Rivalry between services is normal. There is both rivalry in pride which leads to joking, and rivalry over roles, mission, and funding.
The Air Force, being the youngest service, has a history of being bragish about being able to handle all the worlds problems with its latest fighter or nuclear bomber. All the while enjoying the worlds best housing, o club, and golf courses, while the navy spends its budget on ships and its sailors live in wwII housing. As a sailor you know this this from experience.
Only since about 2001, in the wake of 911, has the Air Force begun to learn what it means to ‘deploy’ where the commissary, exchange, and golf course of the Air Force base are not to be found. Good for them that they get that experience.
The problem I had with Allendale is that like so many, he complains about a threat that he is not personally facing ( ships standing in harms way) and pretends his position is defendable but offers no alternative solutions in a way that could be debated.
Despite the inter-service rivalry, even an Air Force person with any education at all knows some military history, and that there would have been no D-Day, no battle of midway, no Jimmy Doolittle raids, without capitol ships sailing into harms way.
Best regards to you and your nephew. Thanks for your service.
“There would have been no D-Day, no battle of midway, no Jimmy Doolittle raids, without capitol ships sailing into harms way.”
>Certainly true, there would have been no victory over Hitler (in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and most of Germany) and Japan, without the Navy, as the Army was carried to Europe and the islands of the Pacific on the back of the Navy.
Without the Navy first winning control over the sea, especially in the Pacific, McArthur’s Army couldn’t have done what they did in the islands.
A simple glance at a globe, shows the importance of a Navy, most of it covered with water. The Navy has been, and always will be, America’s first line of defense.