The U.S. Air Force has tried a few times in the recent past to rid itself of the venerable A-10 attack aircraft. Officially called the Thunderbolt II, but lovingly known far and wide as the Warthog, the A-10 has been beloved by the Army as a close air support platform for decades. But I and other “ground-pounders” have long decried the Air Force’s love affair with the sleek, sexy, and oh-so-expensive “fast movers.”
If the F-35 is the new Lamborghini Veneno, and the F-16 a Ferrari 308 GTBSi (Magnum P.I’s car, for you younger readers) – a little long-in-the-tooth but still fast and sexy – then the A-10 would be a bulky, tough, durable, and dependable Ford F-150. It’s pretty in its own way, but it always gets the job done.
But you’ll never convince me that the Air Force brass will be willing to put an $85 Million airplane in a position where it can be hit by small arms fire. I’m sure the USAF is working on new tactics to do the CAS mission with the F-35. But Gatling guns (30 mm in the A-10’s case, and 25 mm in the F-35’s) have a much shorter effective range than missiles. And lots of times, ground support requires guns.
Saving McSally to Save the Warthog
So it’s a fairly safe bet that despite the recent love shown the A-10, its days are numbered. Those days will be even more numbered if Congress loses its best advocate for the aircraft, lame-duck Arizona Republican Congressman Martha McSally. McSally, a retired Air Force colonel and former A-10 pilot, lost her bid for retiring Sen. Jeff Flake’s seat to Democrat Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in November. She delivered her last floor speech in the House of Representatives last week.
When Arizona’s legendary Sen. John McCain died in August, he died too close to the election to require a special election to fill the remainder of his term. Arizona’s governor, Republican Doug Ducey, appointed retired Sen. John Kyl as his replacement. But Kyl went into the deal with the understanding that he would not serve the entire time between September and the special election set for November 2020. That election will decide who fills the two years that will be remaining on McCain’s term.
There are many indications that Ducey is leaning towards McSally as his pick. For the A-10’s sake, I hope he does. McSally was among the first women to become a fighter pilot when the Air Force opened the position to women in 1992. She became the first woman to fly a fighter in combat while enforcing the “no-fly zone” over southern Iraq in 1995, where she logged almost 100 combat hours.
A career of firsts for Martha McSally
While stationed in Saudi Arabia, she sued Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to change the policy that required military women to wear the full-body covering known as an abaya while off the military reservation. The DoD said it was a cultural sensitivity issue; but at the same time, not only did the State Department not require female employees to do the same, it actively discouraged it. McSally ultimately met with Rumsfeld, who changed the policy.
In another “first,” in 2004 McSally took command of the 354th Fighter Squadron, making her the first woman to command an Air Force combat aviation unit. She deployed with her squadron to Afghanistan, flying 225 combat hours providing close air support. McSally knows the aircraft, its capabilities, and its value to troops in contact, better than anyone else in either house of Congress. I can think of a dozen other reasons why she’s the right person for the position, but the role as champion of the A-10 program, for me, is the winner.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is allegedly encouraging Ducey to appoint McSally. But the nature of modern politics means that McCain’s family wields some influence here. For better or worse, that’s working against McSally. McCain’s son-in-law Ben Domenech, publisher of conservative website The Federalist, isn’t a McSally fan. He tweeted last week that appointing McSally would be “unwise choice for a number of reasons.” His wife, the forever outspoken Meghan McCain, retweeted his sentiment.
Ducey has less than two weeks to make his choice. Think he’ll take my call?
