Who Are You? What Do You Want? Where Are You Going? Whom Do You Serve – And Whom Do You Trust?!
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 retirement ceremony feels like.
Just like that.
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 Vitamin M (Motrin) and/or Flexoril for just about every ache and pain that I’ve ever had. I’ve been to a physical therapist twice even though I’m supposed to see one every other week…he’s usually so overbooked here he actually says, “When it hurts bad enough, come in, I’ll crack it again.” After 20 years of rather constant “shin splints” they finally figured out I had compressed compartments. The only reason they decided to operate was that they’d become chronic and were “getting ready to blow.”
And most of my crap is just muscles and nerves not doing what they should. I can’t imagine being in need of any real treatment.
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 uniform once accepted.
The only members left in uniform will be pilots and other operators and some select enlisted personnel.
Pilots won’t actually get in the aircraft, they’ll fly the plane via remote control. If they destroy an aircraft they don’t die…they’re replaced…immediately.
All transport flights that don’t include transporting personnel will be fully automated.
All enlisted functions will be in direct support of pilots and other operators, but too dangerous for civilians.
All health care will be provided by the local “Doc in a Box.” You know, the free clinic that folks on welfare won’t even go to unless they’re absolutely sure they’re dying.
Every unit will have the following specialists assigned:
– A Lawyer.
– A physical fitness specialist (gym teacher). This person will decide whether or not a member is physically fit for duty, not the Commander or Medical Personnel. They may have additional training in law to ensure to they fully document the member’s health and fitness shortfalls.
– A security specialist to protect the above personnel from the rest of the squadron.
– First Sergeants will no longer even pretend to care about morale and health issues. Those wearing the diamond will be the Superintendents of today, adding discipline to their duties. Their primary purpose will be to help the Lawyer and Gym Teacher in getting rid of personnel who are no longer meeting standards. There are no second chances, one strike and they’re out.
– Commanders are simply in place to sign the paperwork the previous specialists place before them. If they do not agree with the lawyer, they may be brought up on dereliction of duty charges. You can bet they’ll stick.
Too cynical? Commanders will never put up with it? Senior NCOs won’t allow their people to be treated in such a manner? One can hope. Unfortunately, in some ways, we’re already there.
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 had happened under another administration.
Not having a background in medical administration, or any particular knowledge of the set-up at Walter Reed, or even personal knowledge of anyone undergoing treatment there, I’d have to defer involvement in this fracas… except for a comment on the reported decrepitude of the building where many of the out-patients were living. From the description it sounds like, and most probably is, a dump.
All of these might come as a surprise to the dear little civilian writers of the WaPo and it’s ilk, who see the nice, shiny public side of the gold-plated bases, and assume that the rest of the base, post or fort is similarly bright and shiny and new. Au contraire, as they say in France, and ‘twas ever thus: George Washington lived in a house at Valley Forge, but everyone else lived in something considerably less commodious.
The reason that no one in the mil-blogosphere is hyperventilating over that aspect of the story is that most of us have lived in, or did business in worse, during our time in service. Peeling paint, leaking plumbing, sagging floors, corroding pipes, herds of rampant vermin wandering untrammeled in cheap and badly-maintained structures that are two or three decades (or more) past their best-if-used-by date? Been there, done that, got a raft of horror stories of my own.
Let’s see, there was the old high school on Misawa AB, back in the days when it was a sleepy little Security Service base; it was housed in three long sheds which had been stables when Misawa AB was a Japanese Army cavalry post in the late 1930ies. On a hot summer day the place still smelled distinctly of horses. It was slated to be replaced during the Carter Administration, except that Jimmeh passed on the defense spending bill which would have paid for it; another good reason to despise him even before bungling the Iran Embassy hostage crisis. Even the relatively newer facilities on MAB then were no prize: famously the hospital barracks was in such bad shape that a guy once walked into the upstairs shower room and crashed straight through the floor into the downstairs shower room. This was the place where I developed my life-to-date habit of storing all non-refrigerated foodstuffs in sealed jars, since the barracks I lived in then had roaches. Lots and lots of roaches.
The infrastructure on Zaragoza AB wasn’t too awful— this was an Air Force Base, where we do cling to some standards— but the water pipes were so corroded that tap-water on base came out colored orange, about the color and consistency of Tang. People living in base housing spent a lot of money on bottled water.
The infrastructure at the Yongsan Garrison, ROK was not that much better. A couple of decades of living with the expectation of relocating the mission elsewere had left the electrical grid in such shakey condition as to make power-outages a part of the expected routine. The water pipes were so corroded that I earned fame everlasting on the day I walked into the Air Force female dorm bathroom and noticed that the shower-heads emitted a bare trickle. I took out my trusty Swiss-Army knife, unscrewed the shower-head-plate and emptied about a quarter of a cup of crud out of each. This was also the place where some of the Army troops were domiciled in Korean War-era Quonset huts. In the fall, CE had to hold training classes for the dorm managers to teach them how to run the antique kerosene heaters that warmed them… the heaters were so old that the average soldier would never in his or her life laid eyes on artifacts of such antiquity.
The AFRTS station building in Greenland had mice so tame that one of the board operaters tried to train them to sit up and beg for food. A broadcaster friend of mine who was stationed at a Pacific Island Navy base was warming a pan of canned chili in a saucepan, when a huge rat jumped into the hot chili… and jumped out again, and skittered down the hallway of the dorm, leaving little rat-footprints of chili con carne.
