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USAF Academy Does Not Train Warriors Anymore

Sat 1/21, 8:00 PM

It had been a long time since I had visited my alma mater, the U.S. Air Force Academy, so I decided to bite the bullet and travel to my 30th reunion last October. I must admit, I did so with trepidation. I have a love/hate relationship with the place. Although I received a fantastic education and met some lifelong friends, it’s a nice place to visit, if you know what I mean.

I will say that I received top-notch military training and discipline when I went through three decades ago. In fact, the discipline that was drilled into me has served me well my entire life, giving me a leg up on my competition: once I start something, I just don’t quit, no matter the odds or barriers put in front of me. I credit USAFA for helping me to develop this ability. It is a learned skill acquired from four years of handling the academics and the professional military and athletic training.

During the Vietnam War, many prisoners of war shot down over North Vietnam credited their fourth class year at the Air Force Academy with giving them the fortitude to make it through years of confinement and torture. After all, isn’t that the basic skill of a warrior, to win against all odds?

Unfortunately, these skills are no longer being taught at USAFA.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and so have my classmates.

I realized something was horribly wrong when I arrived at the bottom of the ramp to the cadet area, which used to say “Bring Me Men” above the tunnel entrance. It was an iconic quote, and we were taught at the time that “men” meant the human race, not necessarily only the male sex of such. “I’ll meet you at the bottom of the ‘Bring Me Men’ ramp” was a routine line to girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, et cetera who came to visit their cadet at the academy. I never heard any animosity against this quote during the four years of my stay at the Blue Zoo.

Imagine my shock when I saw the quote had been changed to some PC gibberish about “Integrity First. Service Before Self. Excellence in All We Do.” Ten words! At first, I laughed at the thought of some cadet telling his civilian girlfriend to meet him at the bottom of the “Integrity First. Service Before Self. Excellence in All We Do” ramp. But after a quick laugh, I felt sadness at the loss of tradition and loss of the basic masculinity of warfare being taught at the academy. It was then I knew it was gone. I also felt alarm—if they changed this, what else have they changed? This can’t be good for the training of future Air Force warriors.

My next stop, and next horror, was walking around the cadet area with my fellow classmates from the Class of ‘86 and a few others. The place looked about the same. A monument or static aircraft display was changed here or there, and there was a strange-looking obelisk sticking out of the terrazzo near Arnold Hall, but overall, the place was the same. But there was something very, very wrong.

I couldn’t place it, but then it hit me. It was October. The fourth class cadets should not have been “recognized” yet. That meant being accepted in the ranks of the upper class and the associated privileges that come with it. This entailed walking at attention, squaring corners, greeting upperclassmen, and other general military training.

None of this was happening. They were walking at rest, not greeting anyone. Actually, they were ignoring the upperclassmen walking by. I stopped one of them and asked him, “Cadet, are you recognized yet?”

“No, we are not,” was his response. He kept walking. There was no “sir” in his response. He obviously knew I was an alumnus and former military officer. The problem was that he simply didn’t care. He didn’t care because he had been taught not to care. Military bearing was absent. Completely gone. Removed.

And then, the shock continued.

As the time started to get close to the Noon Meal Formation, where the cadets form up and march into Mitchell Hall for lunch, I again realized nothing was happening. Cadets were nonchalantly walking to the huge cafeteria where they are served all at once during the school week for lunch. I subsequently found out the formation had been cancelled due to high winds. I laughed to myself. There wasn’t even a breeze. Wow, things really have changed.

Inside the noon meal, all former military decorum and training at the lunch table had been vaporized. There was nothing. The freshman cadets didn’t even have the civilian decency to serve their alumni guests first, not to mention any military bearing. They just took the food and ignored everyone else at the table.

It gets worse: after lunch, my colleagues walked into the academic building. Before my eyes, where there used to be formal lecture halls, was a Dunkin’ Donuts. My jaw hit the floor and I actually took a picture– I was that amazed. This was no longer a military academy; it was UCLA in uniforms.


(Courtesy L. Todd Wood)

We then visited the dorm rooms. We nonchalantly walked into one cadet’s room who had the door open, which was the custom. We asked them a few questions. They didn’t get up. They didn’t greet us formally. They just sat there. These were fourth classmen. I guarantee you that in the past, if an alum had walked into a fourth class room, the residents would be at attention within seconds and the “sirs” would be flying like birds on a high wire.

