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NPR — along with seven public radio stations around the country — is chronicling the lives of America's troops where they live. We're calling the project "Back at Base." This is the second of four reports this week about the National Guard.

Inside the hangar at Washington state's Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM), the Army National Guard mechanics are busy maintaining a neat line of Blackhawks.

Some of these helicopters have flown in every war since Vietnam and they have the bullet holes to prove it.

"So we get hand-me-downs," says Col. David Caporicci, the deputy commander of the 66th Theater Aviation Command. "So, like I'm the middle child. So my bigger brother, the Army, gets brand new stuff and when he gets new stuff I get his old stuff. Unfortunately you know the knees are worn out in the pants and the socks got holes in them and that's what I get!"

It's a mostly friendly family rivalry here in Washington state.

Col. David Caporicci, deputy commander of the 66th Theater Aviation Command, stands beside a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. After 28 years, budget cuts may threaten his job. Patricia Murphy/KUOW hide caption

itoggle caption Patricia Murphy/KUOW

But as Congress cuts $500 billion out of the Defense Department budget, the active Army and the National Guard are competing for the same dollars.

At JBLM, which is 40 miles south of Seattle, the fight is over equipment: Not just old helicopters but also whether the Guard gets some of the active Army's best armored vehicles known as Strykers.

"We're saying, 'Hey, put us in.' You know we've been a heavy brigade combat team for years," says Major Gen. Bret Daugherty, who leads the Washington National Guard. "There's 600 unused vehicles parked at JBLM right now there's absolutely no reason we couldn't convert to Strykers and save the Army money in that process."

Daugherty is part of a three-state effort to let the Guard swap old Bradley fighting vehicles for the more modern Strykers.

Back At Base

National Guard Seeks New Mission After War

He says the Guard needs the Strykers because its troops are called on for so many missions. For example, they've deployed to Iraq, and they also help the state. Right now the Guard is training in preparation of any major earthquakes in the region.

"When that earthquake strikes us and all the bridges come down, tanks and Bradleys are not going to be able to help the citizens of Washington, whereas wheeled Stryker vehicles with their state of the art electronics and digital communications suite will," says Daugherty.

But the active Army says it needs those Strykers to do their job, too.

"It's a zero-sum game," says Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, the commander of all active Army forces at JBLM. "I think it's an Army decision. I think the Guard brings it up and I think the Army will decide if they want to convert that brigade to a Stryker brigade."

Lazna says he can't spare people or equipment. After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon shifted its focus to the Pacific — everything from humanitarian missions to deterring China — and Lanza's command is central to that plan.

i

An aviation technician works on a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter in the Washington National Guard Army Aviation Support Facility on Joint Base Lewis McChord. Patricia Murphy/KUOW hide caption

itoggle caption Patricia Murphy/KUOW

An aviation technician works on a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter in the Washington National Guard Army Aviation Support Facility on Joint Base Lewis McChord.

Patricia Murphy/KUOW

"If you have a strategy that's not resourced, one of two things has to happen. Either you change the strategy or you provide the additional resources to accomplish the strategy you've been given," he says.

Lanza is fighting to keep not just the Strykers, but to avoid cuts across his force. If the active Army is cut, the base could lose 11,000 soldiers and civilians.

The National Guard could lose 35,000 citizen soldiers nationally and 1,000 from Washington state.

One of them will probably be Caporicci — who works at that aircraft hangar.

The Army has already targeted his aviation command for deactivation. The helicopters are staying, it's just the officers who won't.

"It means I'll have to go find a real job... It's not anything anybody can... well you know, nobody likes to be laid off," he says.

A rainy day in western Washington grounds a CH-47 Chinook helicopter at the Washington National Guard Army Aviation Support Facility. Patricia Murphy/KUOW hide caption

itoggle caption Patricia Murphy/KUOW

Daugherty has some ideas about how to save Caporicci's job, but he's not sure Army leaders are listening.

"We went through a pretty extensive staffing process and identified units that we thought made the most sense to give back. But the active army said thanks for your input we'll get back to you," Daugherty says.

And that's frustrating because cutting the Aviation command won't even save the Army much money. But losing it would cost the Guard Caporicci's 28 years of experience and the relationships he's built with the state.

national guard

Defense Department

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Army

The Committee to Protect Journalists released its annual report on the 10 Most Censored Countries today, with Eritrea, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia leading the list.

The list comes the same week it was announced that Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian is being charged in Iran with four crimes, including espionage, as we reported Monday:

Rezaian's lawyer, Leilah Ahsan, issued a statement laying out the charges against her client. They include "collaborating with hostile governments" and "propaganda against the establishment," according to the Post. Ahsan said the indictment alleges Rezaian collected information "about internal and foreign policy."

