Soldiers Fight to Save the A-10 Warthog

Russell Carpenter owes his life to the ugliest warplane in the Pentagon fleet. When about 3,000 U.S. troops traveling on a dirt road in Iraq came under fire soon after the 2003 invasion, Carpenter, then an Air Force chief master sergeant, called for air support from the only fighter jet that could fly low and slow enough to tell friend from foe: the A-10. “They would have killed hundreds of our dudes” if it weren’t for the firepower of the A-10, with its seven-barrel Gatling gun that sounds like a buzz saw, says Carpenter, who’s now retired.

Generations of soldiers and airmen have put their trust in the A-10, known as the Warthog for its snoutlike nose. Active-duty and retired service members including Carpenter are trying to persuade the U.S. Department of Defense to drop its plan to save $4.2 billion in operation and maintenance costs over five years by retiring all 283 of the 1970s-era Air Force planes. Some top Army officers say there’s no substitute for the protection the jet has long provided to troops in ground combat. “It’s ugly, it’s loud,” General John Campbell, the Army’s vice chief of staff, said at a Senate hearing on March 26. “But when it comes in and you hear that ‘BVRRR,’ it just makes a difference.”