After making several stops around the state, the Michigan Army and Air National Guard General made a visit to Lansing on Wednesday.
The Major General says recent budget annoucments made by the Department of Defense will greatly impact the Air National Guard and Michigan as a whole.
"I wish I was coming here this afternoon to give you good news that we were getting F-35 airplanes… but that's not the case," says Major General Gregory Vadnais.
He says the case instead, is to talk about the potential cuts the Air National Guard will face... a nationwide plan by the Air Force to retire 286 aircrafts and Air Guard Missions over the next five years as part of the defense budget cuts.
Here in Michigan, the greatest impact will be in Battle Creek and at Selfridge Air Base where they would lose A-10's and C-27's.
Major General Gregory Vadnais says, "If in fact the analysis drives you that we need to do this in the active component versus the reserve component or the nation guard… I might not like it, but I would understand that, and you drive on but that is not whats happeing."
General Vandains says when you look at the numbers it just doesn't add up. For example he says the Air National Guard carries 35% of the Air Force's workload while operating on only six percent of their budget.
The Air Force and Air National Guard have been part of sacrafices made in every state, and Lt. Col. Michael Voelker says, "I don't think anyone could have anticipated almost a quarter of the Michigan Air Guard being on the chopping block. It's really hard to wrap your hands around… it's an awful lot of people."
More than 670 Michigan Air Guard jobs are at stake.
Vadnais says "Michigan is being impacted more than any other state... this is just to unbalanced not to be looked at again."
Right now there are more than 2,700 members of the Michigan Air National Guard.
The major general says he wont rest until Washington understands what's being proposed.
