McKinley suggests F-18 for ANG, C-27J out..

[dtfl]

Air Force pilots make general officer and retire. They go to work for Lockheed Martin. They make fantastic money selling what ever crap LM makes to the Air Force, because their former subordinates are the decision makers and want their retirement jobs at LM as well. No one in the Air Force wants to fly C-130s or have anything to do with supporting the Army.

The Army doesn't always have six months advanced notice of when they're going to need something in a combat situation, so they would like to have their own intratheater lift capability. They want something self-deployable, but not necessarily something that does the global reach on a routine basis. The C27 fills that role nicely. The Air Force sees the C27 as a threat to their budget, so they craft arguments against it. Just like they killed the Army's C7 Caribou program, they have taken the approach, suggesting to the Army that they make the C27 a "Joint" program (of course they must be the "lead" service, so they can later kill it).

The name of the game is money, and budget, and end-strength. The Air Forcce couldn't care less about the guys on the ground.

For someone with so many airframes under his/her belt your post makes you sound extremely naive.
The AF can AD or AL something short notice. VERY short notice is AFSOC brings it. And FW vs RW is doctrinal for the most part.