A CULTURE OF DECEIT

OF all my recent columns, none has drawn as positive a response as "Saving the Air Force" (PostOpinion, Feb. 11). It wasn't a brilliant piece. Just a case of the emperor having no clothes.

The tone of the comments from those in uniform and veterans was that it's high time someone called the Air Force to account for the way it brushes aside strategic reality and common sense to buy what it wants, rather than what our security challenges demand. And there's broad disgust at the service's recent procurement scandals.

If we could make a single change to reform the Air Force, we could do nothing better than prohibiting blue-suiter generals from accepting jobs in the defense industry after they retire.

The Air Force has many brave, dedicated airmen and officers. Transport crews make everything the other services do possible. The special-operations AC-130 gunship has performed magnificently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Forward air controllers serve with the grunts.

But guess who makes general? Fighter pilots who spend their careers drilling holes in the sky over Nevada. And guess what they want to buy?

One of our nation's heroes, a retired four-star, wrote to me last week. He pointed out that Air Force special-ops pilots — real warriors — rarely make general. Instead, the Air Force moves inexperienced fighter pilots over to serve in senior special-ops slots, badly degrading the capabilities of our Special Operations Command. Even Air Force officers call them the "fighter-pilot mafia."

The Air Force dreams of dogfights with enemies who don't — and won't — exist. Its generals have become addicted to a culture of deceit, with the defense industry as the pusher. Its civilian leadership has failed.

Here's an email response from a non-FReeper friend of mine:

"Hi Char,

I'm not a great historian, but I do recall there was some real debate over the usefulness of a four engine bomber in the future, in the 30's, because we had those two very wide oceans between us and any potential enemy. Thank goodness those "visionaries" were defeated. Germany declined to develop a four engine heavy bomber, thank goodness.

I read, recently, of an Air Force Officer who has piloted the F-22. He said there was as much difference between the F-22 and the F-16 as there was between the F-16 and the Phantom. I think that his point was that the difference was huge.

Recently, the Air Force conducted an exercise with the Air Force of India and, to the surprise of some if not all in the Air Force, the Indians, fly Russian (and I think Swedish and French) airplanes, scored some victories over our, now 25 years or older fighter force.

Better an ounce of prevention than a pound of cure even if the once is on the gold standard. Remember the ridicule of the B-2. The B-2 can fly from the U.S., anywhere in the world, without fighter escort, undetected, drop it's satellite guided payload with pinpoint accuracy, be gone before the bomb hit, and return to the U.S. and do it all over again, with a change of crew, day after day after day after day. It was very expensive. I'm glad we spent the money."

More from my cyberpal, who prefers to remain anonymous:

" In looking at the photos of the soldiers in the muddy foxhole and comparing that to the pilots in the pool, it reminds me of the ridiculousness try to compare things which aren't comparable. I have been in that foxhole, in Vietnam and Cambodia. When we got hit, regardless of whether it was indirect or direct fire, or both, or of the intensity incoming or of the duration, I had good ol Mother Earth to get as close to and into as was possible. It was immensely reassuring and it was effective.

I have never been a fighter pilot, but I have seen fighters up close, at air shows and, in Vietnam I flew on many occasions in military aircraft. Even one alleged to be an aircraft, the helicopter. The metal surrounding the pilots and the occupants of the combat aircraft is about as thick as a can of Campbell's Chick Noodle Soup and will stop a bullet with about the same effectiveness.

If that weren't enough, the fill the things full of highly explosive fuel. When an aircraft goes down, if the pilot and crew, if there is a crew, survive the anti-aircraft fire which brought them down, and then the crash or the ejection or the parachute landing, doesn't kill them, then they are alone.

Refer, for the rest of the story, to Senator McCain, or to the story of Lt. Lance Sijan, posthumous Medal of Honor winner ("winning" seems such a bad choice of words) and others for the rest of the story. Give me good ol Mother Earth and my buddies of the 3rd Squadron, 11 Armored Cavalry Regiment, any day."

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