New generation of USAF officers

[JungleJett]

Yeah I guess serving in a C-130 unit earns you the right to enter into the discussion about warriors, but with limited credibility. Certainly not enough credibility to bash the "holier-than-thou pointy nose drivers."

Please expand on this thought "warrior"...

I am curious how we (the C-130 community) fit in......

 

[ExAF]

Anyone That Serves or Served

Please expand on this thought "warrior"...

I am curious how we (the C-130 community) fit in......

You in the C-130 community fit in just fine in my opinion. I have a lot of friends that are or were in the C-130 community. I've jumped out of C-130s, inspected them during ORI's, and had my eyes watered during an assault landing. I believe ANYONE that serves in the military is a warrior. It takes the whole machine to accomplish the mission. You can't wage war if the support functions aren't up and running providing beans, bullets, and bodies. If you are referencing my discussion with BoilerUp, I mistakenly thought he was a civilian (from his profile) that was bashing the "holier-than-thou pointy-nose drivers." I was merely questioning the credibility of what I mistakenly thought was a civilian on a military thread bashing fighter drivers in the middle of a discussion about the future generation of AF officers. I do not believe I berated anyone in the C-130 community or any other person that has served in the military anywhere in my posts. Does that answer your question?

 

[highside]

Please expand on this thought "warrior"...

I am curious how we (the C-130 community) fit in......

I'll just add one more thought to this thread, then I'm out. I'll make it a clean sweep and probably piss off pointy nose guys and heavy guys (I'm a pointy nose guy).
Look, the true warriors in this day and age are the guys on the ground with the guns, kicking in doors and getting eyeball to eyeball with the bad guys. The special forces dudes fast-roping onto rooftops, and the scout teams patrolling the roads on the outskirts of Baghdad, looking for a fight. Pat Tillman was a warrior on the ground with the Rangers killing Taliban in Afghanistan. I'm sorry but flying your viper in and dropping an LGB and killing Zarquawi is not even in the ballpark with what these dudes are doing (but obviously very important, of course). I want to VOMIT when I see Air Force pilots getting Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, and DFC's while army grunts are serving for a year watching their friends DIE and losing body parts only to get an Army Commendation Medal. Do you know that they are giving AIR MEDALS to Predator dudes? PTOOOEY! That's what I was originally trying to get across when I first jumped into this thread... The true warriors are possibly gravitating away from the pilot career field because they want to be where the fight is.
I'm dang proud of what I do in the Air Force, but if I was 18 again I can tell you I'd put my flying on the backburner to ride around in a Humvee. As it is I got my taste of ground combat and having been shot at in a jet and on the ground, there is no comparison. What would a combat weary AF CCT captain think if he saw us pilots fighting over who the biggest warrior is? I humbly submit that it is not me. Read this account from a newspaper of Marine Lt. Brian Chontosh (all true, he later led the fight a year later to re-take Fallujah as documented by an embedded reporter for Fox News) if you wonder where the cream of the crop of young officers is going:

SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE NEWS

Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than idiot Reservists and
naked Iraqis.
Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who
honored the uniform he wears.
Meet Brian Chontosh.
Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991. Proud graduate of
the Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband and about-to-be father.
First lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.
And a genuine hero.
The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.
At 29 Palms in California Brian Chontosh was presented with the
Navy Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United
States can bestow.
That's a big deal.
But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you read
in Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing. Instead, it
was more blather about some mental defective MPs who acted like animals.
The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not
covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the world
is receiving virtually no true information about what its warriors are
doing.
Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have
fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And
we're almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the Iraqi
prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we
lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how
the world hates us.
We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom.
But we don't hear about the heroes.
The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our
grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue.
The ones we completely ignore.
Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a
platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee.
When all hell broke loose.
Ambush city.
The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine
guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in
charge. It was do or die and it was up to him.
So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead
his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his
humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire.
It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish.
And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. He told his driver to
floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing
at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them.
Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun
and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the
humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines.
Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh
bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps
pride.
And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers.
And he killed them all.
He fought with the M16 until he was out of ammo. Then he fought
with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead
man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked
up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of
ammo.
At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy
cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion.
When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of
entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20
and wounded at least as many more.
But that's probably not how he would tell it.
He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and
he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on.
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited
courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty,
1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the
highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval
Service."
That's what the citation says.
And that's what nobody will hear.
That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts
of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts
of American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you
wonder if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress - to report
or to deride. To tell the truth, or to feed us lies.
But I guess it doesn't matter.
We're going to turn out all right.
As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform.
- by Bob Lonsberry C 2004

 

[RickKC-135]

Highside I too was planning to stay out of the fight any longer but your post made my point perfectly. In my experience the young officers always come through when the time comes. And if the older guys aren't seeing it, they are not challenging/teaching them enough. Great Story

 

[kingsize]

Highside, awesome post again.
Couldn't agree more.
I don't like the politically correct we-are-all-contributing-to-the-fight-and-therefore-all-warriors mentality. Some people are more in the fight than others. And some are WAY more in the fight. Some are not even really in the fight, but support those doing the killing. That's great and the war effort requires your service, but it's just not the same. In fact, it's insulting (actually, probably more laughable) to compare yourself as an equal.

 

[ExAF]

Highside, awesome post again.
Couldn't agree more.
I don't like the politically correct we-are-all-contributing-to-the-fight-and-therefore-all-warriors mentality. Some people are more in the fight than others. And some are WAY more in the fight. Some are not even really in the fight, but support those doing the killing. That's great and the war effort requires your service, but it's just not the same. In fact, it's insulting (actually, probably more laughable) to compare yourself as an equal.

