The United States Air Force
(With apologies to the Obama perpetual re-election campaign. Other people have had a go at this concept – I think The Life of Brian is one of the funniest, but I wanted to have a go at this myself. ) 3 Years Old – Under President Eisenhower, Celia stays home with her younger brother, as… More »
Yeah, I know – juvenile humor at best, but somehow that’s about the only reasonable response you can make to a walking, talking comic-opera cartoon villain like Moammar Khadaffy. Or Quadaffi, or what the hell – Khadaffy-Duck. I mean, the clothes, the sprocket-hung uniforms, the transparent megalomania, the fembot body-guards, the rip-off of Mao’s Little… More »
From an email by a member of a Yahoo discussion group for FEN broadcasters – dated Sunday About one hour ago or 12 noon Misawa time I had the privilege of watching the USAF Misawa trucks and buses convoy out the main gate on their way to the local coastal areas to provide relief assistance.… More »
I was stationed for four years at Misawa AB, in the very north of Japan, from early 1977 until the very end of 1980. It’s a very rural part of Japan, relatively speaking; very cold in the winter. Misawa was a pretty smallish city, as Japan goes, about seven or eight miles from the coast;… More »
In the early 1990s, I did a tour in Korea; a year at Yongsan Garrison, working at HQ-AFKN, barely a stone’s throw from where my father had spent a couple of weeks at Camp Coiner in 1953. Camp Coiner was where new troops were processed for assignments in-country, and it was still a self-contained miniature… More »
Milblogging – alas, I have had to explain that concept to a number of my purely civilian contacts over the last few weeks. Just a plain old military blogger. A blogger on active duty, a veteran, a family member or someone just interested in aspects of the military life, all of whom are blogging about… More »
I’ve been invited to be on one of the panels at the 5th Annual MilBlog Conference, in Arlington, Virginia, April 9th and 10th – and Blondie and I are intending to drive, since she will be on spring break! (Route tentatively planned as Dallas-Memphis-Knoxville-Harrisonburg) Any other milbloggers from the San Antonio or Ft. Hood area… More »
Wow, have I been out of touch, I used to hear about this kind of stuff the same day. I got to hear him speak once, long ago when he was touring with then Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Parish. He always seemed taller and bigger than everyone around him. He LOVED our… More »
Via Drudge, The Wired Blog is Reporting: The Air Force is fed up with a seemingly endless barrage of attacks on its computer networks from stealthy adversaries whose motives and even locations are unclear. So now the service is looking to restore its advantage on the virtual battlefield by doing nothing less than the rewriting… More »
My… is it Friday already? The end of October, with tomorrow being the Dia de los Muertos… or as we plain Anglos call it, the eve of All Saint’s Day. Time does have when you’re having fun. And I am having fun this week. My hours at the Corporate Call Center just up the road… More »
According to the front page of the Air Force Cyber Command’s Website: 8/14/2008 - Barksdale AFB, La. – The Air Force remains committed to providing full-spectrum cyber capabilities to include global command and control, electronic warfare and network defense. The Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force have considered delaying currently planned actions on Air Force… More »
After 23 years of active duty, I’m now a civilian. It’s weird, but I feel even less stress than I did yesterday. I’m liking this retirement thing. If I’d have known it felt this good, I would have done it last year.
Baldilocks has a story up this morning about a McGuire AFB loadmaster who was killed shot over the weekend. Seems some guy drove to the 22yr old airman’s home on Wed evening (umm, that would be July 4), and shot him in the chest, then killed himself. The airman, Jonathan Schrieken, is in critical condition… More »
Regular reader Robert D. emailed me overnight, letting me know that an ace in two wars, General Robin Olds had died over the weekend. In my early time in service, General Olds was famous for a defiantly non-reg mustache, and for having flown with Chappie James over Vietnam, forming a duo nicknamed “Blackman and Robin”.… More »
In late August 1984, I arrived in Mountain Home, Idaho, my first permanent station with the Air Force. As a single airman, I was destined to live on-base in a dormitory. The Headquarters Squadron had two dorms – one of them housing the Dorm Manager’s office. The Dorm Manager, a senior NCO named Vince (I’ve… More »
As I was outprocessing today I learned that one of my former Airman’s good friends was killed in Iraq this weekend. There are just no words. The Airman was only 19. Yeah, 18′s an adult. That’s easy to say when you’re 18. When you’re over 40…not so much. So before I left I spent a… More »
Now that Beautiful Wife, Gorgeous Daughter and Boyo are off on the road to our new home and the cleaning lady is working on the house, I have a few minutes to sit with Maximum Dawg and let you know about my retirement ceremony on Friday. First of all, Gorgeous Daughter came to town and… More »
The other IMers in the group got together and did a very cool thing during my retirement ceremony. They dressed in the various uniform combinations that I’ve worn over the past 23 years and while the Commander described the various parts of my career, they stepped forward. All of them managed to have my name… More »
You remember that time at the amusement park when you ate a hot dog and a pizza and a corn dog and cotton candy and finished off with a snow cone and then you thought the next indicated thing was to get on the Tilt-A-Whirl? Yeah, that’s kind of how the few hours before your… More »
A meditation upon one of WWII’s most unusual missions… which in even at the time seemed almost as if it were a movie… From Richard Fermandez, “Wretchard” at The Belmont Club, courtesy of PJ Media.
You would think that the absolute cluelessness of the American Media, and many bloggers I might add, would fail to shock me. You’d be wrong. Anyone who thinks this is going to do more than cause some hospitals to paint a wall or two, raise your hands. For almost 23 years I’ve mostly been given… More »
All support functions will be fully in the hands of civillians. All highly technical and functions that require long term training will be contracted out unless they’re too dangerous. These functions will have strict restrictions, enforced by union representatives. Mission is no longer first, the people are, and they’re paid five times what those in… More »
Some heartburn noted this week in some quarters about the Washington Post story about the treatment and the living conditions of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Hospital, and why the milblogosphere is not having a conniption-fit over that, with many dark hints about how we would be screeching like a cage of howler-monkeys if it… More »
A must see for fans of USAF history is the History Channel Modern Marvels episode on Edwards AFB. While the planes are stars, the show also touched on some of the wild personalities who brought the projects to life, Bob Hoover being one of the more notable. What can I say, I just love planes.
I originally posted this on DragonLady’s World, but have updated it some for readability, and a thing or two I just left out of the original. I can’t write about why I got out without first talking about why I joined. There were many reasons for both. During my last undergrad course (the internship), I… More »
When I heard this on Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live…I KNEW it was fake news. Apparently not: Self-Cleaning Underwear Goes Weeks Without Washing. Self-cleaning fabrics could revolutionize the sport apparel industry. The technology, created by scientists working for the U.S. Air Force, has already been used to create t-shirts and underwear that can be… More »
I don’t know where she was when I was going through Basic…I used to get in trouble for saying, “SIR! Amn Timmer reports as ordered.” to the female instructors when I was there…and no, I wasn’t alone. A Lackland Staff Sergeant poses nude in Playboy, and now may be out of a job. Michelle Manhart,… More »