Maintenance of facilities; it’s one of those dull, dull issues that hardly anyone ever pays attention to except those who have to deal directly with it on a daily basis. It’s not one of those sexy military spending issues; it is more of enduring headache, for there is never quite enough money approved for a tenth of local needs. What there is, winds up being spread as thin as a pat of butter on an acre of toast.
Overseas bases, and facilities that are on the verge of being closed generally get last call; and I’d note that politicians and investagative reporters are usually among the first to make a lot of hay when there is money spent on an aging military facility about to be closed.
So call me grimly amused, when they are making hay about money not being spent on an aging military facility.
Just for the heck of it though, the next time I have an appointment at BAMC, here in San Antonio, I’ll snoop around and take a look at what the outpatient troop quarters look like… but the last time I looked, six months ago, they all looked pretty good.
Any recollections of infamously awful troop billets are invited, of course. Misery loves company.
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 was looking for a post graduation job. The box factory was fine for summer work, but I didn’t spend 6 ½ years getting a 4 year degree to stack and pack boxes. My professor put me in touch with a former student who worked at the Frigidaire factory. The company was looking to fill a position working with her, as she was a single point of failure type of job. By that, I mean she was the only one who could do what she did, and if something were to happen to her, they would be hosed. I was called back for a second interview as they had narrowed the applicants down to me and one other person. Then the company decided not to fill the position.
I was bummed. I started hitting the temporary agencies to get something while I started a new search. By this time, I had my B.S., and was not looking forward to more factory work. (My degree is in Industrial Technology with a Manufacturing concentration.) This was the point that every recruiting commercial I had ever seen flashed through my head. I decided to join the Guard. I talked to Army vet hubby first. He told me that I would be happier with active duty than Guard, and to join the Air Force, not the Army because “the Air Force will take care of you.” So, I called the recruiter, and he processed me both as enlisted and officer. I was joining no matter what, and as it turned out, OTS board results would not come out until after I was scheduled for basic training. My enlisted job was guaranteed, and rather than risk losing my guaranteed job (which I methodically picked primarily because it looked fun and easy and “combat” wasn’t in the title or description), I chose to enlist rather than wait for OTS board results.
I had thought about joining the Guard in high school. My parents always spoke about the military with great respect, and built up this honorable entity for me regarding the US military. Now, of my mom’s six brothers, five were in the military: two Marines, one regular Army (he was drafted during Vietnam), and two National Guard. Of my dad and his three brothers, only two were in the military that I know of. Uncle Lawrence tried to enlist in the Army, but they didn’t want him because he didn’t finish high school. He was drafted after Pearl Harbor, and volunteered for the Army Air Corps, mainly because he thought the LT who told them about it was full of it. He said by the end of the day, he was on a train headed for FL for Air Corps training. My dad volunteered after Pearl Harbor, but the Army wouldn’t take him because he was missing two fingers on his left hand, and they considered him handicapped. Then they tried drafting him four or 5 times. He said he almost made it through the physical exam once without anyone noticing his hand. He was at the last station, and was a signature away from making it when the doc noticed. He finally moved to Alabama and joined the state militia there (which eventually became the National Guard) for the rest of the war. I also had several cousins on both sides of the family who served in the military. Anyway, I mentioned joining the Guard in front of a friend’s dad back in high school. By the time he got finished describing his experience at Ft Polk, I had changed my mind, which was his intention.
Now, that all makes it sound like I joined just to have a job, but with patriotic or family history leanings. Both are true, but not the only reasons. The hubby and I were not in a very good place in our lives, and really needed to get away. Also, neither of us had any kind of health insurance, and I knew we would eventually want to have kids. Both kids were born during my first assignment. I got to “see the world,” though Kuwait was not on my list of places I wanted to see. I got the GI Bill that is helping pay for graduate school. Most importantly, I finally got some much needed self-discipline.
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 worn hygenically for weeks without washing.The new technology attaches nanoparticles to clothing fibers using microwaves. Then, chemicals that can repel water, oil and bacteria are directly bound to the nanoparticles. These two elements combine to create a protective coating on the fibers of the material.
Not much leaves me without words but this one…I’m kind of lost. It’s just too funy on its own.
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, 30, has two children and is married. In the February issue of Playboy magazine, she will be featured in a spread called “Tough Love.” It hits newsstands next week. While those photographs haven’t been made available to the public yet, Manhart’s myspace.com page features the Playboy logo. Pictures of her are posted to the song, “Photograph,” by Def Leppard.
This is another reason I know it’s time to retire…I see nothing wrong with it and know I probably should. My First Sergeant’s reaction? “Why don’t *I* ever get these cases?”
Throughout the military everyone will be laughing and joking and yes, oggling this attractive young lady, but officially they’ll be saying, “Oh it’s wrong. It’s conduct unbecoming. Burn her–she’s a witch!” meanwhile I’ll bet you it will sell out at every BX, PX and Navy Exchange faster than any other issue all year.
One of the things that’s always confused me about the U.S. Military. We’re quiet lechers and public puritans, and most of the time the puritanical part makes me sick in it’s complete and utter hypocrisy.
I’ve gotten this via four different distro lists this morning. Everyone from Chief McKinley to someone who used to work for me seems to think it’s the best thing since Hi-Tech Boots. I’m not going to express an opinion.
