From the Arizona Daily Star:
The U.S. House on Thursday overwhelmingly adopted an amendment to the 2015 defense appropriation bill that would prohibit the Pentagon from spending any money to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt II jet — a mainstay of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.There is no other craft proven to be better at what the A-10 does than the A-10. It is a marvel of Close Air Support (CAS) and to throw it away without replacing it (the F-35 is yet unproven) is a crime. The A-10 has a dry weight of 12 tons, yet it can carry 13 tons of weapons into combat.
But the fate of the venerated “Warthog” close-air-support jet remains far from certain, as the Senate still must act, and the issue will likely be hammered out in conference committee.
The amendment’s bipartisan adoption was a victory for Rep. Ron Barber, a Tucson Democrat, and other A-10 supporters, who were chagrined when the House Appropriations Committee left A-10 funding out of its version of the defense spending bill.
“This is a victory for those brave men and women in our armed forces and engaged in ground combat who depend on the A-10,” Barber said in prepared remarks after the late-evening vote. “I am fighting for the A-10 to remain in service because there is no better and more effective aircraft for close air support of our soldiers and Marines on the ground.”
We can throw a quarter billion dollars of international welfare at Central America without batting an eye ... how about protecting our troops until a new weapons system is ready to replace a tried and proven one?
ODE TO A WARTHOG
I think that I shall never see
A plane so deadly, so ugly
A plane that's built around a gun
A plane that excels at a bombing run
A plane that's designed as a flying club
That surrounds its pilot with a titanium tub
He's safe as a babe in his mother's arms
Shielded from the enemy's deadly harms
A plane that sets the Hellcat loose
Like a thunderbolt hurled from Olympus by Zeus
Stupid poems are created every now and then
But only Fairchild Republic made the A-10