Speaking as another one of those who has been shot at on the ground and in the air, it is true that some are more in the fight than others. My experience has been that many times it is the luck of the draw, timing, or being in the right place at the right time and not willingness to fight or size of the cohones that determines who the warriors in the fight are. Getting shot at is getting shot at whether you are in a fighter, heavy, hummer, tank, Bradly, truck, tent, foxhole, or out in the streets. It only takes one piece of well placed metal to kill you just as dead. For every person "in the fight" there are probably at least 3 more who are itching to go and having to wait their turn. They are no less a warrior that the ones there now. I agree that the boots on the ground are more in the fight than others. I also agree that predator pilots shouldn't be getting (PTOOOEY) air medals, but when Highside says that if you are not on the front lines with the ground forces you are not a warrior, I have to throw the BS flag. Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT taking anything away from the courage and dedication of our troops on ground doing the day to day fighting. They have my utmost respect and gratitude. I'm just saying you don't have to be one of them to be a warrior. You can draw the "who is more equal to whom" line wherever you want. If you talk to some of the wounded who flew back to the world on a C-17, I'm willing to bet some of them would say the most important person in the war was the flight nurse that cared for them on the long painful flight back. It's all a matter of perspective. I certainly didn't consider myself more important/equal than the S-3 across the table in the TOC, or the grunt in the Hummer in front of mine, or the crew chief that fueled my jet. They all had their part to play or nothing got done.

 

[kingsize]

ExAF, I agree with pretty much everything you say. The only issue I've ever had is this politically correct opinion that everyone is created equal, or that we all matter. Maybe we all matter, but when it comes to killing the enemy, some people are RIGHT THERE KILLING the enemy, and that deserves a certain amount of acknowledgement and "warrior" respect above and beyond the rest. I don't think everyone is equal, and that there is a warrior "ladder" out there, with some on rungs higher or lower than others. It is close to impossible to define that warrior ladder because, as you say, it has much to do with timing and with situations, and may have little to do with whether or not you have the "get in the game and bust some heads" mentality. All I say is respect the ladder, whatever it is, and realize service members aren't all equal. To me, a JTAC on the ground that has a rocket land 30 yards from him, and 3 minutes later is shooting a guy 15 feet away from him, all while trying to coordinate air support, is more in the fight than the A-10s he's talking to, and that A-10 is more in the fight than me at 30,000'+ loitering, with no real threats, and I'm more in the fight than a C-5 flying into the Al Udeid, and that C-5 is not really in the fight (directly at least), but is helping feed the fight moreso than a T-37 IP at Vance, and that T-37 IP is not operational, but is at least putting through the next pilots to get to the fight so he is more in it than a glider instructor at the Air Force Academy who is more in it than some guy working in the finance office. But that glider instructor might have just come back from Iraq where he was regualrly in the sh!t, and on his last mission one of the Army infantry sergeants he used to BS with just got killed. Before that stint in Iraq, he was flying A-10s raining hate on the Taliban. So that puts his warrior contribution above everyone above in my opinion (well, except the JTAC that was almost killed and had to do some close killing of his own).

 

[Deuce130]

I think most people just want to be recognized and appreciated for whatever it is that they actually did or are doing for the war effort. I don't think anyone would argue that a Marine or Soldier isn't placed above a guy in a cockpit during the fighting. That same soldier can be trumped by a Green Beret. That same Green Beret can be trumped by a Navy SEAL. That same Navy SEAL, etc etc. It is, however, possible to thank a guy for his service without disparaging another. Look at how P.O.'d the AF brass is right now that the Army and Marine Corps brass is calling OEF and OIF their war b/c they're the ones doing the fighting and dying (they're really just after more dollars, not more respect). If a guy is a trigger puller, thank him. If a guy is a C-17 pilot, then thank him without talking smack out of the other side of your mouth. I have to work alot with the CAF and they're really is a BS heirarchy out there. It begins with single seat fighters, then on to two-seat fighters, then on B-2 pilots, then B-1, then blah blah blah. I actually had a jacka** ask me why we have a SOF weapons school when we don't have any weapons. This comes from an F-15C pilot who gets the hairy eyeball from F-16 pilots, who get the eyeroll from the A-10's, and so on. It's ridiculous. My point is that SOMEONE ELSE will always trump whatever it is that YOU do or did. Be humble about it, don't let it bother you, and don't do it back to anyone else.

 

[Deuce130]

I want to VOMIT when I see Air Force pilots getting Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, and DFC's while army grunts are serving for a year watching their friends DIE and losing body parts only to get an Army Commendation Medal. .. The true warriors are possibly gravitating away from the pilot career field because they want to be where the fight is.

Couldn't agree more. The military should put a disclaimer on the AF Bronze star. Grunts have to do amazing things to get them, often posthumously. AF officers only have to be mission commanders or supervisors for a single deployment to get them. It's a joke. We also had a casual LT in my squadron turn his UPT slot back in so he could join the Army. I thought it was the gutsiest move I ever saw.

 

[kingsize]

Deuce, sounds good to me...totally agree with both you guys about vomiting when seeing AF officers getting bronze stars just because of rank and being n the box. What's this all about anyways?? Oh yeah, new generation of officers...and that naturally led into talking about new generation of pilots (since this is a pilot forum) and how a lot choose aircraft that keep them out of the fight, or a lot don't seem to have the warrior mentality. Some say it has always been this way, some say we are too politically correct now, to where a student can get away with backtalking to an IP, even on a checkride...I don't know. I definitely see a difference in the new guys, that SNAP attitude that they deserve everything, but also they are really smart people. They just want to do the job and go home to their families, without all the BS, maximizing their time at home. I guess that's understandable, maybe different from past generations, but understandable. I think they'll be able to walk the walk when put to task.