I am an Airman (Commentary)
BY: Senior Master Sgt. Clayton French, AFPN
01/10/2007
SEYMOUR JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. — We, the Air Force, have an identity crisis. I vividly remember my first day as a Professional Military Education instructor. On that day, everyone stood up and introduced themselves to their classmates with the typical, “Hi, my name is Bob and I’m a crew chief.” Each student stated his or her first name and Air Force occupation. Then came the final student, an Army Staff Sergeant. He quickly arose and stated, “I’m Staff Sergeant Coleman. I am an American Soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team … I will never accept defeat. I will never quit … I am disciplined … I stand ready to destroy the enemies of the United States … I am a guardian of freedom … I am an American Soldier.” After proudly stating the Army Creed, he sat down. Then a long 15 seconds of stillness passed before Technical Sergeant Jones broke the silence. He stood back up and proudly responded, “I’m Sergeant Jones and I’m an Airman.” He hesitated for a few awkward seconds and then concluded, “And I guess I really don’t know what that means.” Then he sat down.
If you are on an Army Post and shout, “Hey Soldier” you’re likely to have everyone turn around in response. The same thing will happen if you shout “Hey Marine” or “Hey Sailor” on a Marine Camp or Naval Station. However, on an Air Force Base, if you try the similar “Hey Airman” your only responders will likely be our youngest troops.
Why is that? Are we not all Airmen? Or is it because we “really don’t know what that means?” If you are asking yourself those questions, let me offer you a few suggestions.
I am an Airman. I act with truthfulness and honesty. As Airmen, we are entrusted with the greatest calling, protecting our country and our way of life.
Because of our unique profession, we can’t pencil-whip training reports, or cover up tech data violations, or falsify documents. We simply can’t afford to live dishonestly. Dishonesty breeds mistrust, and mistrust erodes our ability to perform the mission. In everything we do, we must intentionally do it in truthfulness and honesty.
I am an Airman. I willingly sacrifice myself for the benefit of the team. Being part of a team requires self-sacrifice and self-sacrifice must happen at all levels. Performing as a team requires a “less of me and more of us” mindset. We have to give more than what is expected. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn’t matter who gets the credit. Being part of a successful team requires sacrifice.
I am an Airman. I care passionately about my fellow Airmen. No other profession calls for compassion than that of a military warrior. As warriors, we underestimate the power of a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. We must promote a culture of reliance on each other in order to accomplish the mission. Without compassion, we will lose trust in our teammates, and the mission will fail. We must care passionately for each other.
I am an Airman. I am accountable for my actions. Individually, we are responsible for upholding the standards. We must live by the concept, “I am responsible.” Although we may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, we are responsible for our attitudes and actions. We must reject the idea that every time a standard is broken, someone else is to blame. We must live by the precept that each individual is accountable for their actions.
So I challenge you. Define who you are by your Airmanship. The next time someone calls out, “Hey Airman,” stop, turn around and respond. We are all Airmen. Together, let’s solve this identity crisis.
Okay, I’m going to express a bit of an opinion: “I am responsible” is also a motto of Alcoholics Anonymous’. I’m not sure the Air Force should be going to the 12 Steps for guidance.
And really, this morning is just a fluke…I’m still on break…really…not here.
One of our best Christmas Eve’s ever was the eve we spent manning the phones for NORAD. Boyo was only 6 and was interviewed by the local news while he and a bunch of other kids were in the corner of the Command Center watching Rudolph etc. while Beautiful Wife and I manned the phones. We must have had 40 phones in there and we just couldn’t keep up with the calls. A small kitchen was filled with all sorts of food from sliced cold cuts to every imaginable Christmas Goody. The “uniform” was Christmas Casual and it’s pretty darn weird to see a Four-Star walking around with antlers on his head and a glowing nose on his face. Almost made you think he was human.
My absolute favorite calls went something like this:
“HQ NORAD Tracks Santa. This is Sgt Timmer, may I help you?”
“Hi Sergeant, this is a Mom in Milwaukee and I’ve got you on the speaker phone with my five children who are too excited to go to bed.”
Sounds of giggling kids, one little voice “Where’s Santa Claus?” then another, “Yeah, where is he?!”
An excited Sgt Timmer: “Milwaukee?! Ma’am, we’ve got Santa and his sleigh inbound to your position within the next half an hour! NORAD recommends that all good children in Milwaukee go to bed immediately in preparation for Santa’s arrival.”
Sounds of children shreaking, laughing, and bolting down a hall…doors slamming.
A giggling Mom, “Oh, God bless you Sergeant, Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas Ma’am, NORAD out.”
Pretty soon our house is going to fill with the smells of tomorrow’s feast. We’re not going anywhere this year and I didn’t invite anyone over this time. This year it’s just the three of us and I’m okay with that. Next year it will be a houseful of folks back home. Maybe not our house, but a house and you can be sure it WILL be full. Beautiful Wife’s got a HUGE family. Their weird, but we love them.
Merry Christmas and God bless us…everyone.
The TSgt (E6) you’re talking to not only doesn’t know the prescribing directive for the form the two of you are discussing, a form that her office fills out and works with every day, but seems offended that you would even think that she should. Got downright pissy with me. Hey, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, I told her I didn’t think it was her fault but a severe lack of training. That didn’t seem to make her feel better.
When I was coming up, I was expected to know the AFRs, AFMs, AFPs and AFIs for the paperwork that I was completing every day. Is that unheard of these days?
This one had me talking to myself for almost an hour yesterday.
Some Airmen are not getting information they need to make them better and more productive, Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Rodney J. McKinley said.
That is why he believes the start of a roll call program, which he said could start “within days,” will help bridge the communications gap between senior Air Force leaders and Airmen around the globe.
Roll call. Because we don’t have any other way of communicating important information to our people. Hell, the next thing you know we’ll be passing around the Daily Bulletin clipboard and having people initial it.
Talk about kickin’ it ol’ school.
Innovation, the key to air power.
