"They had spent a couple of days bouncing between the ground and 12 inches off the ground while the Air Farce ran bombs around their fire base to keep the enemy off of them. Seems that no one else could get there."
It's not an issue of being needed. It's an issue of the nature of the job. Most AF jobs are like a civilian's job. 8 hours, go home. The quality of life is so good in the AF that the turnover is small, lots of lifers.
There's no denying that. Army/Navy/Marines all have aspects to the job that makes it suck. A lot more than the AF.
My brother was in the air farce, I was navair, worked the flight deck. When I got back from the med on the JFK, my brother met the ship at the dock ( he was stationed in virginia at the time ) and I brought him aboard for a tour. His statement ( repeated many time throughout the tour ) was "Man, I could not even think about working under these conditions". Spoiled brat.