Keep up the good work

The citizens of Mountain Home should be congratulated for their show of support for the proposed F-35 mission at Mountain Home AFB.

Approximately 1.5 percent of the city's population turned out for the scoping hearing last Friday at Hacker Middle School.

If that number seems low, it's actually a huge turnout and well beyond most public hearings and certainly the best of any of the scoping hearings held across the country in communities hoping to land the first F-35 squadrons. In fact, more than twice as many people turned out in Mountain Home alone than at the other hearing sites in Idaho combined.

We want this mission. We want it for many reasons, not the least of which is to make up for the loss this year of the 390th Fighter Squadron, whose personnel, all friends and neighbors, will be sorely missed. We want it because we're proud of the Air Force and its people, the role they play in our nation's defense, and the smart, energetic people they bring to share our lives in this community.

This community is well-versed in the nature of the Air Force presence. Many of those who attended the hearing Friday also came out to support not only placing one to three operational squadrons of F-35s at Mountain Home AFB, but also the proposal to put a training squadron for the F-35s at the Idaho Air National Guard facilities at Gowen Field in Boise. They pointed out the savings and advantages to the Air Force if equipment, simulators and factory reps could all be located in close proximity to each other, as well as the ability of both groups to use one of the nation's premier training ranges.

Privately, many of those running the hearing Friday, representing the Air Force and Lockheed-Martin, which builds the F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation fighter-bomber, readily admitted that if the final decision is based on facts alone, Mountain Home should be the clear winner in the F-35 sweepstakes over the other proposed sites. From training capabilities to flying weather, lack of encroachment near the airbase and community support, Mountain Home stands out among the other alternatives.

What we don't have is the powerful congressional delegations that some of the other sites have, such as Arizona's John McCain or Utah's Orrin Hatch. Politics are not supposed to play a part in the final Record of Decision that will be issued by the Secretary of the Air Force, but the reality is politics will have some influence. Throughout Idaho, from the governor on down, there has been widespread support for the F-35 missions here. But the SecAF is a political appointee of a Democratic administration and Idaho is a Republican state. Awarding these missions to Idaho isn't going to change that.

Friday's hearing is just the first step toward winning these missions. We need to keep sending cards and letters to the SecAF. We need to back the efforts of our congressional delegation, to serve as a force multiplier for them. We cannot let our guard down now that the scoping hearings are over.

Between now and next February or March, when the final decision will be made, we need to keep up our efforts to convince the military and political leadership of this country that Idaho is the perfect spot to place the nation's newest fighters.

We need these planes. We want these planes and the people that come with them. We can't stop fighting until we've got them.

-- Kelly Everitt