Seriously, what this tells me is that the CMSAF has to dictate that we talk to our people face to face, every day, and that frightens me at a core level. In what chucklefuck organization are there supervisors who don’t talk to their folks every day? Where is this place? I want to avoid it and tell my folks to avoid it.
If I don’t talk to my crew by 0900, I don’t feel right the rest of the day. Plain and simple it’s part of my day. I get my coffee, I walk around and see how everyone’s doing. Why? That’s what all my “good” bosses did when I was coming up. Sometimes they did carry the Daily Bulletin around with them and say, “Hey, did you see they’re changing the leave program…AGAIN?”
Roll call. Where the hell am I going to have roll call? Well, the good news is, my “I hate public speaking” guy is going to have a LOT of practice.
It struck me yesterday as I was talking to one of my folks. I now know what’s bothering me about the Air Force’s recent emphasis on the fitness program. Every time any leader says, “This is our number one priority.” I grimace. I wasn’t sure why. I mean I found it annoying that all of a sudden after a few years of playing lip service to this new fitness program they actually started enforcing it. The official word was “We’ve been doing this for four years, no one should be surprised.” The truth of the matter was they were sort of, kind of, doing the new fitness program but no one knew how the hell we were supposed to do it AND accomplish the mission at the same time, so everyone sort of played along and did what we did back in the 80s and tried to basically ignore the thing. The other part of the problem, was that every base now has a civilian “expert” who makes a ridiculous amount of money annoying the wing commander with every little failure and every little non-conformity to the “new” Air Force Instruction that everyone freaking knows no one can follow and complete their mission at the same time. Yeah, I’m not a fan.
The other problem was and remains, the Air Force has always always always recruited for brains. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the other branches only have dummies, I’ve worked with too many smart people in all branches of the service. I am saying that we in the Air Force haven’t been known for being hard core. There’s Cops, there’s Ammo, there’s the seriously hard core Para Rescue, the psychotic kids in Combat Control and Combat Camera, but other than that, we’re mostly a bunch of geekoid techies doing highly skilled mechanical, electrical, or information systems and nerd-boy stuff. If we weren’t straight A students we at least had a B average. Gym Class for us was kind of a necessary evil broken only by the joy of Ellen Katz’s bikini’s refusal to stay on in swimming…all four years…God bless that girl, where ever she is.
I’m not sure about the rest of the Air Force, but I know my folks have a hard time even getting training for their 5-Level anymore. We’re supposed to be proficient at building web pages using Front Page or Dreamweaver (my preference) and we’re supposed to have classes that make us proficient at basic computer trouble-shooting. My folks? We can’t even crack a box without risk of getting fined for invalidating a warrantee or stepping on a contract. And we do continue to train them even without the resources…when we can spare them from their mandatory Gym time. Because training is secondary, Gym is mandatory.
After 22+ years of service, I’m watching my Air Force become more concerned with Gym Class over mission. We’re worried about Gym Class! WTF? It’s the same feeling I had when a friend of mine couldn’t graduate HS because he was taking extra courses at a college instead of going to Gym class for a quarter. Fucking Gym Class. You can call it WarFit, you can call it PT, you can call it whatever the hell you want, but we’re destroying people over Gym. Let me say that one more time. Your United States Air Force is kicking out good, smart, competent and talented people because some of them are cutting Gym.
It seems like such a brilliant flash of the obvious, but I do feel better knowing why it’s been bugging me.
Late this afternoon I received this email from the Air Force Personnel Center.
This is to inform you that your Retirement application has been approved.
I have no plans to retire from The Daily Brief.
If nothing else, the next 7 months should be interesting.
Ought to be interesting to see how this works itself into the Joint Information Operations Center.
8th Air Force to become new cyber command
by Staff Sgt. C. Todd Lopez
Air Force Print News11/2/2006 – WASHINGTON (AFPN) — During a media conference here Nov. 2, Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne said the 8th Air Force would become the new Air Force Cyberspace Command.
“I am announcing the steps the Air Force is taking towards establishing an Air Force Cyberspace Command,” the secretary said. “The new Cyberspace Command is designated as the 8th Air Force… under the leadership of (Lt. Gen. Robert J. “Bob” Elder Jr.) He will develop the force by reaching across all Air Force commands to draw appropriate leaders and appropriate personnel.”
There’s a WTF factor in this speech though: “Cyberspace is a domain in which the Air Force flies and fights.” Fighting? ‘k. Flying? Not so much. I’m guessing some speech writer watched The Matrix or read the Cliff Notes version of Neuromancer.
Air Force Cyberspace Command? I’d post any pics I get for what that patch should look like.
Photoshop This One.
Thanks to the new downsizing “Force Shaping” measures, it looks like I’m back to retiring from the Air Force next year, as originally planned.
I know I’ve made “jokes” about why I’m retiring but tonight I’m thinking more about the truth of the matter.
The truth ladies and gentlemen is that I’m in the way. No, I’m not sinking into some sort of dark place, I’m facing reality.
Reality: I joined the Air Force late and I’m 22 years into it and I’m 45 years old. I’m as old as most Colonels. I’m older than some Chiefs. My generation, my year group of folks is almost entirely retired. I’m feeling not alone, but lonely. There just aren’t that many folks my age in the Air Force anymore. I was at a symposium a couple of weeks ago with about 100 other Master Sergeants and I just didn’t feel like I fit in. That had a lot to do with age and the Class A type of folks who typically take this seminar.
