BusinessTN

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made painfully clear how modern warfare is waged predominantly on the ground. In light of that new reality, airmen in the U.S. Air Force have increasingly been called upon to serve their country in nontraditional ways, for instance as prison guards or convoy duty personnel manning the battlefield, not the skies.

As Tullahoma-based Arnold Air Force Base spokesman Joel Fortner says, if the Air Force is going to ask its enlisted men to serve on the ground next to fellow soldiers in the Army and the Marines, they deserve greater education in relevant combat practices. “It’s training we owe these airmen,” Fortner says.

That’s the thinking behind the U.S. Air Force’s planned Common Battlefield Airman Training Program. Once operational, CBAT will provide a dedicated place for training in weapons, field operations, land navigation, water survival, combat survival, medical help, communications and physical fitness to over 14,400 airmen annually.

Three locations including Arnold AFB are in the running to land the massive and lucrative project. (One finalist, Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga., doesn’t presently have the land available to accommodate the project as designed.) Environmental Impact Statement studies of each site are well underway. A decision by the Pentagon is expected in January 2008. Winning the project would translate, at full implementation, into 800 new jobs and $80 million in new construction on site. The total impact on Southern Middle Tennessee is estimated at $350 million annually considering the local establishments that would benefit from the constant influx of airmen attending the 25-day training programs.

Arnold AFB includes Coffee and Franklin counties but employs many residents of other nearby counties. Shelbyville-Bedford County Chamber CEO Walt Wood, a member of the Arnold Community Council, which advocates for the Base, describes the prospect of CBAT as “a real boost” for the area and also as additional insulation against the threat of base closure somewhere down the road.

Arnold AFB is already home to Arnold Engineering Development Center, site of the world’s premiere flight simulation testing facility—a place military jets and spacecraft have been tested for over 50 years. As such, Arnold AFB is already home to many important aerospace and national defense programs. According to Fortner, “we’re already at $600 million per year economic impact.” CBAT would add a 200-acre campus, small arms firing range and 9,000-acre training area to the mix.

If local and state officials are successful in attracting the project, the entire Southern Middle Tennessee region stands to prosper. And fighting the so-called global war on terror will in part begin by training in the heart of Middle Tennessee.