One thing we can count on: whatever really happened, the reporter got it materially wrong. They always do.
Another thing we can count on: There will always be human error whenever humans are involved. Nomatter how regimented the procedure or how serious the punishment for failure. People will screw up every now and then.
Not if the punishment is immediate reassignment to the nastiest, coldest, most desolate place on the earth. People with the fear of god in them are more attentive to details.
Folks, as a 26 year veteran of the Air Force, I can absolutely attest to the fact that training is lax in many areas, while training like “EEO” and “human relations training” (I forget what they call it now) takes precedence over many other things.
Doing your day-to-day job is punctuated by stupid people with stupid missions (like training you to understand someone else’s culture or knowing how to properly fill out a “vehicle sign out form” when you rarely if ever have to sign out a vehicle).
Look, people are lazy. Now, I’m not saying that in general everyone in the military is lazy, but there are usually a few in each unit that cause problems, and a lot of times they are commanders.
I have some... close ties to the Air Force Academy. I’ve heard many stories of the kids going through the Academy who are... in my opinion LESS than honest citizens. People who have light fingers in the base exchange, stories of students getting their book money, and “misappropriating” it to do trips to Europe.
Do you folks HONESTLY think that if they are getting away with that sort of CRAP in the Air Force Academy as STUDENTS they wouldn’t CONTINUE to cut corners and do stupid assed things when they become active duty, commissioned officers?
My dealings with 98% of the military personnel I had contact with were very good dealings. However, in 26 years, I saw, dealt with and had to argue with more than my fair share of lazy, good-for-nothing ‘Just-Get-Byers’. They were there for the paycheck, and couldn’t give a crap LESS what the Mission was about, let alone accomplishing the mission.
My contacts with USAF personnel are just as frequent as when I was active duty (and Reserves) — I run into literally dozens of them per day in my current job. And without question almost every, single one of them are above reproach.... but, once in awhile, there’s one that catches my trained eye. They usually don’t last long now, but still, they are there and the bad ones DO slip through sometimes.
So, don’t believe for a second that “the media ALWAYS gets it materially wrong” (or factually wrong). Sometimes, they do get it right.
Sometimes people make mistakes.
Sometimes even military folks can make mistakes, and a chain of mistakes will sometimes happen.
And finally, since 1947 there hasn’t been ONE nuclear accident by our military. This time there wasn’t one, merely the potential for one. And even that didn’t occur.
So, while some commanders lost their jobs, it’s a sure thing that live warheads would NEVER have been dropped in training, nor detonated.