Reality: If I’m going to make Senior, I’ve got at least another year and a half of rehabbling my file to make a decent board score. Look, I’m having fun being part of the booster club and being part of a Top 3 that’s really involved with helping the younger folks, but I’m just not willing to suck certain Chief’s schwing-stick or kiss another Chief’s butt to make sure my file rises to the top. I would love to maintain the illusion that the Senior or Chief’s board is based completely on a stratified system of filling in the right events in the right order. I’d be lying to you and myself if I ignored the fact that Chief’s talk amoungst themselves.
Reality: I simply can’t hack the new PT Standard. Because of past abuses and some genetics, I’ve got a blood pressure problem and a cholesterol problem. My feet, ankles, knees and lower back, simply don’t tolerate high impact aerobics any more. All of this is in no small part to continuing to doing things I shouldn’t have done and not doing other things that I should have done. Bottom line, I should be doing Tai Chi, Yoga, vigorous walking or low impact Cross-Training, and not Tae Kwon Do and pounding pavement. I’m all for service before self. I’m done hurting myself though.
Reality: The Air Force is changing…again. When I came in, we didn’t think, we KNEW that we were going to one day go head to head with the Soviets. My generation was pretty darn sure that we’d have to pick up an M16 to protect a base long enough to get the planes off the groud and then figure out how the hell to get out of Dodge…or not. In the 90s we were mostly thinking we might have to spank the Chinese around a bit or eventually get around to Iraq or Iran, but all that would be done from a distance or a secure forward deployed location. They told us and told us and told us that they wanted our brains, they wanted our technical skills. Today we want smart jocks, not nerds. It’s not enough to be proficient at your job, once again we’re expected to be warriors. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in the past few years, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m simply not a warrior. I don’t belong in a war zone. I would be a hinderance. I’m more worried about what my life means to my family and friends than I am about convoys or other NCOs or Airmen around me. Believe me, that hurts to admit, but on the other hand, I know it’s kind of normal. I also don’t have the nervous system I used to. Simple crap startles me. Boyo, my Ninja son, has managed to jump start my heart on more than one ocaission in the past few months. If my body follows the route of my Dad and sister, this is not going to get better in the next couple of years.
Reality: I’m becoming more jaded and cynical and I’m having a harder time keeping my mouth shut in front of the younger folks. I’m saying things out loud that I should keep to myself and other Senior NCOs. I’m close to becoming one of those old, cranky, bitter bastards that I can’t stand. I still have my sense of humor, so I haven’t crossed the line…yet…but I can see it coming.
Reality: I don’t see how the hell the Air Force is going to maintain it’s mission with the current round of personnel cuts. That’s a problem. I don’t see a solution. It’s time for me to get out of the way so folks who can see a way, can take my spot and get it done. I’ve managed to keep the dam plugged so far, but they’re temporary solutions to problems that are going to get worse instead of better.
And finally, I understand what the word weary means. I’m weary. I need to quit doing this before I turn into one of those guys that retires and has a heart attack six weeks after he walks out the door.
…you can.
Okay, so two months ago they couldn’t have told me, “Hey, wait a couple months, you’ll get what you want?” No, they had to act like it wasn’t going to happen.
Hopefully I’ll be a Mr. by this time next year.
Woo hoo!
You’re sitting in a room with about 100 of your peers and you realize that in your head you’re singing the ol’ Sesame Street song, “One of these things just doesn’t belong here, one of these things just isn’t the same.” and it occurs to you that you’re perfectly okay with that.
I’ve got dis t’ing, down dere for da next week.
Don’t know how much I’ll be online. But I’ll try to get some gems out of it. 100-something Master Sergeants cooped up in a convention center discussing “Health, Morale and Welfare.” You KNOW there’s got to be some serious funny in there. Oh…damn…what goes TDY stays TDY.
Oh well, I’ll have a good time.
It’s times like these that it’s hard not to be disgruntled.
Trying to write something funny or inspirational right now just ain’t gonna happen.
Every time I start it slides toward bitter and just plain pissed off.
Because you see I’m still thinking that I’m right and when I’m there and I know that I’m fully justified then…I’m kind of useless.
Back when I’m done being so right I wind up wrong.
You walk into the cubicles and your Airmen are having a critical discussion on the evolution of the Green Power Ranger.
Your Airmen are listening to bands you’ve never ever ever heard of…ever.
You set up a shared folder in the organizational folders to dump all the different form letters that folks in the squadron need, and a Chief thinks you’re brilliant.
A Lt Col thinks it’s hilarious that someone “your age” would own a RAZR.
You realize that the training that the Air Force has been promising for your career field for the past ten years, has been stashed in some CBT Library that rarely works and that you’re never going to get classroom time for it. The upside? No TDY to Keesler.
You inspect dorm rooms and one of the younger senior NCOs calls you an asshole for writing “Clean me!” in the dust on one of his troops’ T.V. set. My thinking was…I didn’t count it as strike three and fail the little pig.
Our TI, Sgt. Petre’s pre-liberty lecture as regards the possibly alien mores and amorous intentions of various foreign military members that we might encounter was all of a piece with other informative lectures, mostly tinged with a certain air of dark warning. The famous Dempsy-Dumpster story was featured prominently, presumably as a cautionary tale for those of use whose lusts were so uncontrollable and whose aesthetic senses were so un-fastidious as to pick exactly that venue for a tête-à-tête. The choice of venues for engaging in sexual congress were pretty slim, on Lackland AFB’s training side, where total privacy was by practice and edict impossible. For that substantial portion of the world who has not gone through USAF basic training during the last four decades, the Dempsy-Dumpster story involved a male and female trainee who chose one of those enormous metal industrial trash containers for their particular brief encounter, only to be brutally interrupted in coitus by one of those enormous trash trucks, mechanically picking up the dumpster, and dumping all contents into the back of the truck. Hilarity ensued, along with least one broken limb, a considerable amount of embarrassment and a folk-tale for the ages. It might even have really happened, sometime in the early 1970ies, but I myself would have to see the contemporary incident report to believe it.
