defense news reporter marcus weiss gerber and industry expert richard offlovei of the teal group arehere to tell us what's going on. welcome back to the show. mark, let me start with you. how come such a small program is causing a big concern? >> there's a lot. first off, you have an industry angle where you have a u.s. air force contract and an italian company trying to break into the market. this is the one program they have and they're losing it. >> that was originally 150 airplanes that got whittled down to 38 and now it's at 21. >>> it was over 100, and it was in the 70s when it was an air force army program. you have the air force/army dynamic. the air force is doing a mission that was historically done by the army and now they, the army was scared when the program was transferred to the air force at the beginning and said if you give this to the air force, they're not -- they're going to cancel this program and they're not going to do this mission and we need this mission done. and then you lastly have the air force and the air national guard. a lot of tension there. the air g