Fox News traveled to Kentucky’s Fort Campbell, home to the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, for exclusive interviews and to see first-hand how cuts have hurt military readiness. “We used to have two aviation brigades here, over 200 aircraft, and now we are down to just one aviation brigade and slightly over 100 aircraft,” said Col. Craig Alia, commander of the division’s combat aviation brigade and a veteran of three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. “So this has a direct impact on Army readiness and it also costs us more money,” the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, said in congressional testimony last month. It’s not only 101’s aviation brigade showing signs of wear and tear. The Army’s second-highest-ranking officer raised alarm when he testified on Capitol Hill last month and said only three of the Army’s 58 brigade combat teams could immediately deploy due to budget cuts.

Source: Fox News March 09, 2017 16:41 UTC