Finally, before the football game and other class-specific events, we headed to Arnold Hall to listen to a briefing from the Superintendent on what was going on at the academy. Literally, one of the first things we heard was, “Things are not as tough as they used to be.”

Really? Ya think? was my immediate reaction.

We were presented with an hour-long briefing about how cadets were being trained to be able to “function” within the bureaucracy of the regular Air Force. We heard all about the statistics of the institution—how many awards it had won, where it stood in the rankings against other colleges, how well the sports teams had done, et cetera, et cetera.

Not once did I hear the word warrior.

In a flash, I got it. The academy was no longer training cadets to be Air Force warriors. They were no longer training to fight for our country and win wars. They were being trained to function in the bureaucracy. The academy was all about competing with civilian institutions in a variety of ways.

We heard about the new facilities that had been built. We heard all about the new honor chamber to discuss ethics. That happened to be the strange object poking out of the terrazzo.

When the briefing was over, I raised my hand. I had to ask the question. I simply said, “The discipline here no longer exists. Not once did I hear the word ‘warrior’ in your briefing. It seems the mission has changed. Were we no longer about ‘Fly, Fight, and Win?’”

The response I got was laced with derision at my wrong-headed thinking. “We are not here to haze people. They go to the lunch meal to eat, not get trained,” said the Superintendent, who was, by the way, in the first class of females to graduate from the academy. “We have theme rooms to talk about war,” said the commandant of cadets. Yes, he really said that. “We have mock funerals to talk about war.”

Excuse me, but what right do these new leaders of the institution have to throw away decades of training that had worked so splendidly to create warriors like Medal of Honor winner Lance Sijan, who crawled through a rock-filled landscape after being shot down in Vietnam for 46 days with compound fractures throughout his broken body until his bones protruded through his skin, only to escape twice before being killed by the enemy, all the while never giving up any classified information under torture? Do you think he learned that from a theme room? No, he learned that from a full year of military training and discipline, learning attention to detail, how not to quit, how to perform under pressure, day after day after day.

That’s where he learned that.

It is obvious the Air Force Academy is no longer training warriors to lead men, or women, into battle. They are no longer into the type of training that created the greatest air force ever known to man. In fact, they are more interested in a military version of safe spaces and trigger warnings, so it seems.

As far as the other academies are concerned, I can’t speak for them. However, I have seen evidence of the same with pictures of black female cadets giving the black power salute, images of female cadets on their cell phone while marching, et cetera, et cetera.

President Obama did a very good job of weakening the institutions that made our military and country great. Military academies are not made to “compete” with other civilian universities. They have a special purpose. I very much hope President-Elect Trump and his appointees can reverse this pathetic trend. Our children’s future depends on it.

L. Todd Wood is an OpsLens contributor, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, flew special operations helicopters supporting SEAL Team 6, Delta Force and others. After leaving the military, he pursued his other passion, finance, spending 18 years on Wall Street trading emerging market debt, and later, writing. The first of his many thrillers is “Currency.” Todd is a national security columnist for The Washington Times and has contributed to Fox Business, Newsmax TV, Moscow Times, the New York Post, the National Review, Zero Hedge, The Jerusalem Post, and others. For more information about L. Todd Wood, visit LToddWood.com.

Dammit, Wood, now you done and went and hurt someone's feelings!!!

well, the new Sec Air Force might well change things around. Heather Wilson is NOT the same kind of person that Deborah James is.
That said, I'd prefer men to be the heads of the various war fighting services.

All you have to do is drive around any USAF base and you'll see that many of those in uniform look like flabby computer geeks.

I spent 34 years in uniform and out of uniform working for the USAF and I watched the discipline just fade away. The last few years it got worse and worse as I watched airmen fresh out of basic question commands and butter bars respond to captains with no "sir" attached. At the beginning of Desert Storm I saw many who said they would go to prison rather than the desert. "I joined to get a free education not go to war." was heard many times.

Been retired for a few years and I can only imagine that it's gotten worse.