Anyway, we were forewarned, and presumably forearmed about the dangers posed to our virtue… although I thought it was very amusing that we had the birth control lecture a couple of days before we had town liberty, by an NCO who frizbee’d a diaphragm the entire length of the classroom, by way of catching our attention. Which she certainly did for some of us; that was the first time in my life I had actually seen any such thing. It was probably lost on others, though; one of our number included the wife of an E-6 who had four children. Others women were married, or had been married, or hoped to become married, and had practiced a bit… but we didn’t have much in the way of illusion about some of the foreign troops, after what happened to four of us, one drear December day.
It was at the point in our training when we were allowed in pairs and fours to go to various places on base by ourselves, on formally sanction errands… after overcoming a certain amount of disorientation. Like: how the hell can you find your way back to a place when all you have ever seen of the way there, is the back of the neck of the girl in formation ahead of you? And what the hell do you do, when the four of you are marching along, two and two— as you have to, because your TI said so— when you are about to intersect with a full flight of fifty or so other trainees, with their TI and guidon and all the pomp and majesty of a flight of trainees marching on their way to somewhere or other? Why, of course, just has you have been told— stand at full attention, until they have marched by, and then you can go about your own business.
But this flight was a flight of Saudi tech school trainees, and I had the dubious honor of standing at rigid attention on the sidewalk, while an entire flight of them marched by, making every sort of vulgar comment, sotto voice out of the ranks; bird-whistles, crude suggestions, rude noises, low whistles… the entire armory of disgusting guy behavior, all in one fell blast, on four female Air Force trainees, who were under orders to stand there at attention, without responding, in obedience to military protocol, as we were verbally treated like whores in a particularly disreputable neighborhood. Sgt Petre looked particularly black, when we reported this to her, afterwards. We were distraught, and particularly outraged that this would happen to us, on a military base, and when we were constrained from showing any kind of reaction. It was a thoroughly nasty experience, and during twenty subsequent years in the military, nothing quite equaled it for the feeling that it gave me of slugs crawling over my bare flesh. We all agreed that if we were ever out and about again, and spotted a Saudi flight, we would turn around and go a couple of blocks out of the way. No one wanted to repeat the experience, although Airman Duncan— tall, gawky, plain and outspoken— was haunted for the rest of her base liberties by a short, squat and silent Saudi student who magically appeared in any place were Duncan was, and spent the time watching her yearningly from across the room. We couldn’t figure out how he always knew where she was. Efficient information pipeline among the male students, I suppose. I had developed my own admirer, but at least he could bring himself to make pleasant conversation.
On Christmas Day, we had liberty base liberty for all of that afternoon, but no better place to spend it than the bowling alley. The snack bar was open, and a half dozen or so of us were making the most of a couple of hours of freedom; free to drink soft drinks, to laugh with the usual constellation of male trainees. After a certain point, I noticed that one of the Iranian trainees had been drawn into the happy little group. We knew he was Iranian because his uniform was hung with a lot of ornament, and in two clashing shades of blue. Oddly enough, he reminded me of Kiet, my Vietnamese foster-brother; the same air of gentle diffidence, even shyness. He lingered on the edge of the group, not speaking very much at first, but eventually he began talking to me. His name turned out to be Nassir. He had a picture of the Shah in his wallet, and one of the Empress Farah, too. We pointed out Dunc’s admirer, watching her as per usual from across the room, and Nassir laughed and told us how the Iranian students looked down on the Saudis as uncouth and ignorant country bumpkins— hicks from the sticks, with no culture.
We met a couple of more times, after that, and spent some pleasant hours in the darker corners of the Skylark, holding hands and kissing shyly, while he paid me elaborately flowery compliments… which amused me no end. I had never met a man in real life who could unreel yards and yards of it, like Elizabethan love poetry. I never took this gallent compliments seriously, being fairly level-headed about my own attractions; knowing that my own citizenship probably featured rather highly among them. No, I took his attentions not the least bit seriously, but I liked him and wished him well. He wrote to me a couple of times, after I departed for tech school and that real world outside from those stolen hours of base liberty. I fell in love with someone else, and went on to Japan, and about four years later the whirlwind of Khomeini’s Islamic revolution swept away the Shah’s government. I’ve always hoped that Nassir was able to avoid being caught up in that, or the war with Iraq that followed; it would have been such a bad place for a gentle, courtly poet, who was so proud of being a Persian, and had a picture of the Shah in his wallet, and stole kisses from the girl I used to be, in the shadowy corners of the Skylark.
More than half of the airmen you know were born after you enlisted.
All of the lieutenants you meet were born after you enlisted.
You’re older than half of the Chiefs (E9s) in your unit.
The Chiefs you deal with on a regular basis are still jockeying for position.
You get briefed on new upcoming official Air Force policy changes to the network by a contractor instead of a military member from the Comm Squadron…and there were two in the room.
Your career field is cut by 50% across the board and yet still, no one is willing to admit that they’re phasing you out.
You call another Master Sergeant in another shop to to get some clarification on a policy, and they tell you that what you’re reading in black and white in an Air Force Instruction, doesn’t really say what it says.
Every contractor you meet realizes you’re retirement eligible and quits working the issue at hand and starts actively recruiting you. Flattering, yes, but I killed an hour yesterday getting a rundown on the benefits of being an investigator for security clearances.
