6 Facts Highlight Why We Need to Rebuild Our Military

Commentary from Justin Johnson on The Daily Signal.com (May 17):

The U.S. military seems to be breaking. Senior military leaders have made dire statements before Congress, and story after story is revealing the potentially deadly challenges facing our men and women in uniform.

As Congress considers the annual defense authorization bill, here are six clear, real-world examples of why Congress needs to use the defense bill to start rebuilding the U.S. military.

1. The Marine Corps is pulling parts off of museum planes to keep their F-18s flying.
2. Only one-third of Army brigades are ready for combat.
3. The Air Force is cannibalizing parts from some F-16’s to keep other F-16’s flying and is pulling parts off museum planes to keep their B-1 bombers flying.
4. The Navy keeps extending deployments of its ships, but still doesn’t have enough to meet demand.
5. Serious crashes of Marine Corps planes and helicopters are nearly double the 10-year average.
6. The Air Force’s B-52 bombers are an average of 53 years old.

These six facts show the consequences of cutting the national defense budget by 25 percent over the last five years. [read more]

Pretty bad. Of all the spending the gov’t does, keeping the military in fighting order is the most important. Hopefully, if Donald Trump becomes president he can “make the military great again.” Hillary probably won’t.