…of freedom.  It may be an old cliché but hearing military planes take off, land, and fly overhead is the sound of freedom to me.  It gives me peace and a sense of security.  Maybe it’s the years I served in the military or just the patriotic liberty-loving American in me, but I like it.

So it was nice to see an article in the Great Falls Tribune this morning regarding the current military exercise being conducted by the Montana and Ohio Air National Guard units.  It’s Montana’s F-15s against Ohio’s F-16s.  It even has a nice western-style code name, “Hang’em High.”

The Tribune reports that about 100 members of the Ohio Air National Guard are in Great Falls for the exercise, which will last a week.  I bet they will also spend some money here and some may even come back to vacation in Big Sky Country.

The pilots “play” high in the air in an area called the Hays Military Operating Area (MOA) which the Tribune says is “about 7,200 square miles across northcentral and eastern Montana” and one commander said that Hays MOA was “one of the most effective training opportunities in the nation.”

Since it is “one of the most effective training opportunities in the nation,” maybe we should expand Hays MOA and ask others to come and play.  It would be helpful in training our nation’s pilots and crews, and it would also be a nice jolt for the local economy when the men and women come to town to play.

Back in 1999 there was talk of expanding Hays MOA to include an air-to-ground training range in northcentral Montana, but that plan (pardon the pun) was grounded.

A couple years ago, Montana’s Congressional delegation (Senators Max Baucus, Jon Tester, and Congressman Denny Rehberg) came out against expanding the Powder River Training Complex in southeastern Montana for varied reasons (like cows and sheep).  That may be the last thing Baucus, Tester, and Rehberg agreed on.  There were/are plans to try and expand it to 20.3 million acres and U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) was in favor of the plan (Thune was a former member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and is a strong supporter of our nation’s military).

It is time for the Montana’s Congressional delegation and others in state leadership to promote Montana’s skies as open for more military and defense-contactor business which would help to fight the perception that Montana’s skies are closed.  Sadly, that was the message portrayed when they came out against the Powder River expansion.

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