more money fixing the problem they created."

The article above was published in The Fayetteville Observer, February 7, 2016.