Every time you work out to stay “fit to fight” something new begins to hurt…in places you didn’t know existed on your body.
You have to stretch your feet first thing in morning so you don’t gimp around for the first two hours of the day.
You haven’t gone more than a couple of months in the last three years without a waiver for some part of the physical fitness test.
You watch Military Fear Factor and two zoomies, a geek from AFRTS and a gal from Combat Camera beat two Marines in a physical challenge. This to me is a sign of the apocolypse. From the look on the Marines’ faces, they’d concur.
You realize that you yourself aren’t afraid of going to Iraq or Afghanistan, but that your family is absolutely terrified by the idea.
Some airman writes the Air Force Times to comment on the new t-shirts for the new Digi-Cammies and wins himself a four-day trip to D.C.. Somehow this is considered punishment. When is leadership going to realize that maintainers have no shame and that anytime out of the shop is a holiday?
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Add your own in the comments.
There has always been this stereotype of the women’s services as a stronghold of lesbians; and there might, I say just might sometime in the distant past, have had some validity to this stereotype, depending on the times and in some places. There was a gay activist I recollect reading some years ago, who insisted that 100% of the women in the WWII services were lesbian, a dubious factoid that may come as a considerable surprise to male veterans of that era, especially those who romanced and/or married a pretty nurse, typist or vehicle driver whom they met whilst both were in uniform. I would tend to agree that during the long decades after WWII when female service members were forbidden to marry or have children, those women who decided to devote themselves to a military career may possibly have contained a slightly higher proportion of those whose amours were of the Sapphic variety… or possibly just unenthusiastically heterosexual.
In my own service, I was acquainted with a bare handful of women who I would not have been surprised to learn that they were gay… frankly, I preferred not to know, and refrained from speculating, lest I ever be hauled up before the local AFOSI and asked point-blank and asked to choose between either lying outright, or narking out a friend. And the services did embark on those lesbian hunts, vigorously, thoroughly and with every evidence of keen enjoyment. A number of my female mid-rank and senior NCO friends all thoughtfully agreed during the early days of the Clinton administration, that “don’t ask-don’t tell” banished that particular nightmare for us. Frankly, I was surprised as hell that I was never accused of being a lesbian— there certainly were people that hated my guts and took note of my conspicuously unmarried state. I can only suppose I was saved by my notorious disinterest and demonstrated incompetence at any sort of organized team sports.
It would be my personal, scientific wild-ass-guess that the lesbian proportion among women serving in the US Armed Forces these days is no more than the representation in the general population— and that would be the 3% that is the small “c” conservative estimation. It may even be less than that, actually. I’d be basing this on the admittedly anecdotal experience of basic training, and a good few years of living in the barracks, where there are no secrets. Let me reiterate: thanks to thin walls, shared rooms and gang latrines, there are damn few secrets in a military barracks, least of all about ones’ sex life.
And for Air Force basic military training, about the only thing the women in my training flight had in common aside from XX chromosomes and a taste for adventure, was some kind of interest in the male of our species, ranging from the intense to the mildly intellectually curious. (Or as my daughter would put it; “strictly dickly”.) Guys, guys and only guys; and watching the other girls put on full-date makeup, carefully arranged hairstyles, and most perfectly arranged Class-A uniforms on the occasion we were allowed to go down to the training-side BX annex… on liberty… by ourselves (or in pairs, anyway) for the period of one hour to purchase such small personal items as toothpaste and deodorant was sufficient to convince me of that. Other girls in the flight became ostentatiously and suddenly religious… because we could go to services on Sunday, and at least sit in adjacent pews. As we advanced in training, we were permitted certain periods of base liberty, to frolic chastely and pursue and be pursued in such venues as the bowling alley, the library, the BX annex and snack bar, and the Skylark Recreation Center.
Prior to being allowed such dizzying freedoms, we were given a stern lecture about the guys… well, those that we would be encountering. Not the usual common or garden American guys, though. There would be foreigners… with strange and potentially alluring ways. Or maybe not, since there were some very, very different cultural differences involved.
Lackland AFB was, and still is a major military training center for more than just Air Force basic. The AF security police tech school, and the basic officer training course were there…. And there was some kind of tech school training course for foreign military enlistees, distinctive by their somewhat colorful uniforms and occasionally very crude behavior in formation and out of it. Our TI, Sgt. Petre, kept an admirable poker face when she gave us the lecture; no, some of the strange stories we would hear about the Saudi Arabian and Iranian students were absolutely not true. They were strangers in a strange land, and we should be polite, of course, but we should keep in mind that as far as cultural mores went, as military women we would be even stranger to them. And we should be careful about giving any encouragement, because the gentlemen trainees from Saudi and Iran had a tendency to assume a great deal from it. Sgt Petre told us about a female trainee who collected such a single-minded and persistent admirer that he was camped out on the sidewalk in front of the squadron training building waiting for her every time her flight had base liberty, which so rattled the poor girl that she stopped leaving the building at all.
(to be continued)
In the air, in the water… oh, sorry, flashback to last weeks’ post. Changes, they come thicker and faster. There was an article posted about the six most important strategic overseas bases last week, and none of them any that I had ever served a tour at— and I think I clocked duty time at about every major overseas base there was, even if it were only to pass through long enough to get a soda from the machine and admire the gooney birds.