Iran ranks seventh on the CPJ list.

The CPJ is an independent nonprofit organization based in New York that "promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal."

According to the CPJ, top-ranked Eritrea, a country in northeast Africa, has created "a media climate so oppressive that even reporters for state-run news outlets live in constant fear of arrest."

The list:

Eritrea

North Korea

Saudi Arabia

Ethiopia

Azerbaijan

Vietnam

Iran

China

Myanmar

Cuba

Here are some quick facts from the report:

"The last privately owned media outlets in Eritrea were suspended (and their journalists jailed) almost 15 years ago."

"North Koreans looking for independent information have turned to bootlegged foreign TV and radio signals and smuggled foreign DVDs, particularly along the porous border with China."

"In 2014, the Saudi Arabian government "issued a new anti-terrorism law and regulations that Human Rights Watch said will 'criminalize virtually any expression or association critical of the government and its understanding of Islam.'"

Ethiopia imprisoned 10 journalists and bloggers in 2014.

Vietnam added a new law in 2013 that extended state censorship to social platforms, making it illegal to post foreign news articles that "oppose the state."

Myanmar's Printers and Publishers Registration Law, which went into effect in March 2014, "bans news that could be considered insulting to religion, disturbing to the rule of law, or harmful to ethnic unity."

eritrea

China

Saudi Arabia

North Korea

Iran

Censorship

Keeping track of the traffic in the skies above us is a big job. The nation's air traffic control system has been reliable, but it's not very efficient. And efforts to replace it with newer technology have gotten bogged down by a combination of uncertain Congressional funding and the slow-moving federal bureaucracy. Now, some in Congress want to get the government out of the air traffic control business.

The Federal Aviation Administration says some 7,000 aircraft are over the U.S. at any given time.

In the tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, controllers stare at computer screens with radar images of arriving and departing flights. It's pretty much how controllers have operated since the dawn of the jet age. And, it has some drawbacks, says Joshua Schank, president of transportation think tank the Eno Center.

"For example, right now because we're using radar-based systems, we cannot land as many planes within a given airspace, particularly in congested places like the New York region, as we could if we could track them more effectively." Schank says that would mean controllers "could narrow the separations between the aircraft."

i

Air traffic controller Karl Haynes Jr. watches the radar screen at Washington's Reagan National Airport. For more than a decade, the FAA has been working on a new radar system that is more precise and would allow more flights closer together. Charles Dharapak/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Charles Dharapak/AP

Air traffic controller Karl Haynes Jr. watches the radar screen at Washington's Reagan National Airport. For more than a decade, the FAA has been working on a new radar system that is more precise and would allow more flights closer together.

Charles Dharapak/AP

The FAA has a solution to the inefficient radar. It's called NextGen, and very simply put, it would replace the current air traffic control system with one based on GPS satellites, which would be more precise and allow more flights, closer together. Problem is, the FAA has been working on NextGen for over a decade now, and still has a long ways to go. At a recent congressional hearing, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Penn., argued that "in the same amount of time that we've pursued NextGen, Verizon has updated its wireless system not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in the last 10 years."

So Shuster and others in Congress, along with the airline industry, think it's time for someone other than the FAA to operate the air traffic control system. Sharon Pinkerton, vice president of industry trade group Airlines for America, says air traffic control is "very technology focused and we need to have a very nimble organization and one that's not subject to politics or an annual appropriations process, that's going to enable it to get NextGen done quickly."

Some put the blame on the FAA, for the snails' pace roll out of NextGen. Robert Poole, a transportation analyst with the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, calls the air traffic control function of the FAA "a 24-hour, seven days a week, high-tech service business trapped inside a government bureaucracy."

By contrast, Poole says an air traffic system operated outside the FAA "wouldn't have civil service culture, they wouldn't be as risk averse and status quo oriented as they are, they'd be able to hire and keep really top notch engineers and software writers and program managers and hold them accountable for results."

And it's not just industry and the GOP that support extracting the air traffic control organization from the FAA. The union that represents air traffic controllers is on board too.

"The status quo is unacceptable," says Patricia Gilbert, vice president of National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). She says the biggest problem with the current system is the way it's been funded, or not funded, by Congress. "We have had the national air space system subjected to a full government shutdown, in addition to that the sequester cuts had furloughed employees including air traffic controllers back in 2013." She says that has made it difficult to ensure a system with "predictable and stable funding."

