By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

United States Sen. Eric Schmitt made a visit to St. Joseph
today, getting a tour of new construction at Rosecrans Memorial Airport, seen
as vital to the Air Guard 139th Airlift Wing landing the latest
C-130 cargo planes.

The 139th is in fierce competition with other Air
Guard bases to receive the C-130J plane. The St. Joseph base now flies the
outdated C-130H planes.

Schmitt, a Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee,
understands the stiff competition for the “J” planes.

“But I feel like we’ve got a great case to make and we’ve making
that. There’s a new director of the Air National Guard coming in. He was in my
office. We talked about this specifically,” Schmitt tells reporters outside the
new airport terminal construction site. “The best selling point I think you can
make is we’re training people from around the world to fly the planes, the
C-130Js, and we don’t have them here. And that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

The 139th trains pilots from across the country and
around the world at its Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center. A crew with
the India Air Force is currently being trained there.

The Air National Guard faulted some of the facilities at
Rosecrans when it passed over the air base in its first allocation of C-130J planes.

Schmitt says the new construction is vital to convincing the
Air National Guard the 139th deserves the new C-130J planes.

“Yeah, I think there we’re some upgrades that needed to be
made,” Schmitt acknowledges. “I’m on the Armed Services Committee. We were able
to get some those in the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act), which I
think was important. And, again, you see this commitment from the city, too, right?
with the 85 acres here to the north where a lot of the new construction is
going to be happening, or happening. So, it’s a combined effort of federal,
state, and local. And I think that’s how we put our best foot forward. So,
these upgrades are really important in that process.”

Schmitt says the recent upgrades made to the airport should be
enough to convince the Air Guard.

“We talk to folks in the Air Force about this place, too. We
talk to anybody in the National Guard about this place,” Schmitt says. “We’ve
got some great assets in Missouri. We’ve got Whiteman (Air Force Base). We’ve
got Ft. Leonard Wood. We’ve got Rosecrans, here. And they think those all play
a really important role in our national defense.”

Schmitt says recently visited with the new director of the Air
National Guard and spoke with him about the new construction underway at Rosecrans.

Landing the C-130J model planes is seen as vital to the
long-term future of the 139th in St. Joseph.

You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.