Cost of Retaining Aviation Units Weighed

An expert panel is recommending that the Army keep a combat aviation brigade in South Korea and four AH-64 Apache attack helicopter battalions in the National Guard, the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) reported April 1. Service leaders now must determine if the recommendations, issued by the National Commission on the Future of the Army, are practical. The service already has embarked on a plan to reduce aviation presence on the Korean Peninsula and in the National Guard, because of budgetary concerns. Retaining them would cost in the neighborhood of $2.4 billion in the coming years, Army officials believe. “Many of those recommendations … are great ideas, but the resources are the challenge we have to look at,” Maj. Gen. Michael D. Lundy, the commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Ala., told the House Armed Services Committee in recent testimony, according to AUSA.