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Well I was with you there until you called F-16 pilots cowards. I assume you know Air Force pilots transition from one aircraft to another, sometimes several times in a career? An F-16 pilot today may be a warthog driver tomorrow and vice versa. If you were trying to make a point you blew it pal.

Count on the bluesuiters getting called a lot worse things by the grunts, and for the potential of a lot worse things happening than namecalling if the family members of grunts killed because they've got no close air support come home in boxes.

Remember the cancellation of the army's 155mm Crusader artillery because the USAF air support would always be there to save them- as it mostly was during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan? Whatr happens when the grunts have no artillery and the USAF won't give them *danger close* support in populated areas? More Jessica Lynchs and Lori Ann Piestewas?

That is NOT what the *Aim High, avoid shooting yourself in the foot* Air Force needs right now....

-archy-/-

"Well I was with you there until you called F-16 pilots cowards. I assume you know Air Force pilots transition from one aircraft to another, sometimes several times in a career? An F-16 pilot today may be a warthog driver tomorrow and vice versa. If you were trying to make a point you blew it pal."

I KNOW a bunch of F-16 pilots. Not ONE of them would get down and dirty and not one of them has ever flown a Warthog.

Having been on the ground and in need of CAS, I can tell you that the line of preference is Marine Aviation (great!), Naval Aviation (okay), and then the horrible, awful, cowardly USF who flies way overhead and drops a few bombs semi-randomly and then quickly flies off. The USAF *HATES* ground support and essentially refuses to do it. The only exception is the tiny number of Warthog guys, and the USAF hates both them and the Warthog.

I have friends and relatives in the USAF. One of my friends and one of my nephews are serving USAF officers with fighter squadrons. I know these people. I have been in the dirt under heavy fire while they flew happily away and left us there. Contrast that with Marine Aviaition, who gets down low and fights like Hell for their brothers on the ground. A Marine pilot in a bar will be bought drinks all night long by his ground-pounding brethren for whom he has put his life on the line; a USAF pilot in the same bar had better watch out, because we know just what he is. The contempt for them knows no bounds.