Wednesday, October 2, 1996

Dyess may get unusual B-1 reserve unit

By WILLIAM GARLAND
Harte-Hanks Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The Air Force's top administrative officer will make a decision in coming weeks about forming an unusual new reserve unit at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene to work with the B-1 bomber, according to a Texas congressional official.

He said the unit would be unusual because, unlike most reserve units working with a mission or weapons system, the Dyess unit would handle only specialized jobs, such as loading bombs and munitions.

Dyess could see the additional reservists, probably in the range of about 100 personnel, at a time when many reserve units have been taking hits. The unit would be the first at Dyess to work with the B-1.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald R. Fogelman recently discussed bringing the unit to Dyess with Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas. He told Gramm he would review the proposal soon, probably before attending a high-level annual meeting of generals early this month called the Corona conference.

"It looks like it's moving in the direction where they could need some more reservists," said the official, who asked not to be identified. He said the unit's role would include the specialized tasks of bomb loading and handling munitions as well as other functions, but probably would not involve any flight activity.

"It would be different than a normal reserve unit," he said. "Usually you've got everybody" involved in the complete mission. "Here you would just have sort of a piece of it ... They would be providing specialized assistance in an area where there's not enough bodies to go around for the wartime tasking."

"We're hopeful that we're able to do but I do want to emphasize it's a wisp in the future," added the official. "The secretary could change course but we're going to try to make sure he does the right thing" by adding the unit.

He said current projections for wartime workloads show that the reservists would be needed, but "if wartime tasking changes, that could change the requirements for people."

At the Corona conference, Fogelman and other top generals will take an unusually close look at the future of the Air Force.

The generals will have a chance to plan for next year's "quadrennial review" of the military, a comprehensive survey of the Pentagon's missions and spending priorities required by Congress.

"The yearly gathering of the four stars ... (will be) heavily focused, almost exclusively focused on long-range planning," said the Texas official. "Clearly they're going to take advantage (that) they've got a bunch of four stars there to discuss how they want to handle the quadrennial review."

He pointed out that there are "all sorts of long-range views out there" to occupy the generals, some of them looking as far ahead as 25 or 30 years. "They're just trying to look down the road as far as they can," probably helping to determine the future of the Air Force as much as any recent meeting.

Fogelman planned to be out of touch "three or four days before the Corona" to study proposals prior to the high-level session, the official said.