Separating the air traffic control function from the rest of the FAA would not be simple, but there are models.

In Canada, for instance, the system is run by a nonprofit corporation, and funded by the user fees. Backers in the US say big capitol expenses, like the $40 billion it will cost to fully build out the NextGen GPS system could be raised on the bond market.

Still, there are skeptics. The FAA says it's been making steady progress in implementing NextGen. Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington wonders if spinning off the air traffic controllers is really necessary. "Airlines are making money, the system is safe and the FAA with close congressional oversight is making progress on NextGen," Larsen says. "So the question that has to be asked is: What's the problem we're trying to tackle when we talk about reforming our air traffic control system?"

Congress is now in the process of what it calls reauthorizing the FAA for the next five years, and it's possible reorganizing the air traffic control system could be a part of that effort.

Keeping track of the traffic in the skies above us is a big job. The nation's air traffic control system has been reliable, but it's not very efficient. And efforts to replace it with newer technology have gotten bogged down by a combination of uncertain Congressional funding and the slow-moving federal bureaucracy. Now, some in Congress want to get the government out of the air traffic control business.

The Federal Aviation Administration says some 7,000 aircraft are over the U.S. at any given time.

In the tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, controllers stare at computer screens with radar images of arriving and departing flights. It's pretty much how controllers have operated since the dawn of the jet age. And, it has some drawbacks, says Joshua Schank, president of transportation think tank the Eno Center.

"For example, right now because we're using radar-based systems, we cannot land as many planes within a given airspace, particularly in congested places like the New York region, as we could if we could track them more effectively." Schank says that would mean controllers "could narrow the separations between the aircraft."

i

Air traffic controller Karl Haynes Jr. watches the radar screen at Washington's Reagan National Airport. For more than a decade, the FAA has been working on a new radar system that is more precise and would allow more flights closer together. Charles Dharapak/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Charles Dharapak/AP

Air traffic controller Karl Haynes Jr. watches the radar screen at Washington's Reagan National Airport. For more than a decade, the FAA has been working on a new radar system that is more precise and would allow more flights closer together.

Charles Dharapak/AP

The FAA has a solution to the inefficient radar. It's called NextGen, and very simply put, it would replace the current air traffic control system with one based on GPS satellites, which would be more precise and allow more flights, closer together. Problem is, the FAA has been working on NextGen for over a decade now, and still has a long ways to go. At a recent congressional hearing, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Penn., argued that "in the same amount of time that we've pursued NextGen, Verizon has updated its wireless system not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in the last 10 years."

So Shuster and others in Congress, along with the airline industry, think it's time for someone other than the FAA to operate the air traffic control system. Sharon Pinkerton, vice president of industry trade group Airlines for America, says air traffic control is "very technology focused and we need to have a very nimble organization and one that's not subject to politics or an annual appropriations process, that's going to enable it to get NextGen done quickly."

Some put the blame on the FAA, for the snails' pace roll out of NextGen. Robert Poole, a transportation analyst with the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, calls the air traffic control function of the FAA "a 24-hour, seven days a week, high-tech service business trapped inside a government bureaucracy."

By contrast, Poole says an air traffic system operated outside the FAA "wouldn't have civil service culture, they wouldn't be as risk averse and status quo oriented as they are, they'd be able to hire and keep really top notch engineers and software writers and program managers and hold them accountable for results."

And it's not just industry and the GOP that support extracting the air traffic control organization from the FAA. The union that represents air traffic controllers is on board too.

"The status quo is unacceptable," says Patricia Gilbert, vice president of National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). She says the biggest problem with the current system is the way it's been funded, or not funded, by Congress. "We have had the national air space system subjected to a full government shutdown, in addition to that the sequester cuts had furloughed employees including air traffic controllers back in 2013." She says that has made it difficult to ensure a system with "predictable and stable funding."

Separating the air traffic control function from the rest of the FAA would not be simple, but there are models.

In Canada, for instance, the system is run by a nonprofit corporation, and funded by the user fees. Backers in the US say big capitol expenses, like the $40 billion it will cost to fully build out the NextGen GPS system could be raised on the bond market.

Still, there are skeptics. The FAA says it's been making steady progress in implementing NextGen. Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington wonders if spinning off the air traffic controllers is really necessary. "Airlines are making money, the system is safe and the FAA with close congressional oversight is making progress on NextGen," Larsen says. "So the question that has to be asked is: What's the problem we're trying to tackle when we talk about reforming our air traffic control system?"

Congress is now in the process of what it calls reauthorizing the FAA for the next five years, and it's possible reorganizing the air traffic control system could be a part of that effort.