Then last week I was at a feed store in a small Texas town and spoke to a couple of teens working there. They were local high school football players. Clean cut, good looking, hard working lads whose every other word seemed to be "sir".

America, REAL AMERICA, can still be found in small towns.

If I had a kid about to go to college I think I'd just find him a good family in a small town to live with for four years.

I am appalled. Simply appalled.

So sorry to hear this. Disgraceful.

To some extent this sort of thing had its roots back in the 1950s when I served. It was as if the brass wanted to "demilitarize" the USAF image in favor of a more corporate look, almost like "IBM blue" in uniform. Uniforms were understated, with very limited insignia, loose fitting. Any tailoring for a sharper appearance was done at the discretion and initiative of the individual. An Airman Basic in certain uniforms would have no US or any insignia whatsoever identifying him as military. Could be a bus driver.

I was shocked to see in the inaugural parade a unit which was described, IIRC, as an ANG refueling unit. Flight caps and raincoats, misaligned ranks and files, and possibly out of step. Looked like shidt, particularly in contrast to the sharp units, ceremonial or other, from other services.

Paul

What a disgrace. I hope Trump can fix this.

Could be that all those cadets kn.ow that their chance of being in a fighter squadron is pretty slim.
I live about 12 miles east of the Academy. I say one thing, the cadets still conduct themselves very well in .

Dmn sure hope so!

Awhile back debbie had a post on Facebook about celebrating gay pride in the Airforce. It didn't go over well to say the least. Within an hour said post was removed from the AF page.

Do you have a link to this?

The first thing I flashed on was, I would have changed "Bring Me Men" to "Bring Me Warriors."
Wow.
My dad was just an aviation cadet, but even that wasn't for pansies. It was hard, he earned his wings. Not good at all.

This is hard for us old dinosaurs to grasp but I assure you it's mostly SOP this day and age.The last eight years has helped diminish Esprit De Corps not only for the AF but all services...

It's been by design. While I'm sure the AOCS I went through in 86 was a shadow of what it was in the 60's when it comes to hard work, now it doesn't even exist.

I missed my USNA 25th reunion last year. I'm sort of glad I did, as I've feared for a while the change I'd see if I went back. Maybe by my 30th reunion things will have changed a bit. Luckily, the current Commandant, a Marine, was a classmate of mine and one I would never imagine capable of letting discipline slip away completely.

Mabus' departure was celebrated in this household.

I guarantee that basic in 1960 was NOT a walk in the park, it included much verbal as well as physical abuse. We came out of it much hardened and no longer "children".

I spent 3 weeks at Lackland AFB a few years ago and I think I was only saluted once. I had to teach a few Air Farce folks, including officers, about ranks.

I think you were a WO. If so that would cause confusion . Even so there should have been salutes. When in doubt, salute. When I was in there were only two WOs in the whole AF.

Correct and I know they don't use them in the AF, but when a Captain says 'what rank is that?' I have to question their leadership.

Likes others here, my father-in-law, a Lt. Col., now 85 years old, had a much different experience during his training. Del went through several US Air Force survival schools. One was in AK, in winter. It was a a real stress test. They had minimal provisions and no real cold weather survival gear. It was hard-core to the extent they were in borderline, if not overt hypothermia at times, and not able to really get any sleep.

Our son, a US Army combat medic, trained with Air Force medics at Ft. Sam Houston, and has a good friend in the USAF - They joke with each other about the "Chair Force."

When Del traveled down with us to our son's graduation, he was saluted every time he was identified at the gate by his military ID. In fact Del was invited into one of the troop meetings in our trip down for Tom's MOS training, and all the unit stood at attention as he was introduced in the room.

It is illustrative of the current state of affairs that your experience was far different Scott.

This situation will very likely be corrected now with new leadership in DC, and at the top command at the USAF.

So sad. We always depended on the Academy trained officers to set the example. Of course, this was 40 plus years ago. We also had Viet Nam survivors amongst us at all ranks and for the most part; we worshiped those guys, regardless of their rank. They had proved long before we arrived that they were warriors.

Let's hope and pray that Mr. Trump can bring back the "old school" attitude we had so many years ago.

kwg

Mad Dog ill bring back the military to the good old days. Got to get back to "don't ask don't tell" first thing.

