[Lucky Dog]

Mr. “steplock,”

I find your disparagement of your fellow service members exceptionally juvenile. In my 24 years in a “blue suit” I had the occasion to work with members of the Marine Corps, the Army, the Navy and even the Coast Guard. I found among members of every service those I was proud to call my fellow “warriors.” I also found some every service better qualified to be a “shoe clerk” than a “warrior.”

Just for the record, how do you rate an air FAC who straps on propeller driven craft with skin thinner than a beer can and armed only with smoke rockets and radios. These are men who fly into environments where the enemy throws AAA, missiles and everything but the kitchen sink at them, knowing that even a “BB” in the right place most likely means a fiery death.

How do you rate a ground FAC who “jumps” in with the “airborne” carrying all of the combat gear everyone else carries plus 20 to 30 pounds in radios and batteries more than the “grunts” he jumps with. He “humps” it with the load just like everybody else. How about when one of these ground FACs runs into a building “while under fire” in Operation Just Cause and climbs to a floor underneath a roof-emplaced machine gun nest and then holds out his flashlight out of the window so an AC-130 can “see” where to “flame the machine gun nest?” As an interesting aside, you’ll find Air Force FACs assigned to special forces units with which you seem to reasonably impressed.

How do rate a man who straps on a fighter that literally took years of hard work to master, through “peace time” training that not all of his colleagues made it through alive. This man gets into the cockpit willing to go “one-on-one” or “one-on-many” on every combat mission.

How do you rate a “Wild Weasel?” This is someone who “trolls” for the bad guys daring them to shoot at him so he can dive straight “down the barrel” while they’re shooting and put ordinance on the site.

Do you have any idea which branch suffered the highest per capita casualty rate in WWII? Let me enlighten you: it was the Army Air Force. Next time, I think you may want to “do a little homework” before you level such juvenile remarks at your fellow service members.

There are “warriors” in every service, and everybody, in all of the services is “giving something” for their fellow countrymen. They deserve more than your petty derogatory comments.

[steplock]

You gotta be a ZOOMIE! Even the AF recruiters brag that they are "Civilians in (wrinkled usually Uniform"

-=-=-=-

The Air Force Chief of Staff would never be called: AIRMAN ...

The Chief of Naval Operations would never be called: SAILOR ...

The Commanding General of the Army would never be called: SOLDIER ...

but...

The Commandant of the Marine Corps is proud to be called: MARINE

-=-=-=-

Are you the same zoomie that told me a couple of years ago that the purpose of war is NOT to close in and destroy your enemies? The AF Academy teaches the "touchy feely" method of warfare.

That's the difference between the AF and the USMC