1. Andersen Air Force Base & Apra Harbor, Guam;
2. Balad Air Base/Camp Anaconda, Iraq;
3. Bezmer Air Base, Bulgaria;
4. Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory;
5. Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba;
6. Manas Air Base, Kirgizstan
Three old, three new, and none of them the old, stalwart long-established bases, the very anchor of service in the Far East, or in Europe— Clark AB, in the PI is long-closed and buried in volcanic ash. Yongsan Garrison in Seoul is for the chop also; transferring all functions to the Hump may turn out to be more of a hassle than it’s worth.
If the Cold War is over, South Korea might have nothing more urgent to deal with than their starved and retarded cousins to the North, and much joy of that may they have of that. No mention of Okinawa on the list… and none in Western Europe. The Cold War is truly over, there. The chain of kasernes and camps in Germany is much reduced—one senses only little removed from having the last floor swept and the last light turned off, and generations of American military and dependent family members who rotated in and out, and raised their children, and developed a fondness for German beer and gemutlichiet, volks-marching and sightseeing among the castles of the Rheinland – all will soon be only a ghostly memory.
Harry’s in K-Town, the Kino in Landstuhl, the McDonalds on the 40-Mark Strasse, and a thousand other retail establishments who counted very much on the GI dollar may look back ruefully on what will seem a golden age in retail sails and services. Hellenikon and Nea Makri in Greece are long closed: some years after I drove away down the road towards Patras and the car-ferry that would take us to Italy and points west, my next door neighbor sent me a clip from one of the English-language papers that catered to the ex-pat community: a story about taxi drivers and owners of bars in Sourmena and Glyphada, lamenting their personal economic woes after Hellinikon AB closed. The final paragraph of the story was the kicker; across the apse end of a church that faced (across an barren lot) the front gate on Vouliagmeni, which had long born a bright red spray-painted memo “Americans Go Home!” someone had spray-painted an addenda: “And Take Us With You!”
Zaragoza reverted to the Spanish Air Force Air Tranport Service; even while I was there, I escourted a party of Spanish officers on a property survey through the EBS buildings, pointing out the equipment that was ours, and would be going with us, and what we would be leaving to their use with our best wishes. Not a whole lot, actually, three ancient Quonset-huts, only one with indifferent plumbing, but all of them with electrical conduits up the wazoo, and they were welcome to it. It was already evident that the Cold War was over, and the Soviet Menace had crumbled, and what we were still doing there was still a matter of debate. Anderson and Guantanamo are long-established, with a permanent infrastructure and corporate memory and all those habits that this implies, all the employees, all the structures… but the other four are new and raw, and where the action is, in this new war. The military moves on, as we are not mired in old habits and the practices of the war before the last war, clinging on to them like a child with a well-worn security object. I do wonder what the ville outside the gates of Bezmer and Manas are like, though… but I would advise everyone not to get to used to it all.
One of the saddest conversations I ever had was sometime before I left Spain, when Zaragoza was already scheduled to be closed down. There were a scattering of retired Air Force men who lived in my neighborhood, or worked at EBS, who had married Spanish women , and made their homes in Spain, for decades in most cases. They had raised their children in Spain, had jobs on base, had boxes at the post office, and/or BX privilidges, health care through the base hospital and by extension to the major military hospitals and specialists in Germany, they had NCO club memberships, they managed to reconcile two different worlds, and the imminent closing of the base meant that they had to live entirely in one world without any of the accustomed support systems… or uproot their lives, and live in the other.
Pablo’s got some photos of what my First Sergeant calls “possible” new Service Dress Uniforms for our United States Air Force.
First of all, everyone knows that our dress uniforms make us look like businessmen with a miltary fetish or airline pilots, or bus drivers, depending on how you look at them. We need a new service dress uniform. They simply suck. They suck large. I cannot express the sucktitude that the USAF Service Dress Uniform exudes. Ask any Air Force member and they’ll tell you, they’d rather get their medal or their promotion in their BDUs or flight suits.
When it comes to the “possible” uniforms I’m thinking that we’re going in the wrong direction. I like the darker idea, but I’m a fan of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, so I’m a bit biased there. With space becoming even more of the Air Force’s mission, we need to start acknowledging that in our uniforms.
The belt around the waist OVER the jacket and the high collar? No. Nix. Nein. Uh-uh. The fact that the silhouette of the “possible” uniforms resembles something out of WWII (and not the folks on OUR side of that conflict) bothers me from an image point of view. It’s too Nazi. It’s too Imperial Storm Trooper. Our civilian leaders keep insisting that we don’t have imperialistic intentions around the world and I’m of the mind that our military shouldn’t resemble Nazis or the most vile and evil villains from one of the most popular movie series in our liftime in any way, shape, or form.
Now…why do I put quotation marks around the word “possible?” Because if these photos are being circulated through the ranks, it means that the powers that be have pretty much decided that these are our choices and are trying to get a feel for our reaction to them.
Here’s mine: I’m thinking darker blue-black vs the straight black because I don’t think America is ready for its military to be in black. Space notwithstanding, black uniforms just have negative connotations historically and culturally. Lose the high collar and the belt. Besides the Imperial overtones, the belt will wear out long before the coat will and you KNOW if you try to replace just the belt, the shades simply won’t match and you’re going to have to buy the whole freaking jacket just because the belt wears out or you’re going to have to clean the belt multiple times until it matches. Making it a leather belt would just increase the Nazi/Imperial creep-out factor, don’t go there.
The high collar? It’s been done. It’s old. Only Marines look cool with them. I don’t know why.
Update: Andy over at Non Partisan Pundit has word that the “Hap Arnold” (open collar) will be the choice for our next go-round of sucktitude with the “Billy Mitchell” (Star Trek Collar) as our Dress Mess. Figures, the Dress Mess is the only Af Dress Uniform that’s never looked like crap.