I wouldn't want to tangle with Heather. I hope 1/2 of our new AF candidates are as tough as she is!
That 51%/49% thing is definitively in play with this lady! Don't push it!

The Academy grads I work with are about pushing paper and getting promoted. That's about it

Too much emphasis on recruiting athletes and looking good in athletics rather than warriors.

It's sad when we want to go back to a more disciplined "Clinton doctrine" time in military history.

Its hard for me to imagine... but I guess knowing Obama, its not hard to see....

I feel for our nation and especially these 'people', if this nation ends up in combat against someone else...

not only are these people not going to know how to function, if they are captured by the 'enemy' they are really going to be up SchittCreek without a paddle...

This has been happening since the lifting of the Combat Exclusion Law(Title Ten) allowing females to serve in combat and combat support roles. Otherwise, they just could not survive in a true military, warrior culture environment. I saw it in the Navy in the worse way. Two of my last tours were in the Training Command (aviation) where I saw it as a student, then as a senior officer and the difference was incredible, all focused on ANYTHING but killing people and breaking things in pursuit of the national interest.

You can forget that notion. After I heard "Mad Dog" testify, it was obvious there is no intention of fixing this..

I'm not holding my breath. Frankly, I'm surprised we still have separate service academies, the way things are going. There will probably be Joint-Service academy (Annapolis) here before too long, F-35 static displays and all...

Thought this was funny

I guess the Air Force is trying to live up to it name these days.

Kind of scary to read.

It would be many times more scary had the witch got elected. I'm betting it will change, biggly!

For what it is worth: I am a small town ED physician. Recently a cadet was in my ED with a relatively minor injury. She was accompanied by two other cadets. This was late on a Saturday night. They were in dress uniform and looked very fit and squared away. It did seem like every other word was "sir." When I asked if she drank alcohol, she replied "Only communion wine, sir." When I told her she didn't have to call me sir, she said "sorry, it is habit sir." Overall my impression was very favorable, especially compared with most of the young people I see on a Saturday night.

It's always interesting to me to see how dudes seem to think that the spit and polish, dress right dress regimented military of the 70's, 80's, 90's, etc. was built to "win". The military then (and now) are built to look pretty like little army men in a parade and make political officers look and feel good.

The military is not however, built or ran for performance.




Having said that, no the AF academy is not producing "warriors" if the goal is to actually perform and win current wars..... neither are any of the other academies. But then again, they never were.

Dumbest post I've seen for awhile.

Let me guess. Never in or admin discharge as a malinger? I can be sure you've never seen the elephant.

Pretty sure he doesn't even know what that means. Has no clue about the elephant. Maximum stupid post.

Nope, no clue....

That picture of course, proves absolutely nothing, but your OP, is still pretty clueless.

Nice picture. Lots of pictures out there.

I had a week between the day I enlisted in the USMC and the day I was to report in Ft Worth. A guy I went to school with was going to join the Air Force and could get some sort of reward if he brought someone in to talk to the recruiter.

I played along, but one thing I remember the guy saying, rather primly:"The Air Force is a technical organization, not a military organization".

This was in 1960 .

This stuff is all confusing to me....







As pilots did y'all do much shooting? I don't get that much ammo. Only this..... Every 4 weeks for myself and five of my closest non "warrior" buddies.






They were just handing all this stuff out... can you tell me what it is?















I would all but guarantee I've shot more bullets, blown more charges, and jumped out of more more airplanes in a in a month from the DOD than anyone posting so far has in their life..

. Now, if we're done with the measuring contest-

Reread what I wrote. If you believe the the military of the 70's, 80's, 90's, today, is built and ran to allow an ALL VOLUNTEER force to effectively fight and win against an asymmetric enemy..... well good luck.

Well you've never shot more bullets than me but that's another story.I'm impressed with the pics and BTW thank you for your service but by guessing your age at under 30 [if pics are current] you have no real clue what it was like in the past which puts you in diapers in the late 80's.

Those of us that served back then marched to a different drummer which wasn't so politically correct as you deal with today but training and discipline are still paramount with an all volunteer force a little spit and polish pride never hurt anyone i served with.

Nevermind.

