LCLA Luncheon 12.6.17

The December LCLA luncheon was a great event. LCLA President Bruce Sturk, welcomed visitors from the Air Combat Command Commander’s Group. The guest speaker was the Commander of Air Combat Command, General Mike Holmes. General Holmes spoke to the motto of ACC “People First, Mission Always”. The General said; “We have communities where they want the Air Force to be, and others where they need to be. Here at Langley we have both. We are facing threats that we didn’t expect for another 15 to 20 years. We are over a billion dollars short of our budget, and it is affecting manpower, maintenance, flying hours and infrastructure. We need a predictable budget so that we can put long term priorities in place and know they will be funded. We need the ability to right size the force to meet the new demands and taskings that are facing our Airmen.

We have not had a budget, or steady funding that we can rely on in over 9 years. We have the smallest Air Force since the height of the Korean war, we need to “right size” that force to fit the budget; and we need to increase the Air Force top line to support combatant commander’s requirements. LCLA President Bruce Sturk, presented General Holmes with the LCLA challenge coin and thanked him for his presentation.