Shower Patrol: A Postcard From the Waning Days of the Combat Air Force
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| For a long time, combat aviation culture dominated the Air Force, for better or worse. Today, it has been all but extinguished. |
The Air Force became a historically and globally formidable organization not chiefly by the power of technology, as the conventional wisdom holds, but by the greatness of its squadrons. The squadron was traditionally the domain where airpower practitioners of one stripe or another cohered into tightly-knit, mutually supportive teams. They didn’t just wear the same uniforms and practice the same specialties, they shared a common identity.
That identity revolved around making the enemy suffer by making optimum use of time, energy, and technological advantage. Everything else was relegated to secondary status, and special contempt was reserved for administrative nonsense and its champions. They were held in check with a determined air choke. There was an unspoken understanding that if the service’s long-suffering, aircrew-hating support cabal ever got its hands on the controls, it would steer the service into the ground … or perhaps just back into the Department of the Army.
Check out this article about a disturbing change in the attitude and priorities in today's Air Force:
Shower Patrol: a Postcard From the Waning Days of the Combat Air Force
[Thanks to USAFA '75 classmate, Ben Bosma, for forwarding this]
[Thanks to USAFA '75 classmate, Ben Bosma, for forwarding this]
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3 comments:
Interestingly stated. With the upcoming election where will this leave the AF squadron's role?
If our next President is more concerned about our military and it's mission than politics, Anonymous, there will be less pressure for political correctness (PC). That may allow the military to put the PC aside and become more mission oriented. But the PC problem in the Air Force is bigger than just the current administration.
From the beginning, fighter pilots had a special mindset. They had to. The projected lifespan of a fighter pilot was very short. It took a special man to strap a fighter to his butt and pit his skills against another in a fight to the death where the best man won and coming in second meant your demise. This attitude was cultured and honored...until about 40 years ago when PC started creeping into the armed forces.
This process of making the Air Force politically correct has been going on since I was commissioned in 1975. Our generals need to dig their feet in and resist the political pressures to make changes that interfere with our mission, and they have failed to do so for the past forty years.
For a long time I thought this mind set of PC was the result of too many years of relative peacetime during my career that allowed the Air Force to take its eyes off mission priorities and that going to war again would thrust concern for the mission back to the forefront. But we have been a nation at war, now, since 9/11 (the longest stretch of continuous war in our nation's history), and it appears the situation is only getting worse.
I have great concerns for the future of the Air Force, our military and our country, Anonymous. We are heading off a cliff, and changing that course will require a total change in the mindset of all these institutions if the United States of America is to survive.
Great background information and explanation of the current state of affairs. I too, have great concerns about the future of all of our military branches. I am particularly concerned about the proliferation of ISIS and of course, the most recent attacks in Paris.
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