This isn't about the OP's thread but FWIW the American people as a whole do presently give a schit about our men and women in uniform and are aware of their sacrifices .My generation however wasn't so lucky,we served did our job and came home without fanfare or thanks.So I take great issue with the 99% you claim..

Nobody and I for one certainly I'm not, doubting your background or your bravery. I do however, take umbrage and the stupidity and generalization of your OP and I also noticed your backtracking on your last post. Further, speaking from experience in the late 80s and 90s (Desert Storm/Shield etc), I'd put up the combat readiness AND warrior spirit-across all branches- to what we have today ANYDAY. For the record, I retired in December of 08. And yes, I am an aviator and I'm betting one MK-82 series bomb (or GBU family) has more NEW (I'm sure you know what that is) than all the rounds you ever sent downrange... How's that for penis envy

Lastly, have you been on here under another name? .........

I don't know if i am one to say anything, but that hasn't stop me.
favorite grandson asked me about air force rotc prior to signing on the line. Went down with him to meet the colonel at a.s.u., he signed up. Did the rotc thing while also working and graduating magna cum laude in engineering. I had to laugh that the rotc building in the 60's was where all the protests originated, social sciences then. I was immediately impressed with the rotc students, just so different then out on the campus.
He later went active duty to include one masters at wright patterson, and a second from test pilot schools at edwards, that chuck yaeger thing. He has flown all kinds of go fast stuff here and in europe since. that edwards master's was done in about 48 weeks including flying about 50 different kinds of aircraft. Very few get to go. I met a french pilot, a japanest pilot, and others. Going to the graduation ball i swear was like going to a scarlet o'hara and rhett butler ball in the old south. I have been at edwards a number of times now, and met his friends, pilots, etc. Geez i think even the base commander called me sir. For sure the people there did. Absolutely clean and presentable base. That grandson texted me today. His closest friend was killed in texas yesterday, leaving a young wife. He was pretty upset about it, my grandson that is. I would say he and his companions from various countries that have gone through that are what use to be called "[bleep] hot" Walking down the hallways of that school you see the pictures of former graduates, a lot of them dead, from augering in, or being knocked out of the sky.
I wouldn't paint to big a picture with a brush, there are some pretty good young people in the service. And i haven't even started on friends in the Marines.
My grandson is not getting shot at. But i do know what he is doing and it is not low risk. The direct beneficiaries of what he is doing are those that ARE getting shot at. I have a lot of respect for them.
I should add i have quite a few friends that were killed in vietnam, including family members. There is a memorial on the courthouse square in prescott with their names. I still see them as 18year olds i once knew. I have several now in the navy too. They are not sluggards and when i hear of them floating around on some ship in the gulf, or in the desert, i don't see a lot of difference. I got one guy that became a friend in his 20's. He is now 37. Marine corp most of his adult life. And he is trying to fight the demons he dealt with still. He is not a sluggard either.

Did the Air Force ever really train Warriors?
I thought they flew planes and had happy hour.

Congrats and thanks for serving. I served in the 80's 90's and 2000's with other officers from the service academies and didn't find them inadequate at all. In fact, they're pretty much like every other commissioning source, good, bad and average.

The dick measuring is fun for the various services and specialities but doesn't mean much. I dodged a lot more mach 2 SAMS and AAA and shot more HARMS in 6 combat deployments and have more night carrier landings than you. Doesn't make me better or worse just a different experience and threat of violent death.

As far as lethality of the services over the years, the younger generation, of which you appear to be one, has a very skewed view of the military. All most have known is the asymmetric warfare that has taken so many of our warriors. Being able to defend the Fulda Gap against a massive Soviet armor attack or the CV BG against a regimental Backfire raid or conduct a deep penetration strike at 200 feet in bad weather a 1000 miles behind enemy lines is not a skill that today's military has or practices but to call those of us that could do that 20 years ago as not capable shows your immaturity.

There are many more aspects to the service than on the ground in the sandbox and one Ohio class boat has more lethality aboard than all the wars fought by all of man-kind for all time. Pretty sure that the officers and sailors aboard that boat today are as serious professionals as they have ever been.

You really remind me of a user we had here some time ago called Take a Knee. very similar attitude.

That is not Take a Knee.



Dave

Agreed, just reminded me of his MO.

