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00:08Welcome to a second round of a special edition of the Myers Report.
00:12It is Wednesday, March 25th, 2026.
00:17We just got through with a wonderful discussion, very informative, on what is going on in Iran.
00:24But something came up which was deeply, deeply disturbing.
00:28In addition to what we learned about Iran, which turned out to be okay,
00:34what we learned is that the U.S. has a capacity, and I'll put Jim Womack on in this.
00:40Jim Womack is a West Point grad.
00:43He is an experienced graduate of, I guess, the Army War College.
00:47He understands war planning, and he's from North Carolina.
00:51And Jim, what did you have to tell us about the capacity of the 82nd Airborne, as well as other
00:59units, for rapid deployment in an emergency?
01:03Go ahead.
01:05By the way, the subject here is Hurricane Helene revisited and how our own government totally, cruelly handled our own
01:17people.
01:17Go ahead, Jim.
01:18So, first off, let's just separate the two topics here.
01:25So, one topic we were discussing earlier was our ability to do power projection into foreign countries using the military
01:33forces that we have.
01:34And if you want to go down that path and talking about the constraints and limitations of those units that
01:41we have, we can talk about that.
01:42But on the other side of the coin, you know, we also have military forces that can be used in
01:50times of hurricane relief or other natural disasters.
01:54And I think that's what Gary was referring to.
01:56That's absolutely what I'm referring to.
01:58So, in the fall of 2024, just prior to the presidential election, there was a Hurricane Helene poured, you know,
02:09trillions of gallons of water into western North Carolina.
02:12It was kind of a freak occurrence where the Helene just kind of parked itself over western North Carolina, eastern
02:18Tennessee, and dumped unprecedented amounts of water.
02:21You know, the storm of a century.
02:23And it flooded a good part of the western part of the state.
02:29And FEMA was ill-prepared, really, under the Biden administration, was ill-prepared to provide the necessary relief, even though
02:38it was somewhat forecasted in advance.
02:40They weren't able to really preposition the material or the relief equipment that was necessary to help save people.
02:52So, at the time, the story I related to Gary earlier, at the time, you know, a lot of us
02:58were at odds about what we could do to provide hurricane relief.
03:01Well, you know, naturally, you think, well, your active army has the ability to go in and provide some very
03:08robust hurricane relief with all the helicopters, with all the emergency equipment that we have, the engineering units that we
03:15have.
03:16Just at Fort Bragg alone, there's quite a bit of manpower and capability.
03:20How much manpower is at Fort Bragg, Jim?
03:23Well, I don't know the exact number, but I know it's, you know, three brigade combat teams.
03:29And, you know, you're talking about 40,000 soldiers, maybe.
03:33You know, and plus server support units, medical units.
03:36I mean, just a rich array of capability to provide hurricane relief.
03:41And how long would it take them to get from Fort Bragg to western North Carolina?
03:46You're mere hours.
03:48I mean, you know, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, you can have interstate almost the entire way up to 40 and
03:57then west on 40.
03:58So, you're five to seven hours away of all the...
04:01But that doesn't include helicopters, does it?
04:03Well, in helicopters, you're an hour, hour and a half away for helicopter relief.
04:09And we also had the 101st up at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
04:12That was, what, two hours away?
04:15So, the story I related to Hal or to Gary earlier had to do with some difficulties in civil-military
04:24cooperation and military-to-military cooperation.
04:26That under the Biden administration and the Roy Cooper administration in North Carolina, who was the Democrat governor at the
04:36time,
04:37there was a lot of finger-pointing about the lack of aid and relief being provided by FEMA and others.
04:43And a lot of, you know, the Cooper administration pointing the finger at Washington and FEMA.
04:49And yet, I got a call from one of our senators asking for my assistance in getting a hold of
04:59my brother, a congressman who has connections into the National Guard Bureau,
05:04to get basing rights so that the active Army helicopter units could land at National Guard bases, which are in
05:12and around the hurricane-affected area.
05:14And I was dumbfounded that we had problems.
05:17And, you know, Senator Budd, you know, agreed that it shouldn't happen, but it had happened and there were issues.
05:24And Lieutenant General Stubbs, the head of National Guard Bureau in Washington, got involved directly to try to make sure
05:33that the necessary cooperation,
05:36the political cooperation between the administration in Raleigh and FEMA was, you know, that they were overcoming a lot of
05:46the problems.
05:47Because there was issues getting the active Army military helicopters the capacity to land and refuel and do the things
05:55they needed to do in Western North Carolina for political reasons.
05:58And it was disturbing to think that people's lives and livelihoods were being put at risk.
06:03What was the political reason, Jim?
06:05We never really sorted that out.
06:07I was just trying to help resolve by getting General Stubbs and Senator Budd together
06:12and figuring out just what it was that needed to be done so that they could get the basing rights.
06:17And I think it was solved.
06:18The problem was solved within, you know, 24 hours.
06:21But I was just aghast at the thought that it would be difficult for the reserve component or National Guard
06:29organizations to work with the active Army.
06:31I mean, we do it all the time.
06:33And why would there be political implications in a situation?
