Air Combat Command has still not rebuilt from 2013's budget sequestration debacle, a funding disaster that left entire squadrons grounded, education and training aborted, and maintenance deferred. The previous chief of ACC, now-retired Gen. Herbert J. "Hawk" Carlisle, said this spring that "the best we've done is [to] stop the decline" in readiness at the command responsible for the lion's share of the nation's conventional airpower. Though he wanted to report that "we've started to climb out, ... I think that would be awfully optimistic." Carlisle sat with Air Force Magazine for an exit interview shordy before his March retirement, also meeting with defense reporters in late February.
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