[Defender968]

As far as being focused on this fight, you are so very sorely mistaken!!! I have 3/4s of my office deployed right now in 1 year ILO taskings with the Army, and they were charged up about it. My second year long deployment with the army will more than likely begin in the next few months.

In my career field alone, we have more people deployed with Army units than with AF ones. We can't meet the need of all the people the Army is asking for because they have seen what professional, well trained personnel are being provided to them by the AF.

Afchic I did not say the AF wasn't fighting the war, or that components of it weren't focused on and currently fighting the war, I said that the AF as a whole is not focused on this fight, and I can and will if you like argue that on any level you want.

I know the AF is in the fight I had tons of airmen who have spent 3-5 years in country 6 months at a time over the past 8 years. One of my desk sergeants had never seen a Christmas with his 6 year old daughter because he's been in the same bucket for the past 8 years. With all that being said IMO our current UW fights are not what the AF leaderships is focused on, hell their focus, again IMO isn't even fighting the conventional fight, it's making more generals.

If they were truly focused on the profession of arms then you wouldn't have all the issues the AF is suffering. F-15's with the wings falling off, nukes flying willy nilly around the friendly skies, KC-135's that are older than the pilots who fly them with no replacement in sight, not enough ISR assets in country as said by the SecDef TWICE, a procurement system that according to the SecDef is completely broken etc, and the list goes on and on. These are not simply isolated incidents again IMO, they are a symptom of a greater problem, a completely broken culture IMO.

Understand afchic I fought for my troops every day I wore an AF uniform, but the conclusion I came too is that I could only make a change in the AF if the leadership above me is willing to listen, and they’re not. They believe they know it all and I believe that’s across the board. I personally witnessed it at the 5 bases I was assigned too both CONUS and OCONUS at every level from SQ to Wing and well beyond, and why not after all they know better than the subject matter experts after all that’s why they have the universal management badge. If you’d like examples I can provide them by the dozens. The straw that broke the preverbal camel’s back for me was when two AF officers one O-5 and one O-6 placed their careers above the life of an Army soldier, he died, and at least in part because they refused to violate a ridiculous policy that didn’t pass the common sense or CNN tests. And those two weren't even pilots. I decided frankly when I go to war I want the men and women above me to have the moral courage to do what’s right regardless of how hard it is, and to maybe understand the fight we’re in. After all Integrity and Service before self would dictate doing the right thing even when it’s not easy, but that’s not the AF way.

Originally Posted by afchic

Let me get this straight, instead of staying within the system to try and do something to change it, you decided to bail?

Now as to your specific questions respectfully I take nothing from your service don’t presume to take anything from mine, I left a completely broken organization after trying for 4 years to make a change at a the wing level, but for the reasons above change isn’t in the cards I further chose to get in the fight instead of shuffling papers in an office, while my observations may not be pleasant to you they are none the less based in hard facts and my personal observations. Your experience maybe different, but I find it hard to believe I had the raw luck to run into every bad leader in the AF at base after base after base. The law of averages just wouldn’t support that. I can say I’ve met more real leaders in 6 months in the Army than I saw in my 12 years of AF affiliation.

The Airmen that rely on me to cover their backs, and provide them leadership, as well as someone taking spears from the leadership, so they don’t have to, are more important to me than some of the senior officers I have to deal with on a daily basis.

What you’re doing is noble, and I would count you in with the few good officers I’ve met in the AF, but that doesn’t mean that the system isn’t broken. If they’re doing the right thing for the mission and the country then they shouldn’t be taking spears, but you and I both know they will over silly nonsense because it affects the boss, because again what he cares about is getting promoted not what is good for the org. I can give you a perfect example that validated my decision to leave. I had a ROAD senior NCO who was hurting the unit, been ROAD as long as I’ve been there, and from what I understand wasn’t worth a crap before I got there. I mentored, counseled, briefed, and disciplined him for 4 years trying to make him functional, no joy, so over the past 3 years I built up quite a file on him LORs LOCs, etc, finally his reenlistment comes up, and I’ve got plenty to back denying it, I go through the whole process, my boss who has known this individual for 8 years concurs and whole heartedly agrees that the NCO needs to retire, we push the paperwork up, and what does the Wing King do, looked at all the justification I submitted, looked at the recommendation of 2 of his officers one a squadron commander and the other his ATO with 12 cumulative years of experience with said NCO and refused to sign off on it, why you ask, I don’t know he refused to say, I can only surmise it was because he didn’t want to make waves as his star is on the rise.

You made your decision to leave, but don't bag on the rest of the AF because of choices you made in your life.

My decisions on my life have nothing to do with the issue plaguing the AF, I simply chose to pursue serving in another capacity again you may not like my views or observations, but that doesn’t make them any less accurate.

Last time I checked, the AF mission was to fly, fight and win. Nowhere in our doctrine does it talk about being imbedded with Army or Marine personnel in ground units. Yet that is what we are doing, and you sit here and say the AF isn't doing enough, and doesn't understand the fight.

The fact that the pilots have been dropping 2K bombs in cities is just a little clue that the AF doesn’t understand the fight, the fact that the SecDef has said twice in the past year that we need more ISR assets in theater and the AF hasn’t acted shows they don’t understand the fight, the fact that UW isn’t even in the curriculum in SOS shows the AF doesn’t understand the fight.

Each service has its core competencies, and granted, in this war, at this time, our core competencies don't necessarily match up 100% to the needs in this war. Yet we are finding ways to make things work. May not be to the level you all wish we were at, but let me ask you a fair question. If in our next war it is predominantly air/sea how quickly do you think the army can change course and start providing needed personnel to the other services, in a mission set you had never needed or trained for? Because it was the mission of a sister service.

I agree making things work is what needs to happen, flexibility is the key to airpower right, what I don’t agree with is not fully utilizing your current capabilities, AF Security Forces is a perfect example, AF leadership has been ignoring their capabilities and in fact their training and doctrine for the past 7 years, and to the detriment of both the overall wars and the AF mission to fly fight and win, I’m not going to go into specifics here but I’d be happy to PM you the details if you’d like.

The next one may be of a nature, where you all are happy that we didn't take our entire focus off the "next" war to concentrate on the current one. No one knows what the future holds, but to think that we have fought the last conventional war just isn't very smart thinking in my book.

I agree we should be prepared to fight the next war even if it’s a conventional one, but the AF as a whole isn’t looking towards that very well either, if they were they’d have a new tanker in the works, after all the fighters can’t do their jobs if they can’t get to the fight, and yet that’s on the back burner well behind the JSF and F-22, and why, because the Generals are mostly fighter pilots and they want their new toys, don’t mention the fact that they could have simply purchased the F-16 block 60 and had a more capable aircraft than what we and pretty much anyone outside of Israel currently has, instead they have thrown Billions to get the cool toys that they want.

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