Matt Gaetz, Rick Scott fear Air Force may move Special Ops command off Hurlburt Field

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and Florida's First District Congressman Matt Gaetz promised Tuesday to work aggressively to thwart action by the Department of the Air Force they believe could drastically impact the Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field.

In a conference call, Scott said that he, Gaetz and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Republicans all, had been contacted three days ago by Frank Kendall, the Secretary of the Air Force, to schedule a Friday phone call to discuss "programmatic basing actions" involving Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.

Scott said the legislators have not been able to confirm anything since receiving the cryptic message and the Air Force has been tight lipped about revealing anything else before Friday.

"We have said we would be willing to talk any time but have heard nothing," Scott said. "We think they are probably talking about Hurlburt, and I assume they are talking about Special Forces."

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The Air Force Special Operations Command has called Hurlburt Field in southwest Okaloosa County home since 1990. AFSOC, as it is called, is considered one of 10 major commands operating under the Air Force umbrella. According to Scott, Hurlburt is home to 26,000 active duty military, families and contractors.

The timing of Kendall's planned phone call is suspicious, the senator said, because it will come one day after the Senate votes to pass the National Defense Authorization Act approving Department of Defense budgets and the same day both houses of Congress recess for five weeks.

Scott said he and Gaetz have worked both when he was governor and Gaetz a state representative and now in Congress to protect the state's military and ensure that the men and women in uniform have had the resources they need to fulfill their mission.

"We have busted our butts," he said. "I have never heard from anybody in the military saying we are not fulfilling our military's needs in Florida."

He said he, Gaetz and Rubio are poised to be "very aggressive" in working to keep the Special Operations Command at Hurlburt and protect any other Florida commands that might be threatened.

"We are going to do everything in our power to prevent the Biden Administration from playing politics," Scott said.

Presumably, shifting AFSOC personnel to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base would prove an economic boon to Arizona, a state much more likely than Florida to be tightly contested in next year's presidential election.

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Efforts to contact public information officers at Hurlburt Field or the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force were not successful Tuesday. A sergeant in the public affairs office at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base said he had heard nothing about troop movement onto the base and was attempting to get more information at press time Tuesday.

Gaetz said the work he and Scott had done to protect and preserve the military mission in Florida had put the state in a good position to defend against efforts like those they suspect Kendall is attempting.

"To me, this is suspicious," the congressman, whose Panhandle district is also home to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Whiting Field, Eglin Air Force Base, Duke Field and the Seventh Special Forces Group, said. "There is nothing to show Florida is not the best location to house these commands."

Gaetz said the U.S. Navy could also be accused of attempting to thwart the efforts of Panhandle Republicans to preserve the sanctity of the area's military bases. He said he had asked the Navy to place construction of a hangar to house the Blue Angels precision flying team on its list of National Defense Authorization Act priorities, but the Navy had declined to do so.

"Had they done that, Senator Scott and I would have been able to get the funding needed," Gaetz said. "It takes two to tango."

Scott said that any sudden move by the Air Force to move the Hurlburt Field Special Operations Command would violate a time-honored process by which commands are traditionally transferred from one location to another. He said the decision to headquarter the Space Force Command in Huntsville, Ala., was an example of how the process is supposed to work.

"Something out of the blue like this is pretty interesting. There's no process and they don't want to talk until after the NDAA passes," he said.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Gaetz, Scott say Biden, Air Force playing politics with Hurlburt Field