06:36But, you know, we had private helicopter operations that were going on trying to provide relief.
06:42And evacuation folks.
06:44And they were being denied basing rights over there by locals as well.
06:48So, you know, just a general.
06:49By the way, our own group, members of our own group got four tractor trailer loads of relief supplies in
06:55there.
06:56And as I remember it, before the first military could do anything, it was 10 days.
07:03Yeah.
07:0410 days.
07:06As I also recall, when there was a hurricane in Haiti, the 82nd Airborne was down there in what?
07:1318 hours?
07:1436 hours?
07:15When there's political will, you know, and it's just, you know, it can be done very rapidly.
07:21Well, I won't be as, I won't be subtle like you are.
07:25I understood it, that the reason was that these were Republican voting areas and they wanted to screw up the
07:30ability of these people to get to the polls.
07:32Well, there is some speculation that because Western Carolina is considered to be the most conservative of the state and
07:42because it was a swing state and there was an election pending, that any interruption in the ability to vote
07:47in Western North Carolina would work to the Democrats' advantage.
07:50That was the speculation, that part of the slowness in response was because they didn't want to enable them to
07:58get recovered to the point they could actually get people to vote in the West.
08:03As I remember it, as I remember it, tell me if I'm wrong, it was 10 days and the people
08:10at the 82nd Airborne in Fort Bragg were getting, going crazy and that you had to call your brother, a
08:18congressman from Arkansas, to put you in touch with the executive, the executive officer over at the 101st up in
08:26Fort Campbell to get things moving.
08:28Am I getting that right?
08:30I don't know if that's exactly right.
08:32I mean, we did, you're on the right track.
08:34I had to get a hold of Lieutenant General Stubbs.
08:37My brother helped me get in contact with General Stubbs.
08:39Actually, he had Stubbs call me and then I got him hooked up with Senator Budd so that they could
08:46work through the on-ground operations out in Western North Carolina and sort through the permissions for basing and refueling
08:56and that kind of thing.
08:57So I didn't really have much to do.
08:58I was just a facilitator to try to help get the right people talking.
09:02I understand that.
09:03But going forward, do you think that the coordination will be improved unless somebody wants to sabotage it?
09:10Well, I think there's always a danger of, you know, whenever there are humans in the loop, you're going to
09:16have individuals and have political motivations to stop or to start, you know, any kind of interference.
09:24So it's hard to predict that it's going to be better.
09:26I would think that as long as it's the Trump administration and a cooperative executive branch in the respective states,
09:37you're not going to have these kinds of difficulties.
09:39There's always a chance of political machinations when you have a mismatch of federal and state political alignments.
09:48There's always that possibility.
09:50And, you know, I wish it weren't so.
09:53But when you're talking about, you know, the humanity factor, but it does happen.
09:59I mean, people do things for political reasons.
10:01And it's really unfortunate.
10:04What stunned me and what brought this up tonight is you pointed out that we literally could have troops moving
10:11into a combat area literally within minutes at Fort Bragg.
10:17And it took us 10 days to get people from Fort Bragg into Western North Carolina during the Biden administration.
10:25That, to me, is, at best, it's grotesque incompetence.
10:30At worst, it's criminal.
10:32And it bothers me.
10:34Well, that's not the least of the issues that we have.
10:37And we still are struggling with hurricane relief.
10:40Here we are, you know, 16 months later, and we're still having problems with finishing up some of the work
10:47that needed to be done.
10:49So, you know, it's always a struggle.
10:51But, yeah, I would, you know, it is disturbing to think that our active military, at a time when they're
10:56not otherwise committed, that they could be committed to this kind of relief and really make a dent in it
11:00and run into bureaucracy and malaise.
11:06Yeah.
11:07But one of the differences between moving a bunch of troops into Iran and moving them into a place like
11:13Western North Carolina is when we're doing the Iran thing, we don't have to deal with multiple layers of government.
11:19Right.
11:21But it's actually cleaner going into Iran than it is going into North Carolina, bureaucratically speaking, you know.
11:31Well, no, truthfully, I think when we've had our experience in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last 20 years has
11:36taught us that, in some cases, we become a part of the government.
11:39Our military goes in there and helps facilitate, you know, reestablishing control and governmental.
11:44Right.
11:45And so, you know, that's what civil military organizations do.
11:48And it's pretty impressive.
11:50But you can't do that when you're running into the established bureaucracy that you have in county and state government.
11:56Right.
11:58Yeah.
11:58So I remember some very chilling, telling, and frustrating stories about FEMA during that period of time, which we're not
12:05going to go into now because it's, it's at best angering.
12:11Anyway, Jim, I appreciate, we appreciate what you had to say in the Enlightenment, because the readiness of our American
12:20military for both combat and disaster relief, literally within minutes, it's just staggering.
12:30All right, guys, thank you.
12:32Anybody have any comments or questions?
12:35No, I was just done.
12:36I'm good.
12:37I'm very honored to be on this program.
12:40Well, thank you very much.
12:42With that, I'd like to say thank you to everybody.
12:44Be well, stay safe, and God bless America.
13:01Be well, stay safe, and God bless America.
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