The Air National Guard provides an experienced, trained, equipped, and ready force to the nation at a fraction of the cost of the Air Force’s active duty component or other nation’s militaries, says Lt. Gen. Bud Wyatt, ANG director. “The Air National Guard is an extraordinary value,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel Wednesday. Indeed, in Fiscal 2009, total Air Guard personnel costs amounted to $4.77 billion. Had this same force been full-time active duty, that figure would have spiked to $7.62 billion, an increase of $2.85 billion, he said. An Air Guardsman costs $76,961 per year to maintain, compared to $128,791 for a member of the French military and $110,787 for someone in the Italian armed forces, Wyatt noted. And the annual cost of each Air Guardsman is less than one-fifth that of an active duty airman, he said. (Wyatt’s prepared remarks)
A recent seven-day exercise sent Air Force F-22s—along with other USAF aircraft—to austere, challenging environments across Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Agile Reaper, taking place for the second time after its inaugural edition last year, featured 800 Airmen and 29 aircraft across five different locations from April 10-16, training…