Whining about what the Maj wrote? Get real.
________________________________
Subject: RE: Cadet request for F-15 ride
Here's the guy who keeps calling up and bugging the scheduling shop
about getting a flight.
Let's start off with this part of the e-mail. What does "keeps calling up and bugging the scheduling shop" mean? Does this sound like a cadet who has been told "no" more than once?
To me, it seems like this cadet will fit in with the many (yes, I will say it) non-operational officers and airmen who seem more like 9 to 5 (sorry, I meant 10 to 3:30 not including training, CC calls, luncheons, etc) office workers than military members ar war. A little leg work would have gone a long way - such as learning the designation of the squadron that he is trying to fly with. A little reading on the role of the WSO vs. an ordinary passenger in the back seat of an F-15E would have helped, also. Even some thought on how a passenger sortie would affect WSO student production at an RTU squadron would have guided the writing of this request. Show me an e-mail from a West Point cadet to an infantry officer asking to go on a hike and saying how he won't get in the way, and I'll admit that maybe this cadet isn't as out-of-touch as I thought. Those guys can tell me plenty about small arms nomenclature, squad tactics (i.e. the stuff they are getting into in just a few short years) while this cadet probably couldn't VID a Strike Eagle if it flew over the parade grounds much less tell me how it is employed. I have personally asked cadets to VID the aircraft on the ramp as we taxied by on the incentive rides that I gave them (through proper channels) and they have failed by a large margin. One verbatim answer that I got - "we only had to memorize that stuff our 4th class year, we don't have to know it anymore." Our cadets don't know the difference between an AMRAAM and an AWACS, it's just a memorization drill to them. To the West Pointer, it is required knowledge. It is a mentality difference that was almost addressed.
This cadet was nearly taught a lesson that would have taken him a long way. Nearly....until the Wing CC acted more like a politician than a Wing CC. The cadet was neither physically harmed nor emotionally scarred by the response. He may have been surprised, though. Surprised that the rest of the USAF is not like the USAFA, because apparantly his AOC's (or whatever they are called) have failed to teach him that. He seems to be a lot like a lot of his young officer compatriots. Who are they you ask - just ask some of your instructor friends. They are the ones who write stuff like "the evaluator's ground eval was a little too long and his evaluation of my flight performance was not an accurate reflection of my checkride" on their end of course critiques. Yes, they write things like that.
Those of you who were Lt's 15-20 or more years ago and who are upset by this e-mail have lost touch with your roots. I am sure that you have been told something more direct than this, and you can't even remember the details anymore - but I can bet you never repeated the mistake. It's called a debrief - leave the personal feelings at home and bring your thick skin.
Want to know what a d--k move would have been for the major? Had he memorized the cadet's name and done everything within his power to prevent his entry or passing of UPT, IFF, or RTU - now that would have been a d--k move. I doubt that he remembered the cadet's name past the weekend (or until the Wing CC got involved). Sending an e-mail to the cadet and his bro's - not a d--k move. Memorizing the Maj's name and scouring your airline's interview list so you can blackball him because of one e-mail chain when you have neither flown with him, crossed paths with him, nor know the details leading up to the e-mail response - now THAT is a D--K move!
Have you seen the videos of the F-15E's flying over Baghdad last week? Those dudes are busy deploying away from their families and fighting a war by providing CAS or interdiction to the soldiers who are busy dying on a daily basis. When they are home, they are working 12+ hours a day every day - all while dealing with a unknown volume of queep generated from the Wing CC on down.
If this Maj wants to send a somewhat overbearing e-mail to a cadet who thinks this USAF is more of a flying club than a military at war - than so be it. I am inclined to give our actively engaged warfighters a little leeway. Putting yourself in no-sh_t harm's way on a daily basis - you have earned the right to play by some of your own rules. The cadet wasn't harmed and he almost learned a lesson that he could have shared with his classmates. Now the lesson is that if some big bad bully is mean to him (IP, Flt CC, etc), wait for daddy so he can save you, again. So when this student closes the gear doors of his T-38 without coordinating with the crew chief and his IP starts yelling at him and berating him as if he just tried to kill someone - should his first assumption be that the IP is over-reacting because he doesn't understand the severity of his actions and the last time he saw this he got an e-mail apology from the Wing CC. Sometimes you walk into blunt responses unaware - suck it up, learn your lesson, and move on. Quit coddling him and treat him like someone who is preparing for a career in a business where we kill people and destroy objects.
