Thom Tillis wasn't wrong: The Air Force really isn't up to the mission of serving Fort Bragg's airlift needs.
 
North Carolina's junior U.S. senator crusaded long and hard to save the 440th Airlift Wing at Pope Field. It was clear to him that the training mission of the nation's most essential rapid-response force would be compromised if there weren't C-130s based here. What's amazing is that the Air Force is proving him right even before it formally inactivates the 440th.
 
Fort Bragg leaders, Tillis says, tell him they need to be able to drop 10,000 paratroopers a month to keep them combat-ready. Last month, only 6,100 jumped out of Air Force planes. That's a decline of 1,300 from February, when the 440th stopped participating in airborne operations.
 
Tillis saw this coming and the Army should have too - maybe it did. It was clear that the Air Force won a big game of Pentagon politics over the 440th. And 82nd Airborne readiness lost.
 
Tillis says he'll take to the Senate floor this week to address the problem. Maybe this time, someone in the Secretary of Defense's office will listen.

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