Jorge,


No, I am not who you are probably thinking of.


This isn't a comparison of "who's better than who". That said, there are elements that have been in contstant gunfights for going on 16 years.

My point is not that "we" are better now than the military from 30 years ago, although yes- the soldiers, Marines and commandos from year 2012 know much more about asymmetric war, than those from 2002, 1992, 1982. My point was that the military as a whole is NOT setup or run to win our current wars, or most likely future wars. Our leadership is by and large a product of the 70's and 80's and in general make bad decision after bad decision that costs lives because they fail to understand that "Fulda Gap" thinking and "standards" not only do not apply to the war that we are actually fighting, but actually that thought process HURTS us now.



Everyone has their job to do. My consternation was with the blanket belief of what "discipline" is. Unfortunately the military as a whole believes that "discipline" is how short your hair is, the color of your boots, and calling someone by their rank. That's not discipline- it's rigidity. The dudes we're fighting literally use it against us.

True discipline (at least from the ground perspective) is buying your own ammo and shooting USPSA/3-Gun/Sniper matches every month because .gov doesn't give you enough, learning what strength and conditioning really means, paying for shooting/CQB courses out of pocket, holding yourself and teammates to an actual performance standard, questioning orders when they should be questioned and not just cowing to seniors because of rank, etc. Dudes have to have critical thinking skills along with physical skill. You can't think critically in today's military...






Pugs,

I'm not saying anything close to what he said. I'm obviously not a pilot, however I control aircraft nearly everyday. Pilots are awesome- that's not what this is about and It is a different perspective being on the ground interacting with people than being at 18k feet.

Again- my comment was at the idea that because people aren't as spit and polished, don't overtly value rank as much as they did, or whatever, that it means they aren't disciplined. I mean they probably aren't, but it has nothing to do with whether someone stands at attention. My team knows who their leader is- they don't have treat me like some king when they talk to me. We have more important things to do.


The problem with lots of military "leaders" is that they believe they have "power". The difference is that I understand I only "lead" because my men allow me to.

I had to google "asymmetric."



Winning,
Dave

My only brush with the military was a PLC summer at Quantico in college. FWIW (not much) on paper I came out scoring #2 out of a platoon of 55 guys. I didn't go military back then (70's) because I felt that I might not agree with killing the folks the President told me to, went in the Peace Corps and spent three years as a very minor servant of American foreign policy (Hearts and Minds Dept ) in a remote African village instead.

The point of mentioning that is I was bummed out during Quantico that I came out fatter and weaker than when I went in (I used to pay attention to such things). The Marines' basic level of fitness was significantly lower than mine back then.

As a long time high school teacher I've seen lots more young people than I can recall go the military route; more'n a hundred prob'ly were known to me personally. Currently I've got five nephews serving or in college committed to serve (all of the five that have thus far come of age to serve, two more up and coming will likely go that route).

Some of these young people were/are highly motivated, committed to excellence, others of them are/were in it mostly for the paycheck and free college.

My point is this; ain't it true that truly committed folks like yourself have ALWAYS gravitated to the very tip of the spear REGARDLESS of what discipline they did or didn't get in training?

And I will say this; those young folks who come back to see me all squared away and saying "Yes Sir" and "No Sir" impress me as a group as being a whole lot more disciplined, motivated and likely to accomplish things than those who don't.

Maybe where you are at traditional discipline really is counter-productive (always has been since before Roger's Rangers through the LRDG and continuing on to the present) but perhaps that is not so elsewhere.

Just my opinion and prob'ly worth what it cost.

Birdwatcher

You really fired off the gay flare with that one.




Clark

Well, you got one thing right.




Clark

Worth repeating and keenly perceptive...

Thank you for the reply. I will continue to believe based on my experience and history, that discipline is the secret to military success. BTW, that is not mine. It was espoused by Karl von Clausewitz in his book "On War."

For closing in on fifteen years now on the 'Fire the night sky over my head has been brightly lit.

But hey, three years no electricity, no running water, no reliable means of boiling or disinfecting water, no electronic communication with the outside world, enroaching famine, a military coup, several attempted counter coups, soldiers at my school, armed road blocks, local rotgut alcohol, teaching in a village school and driving a classic Landrover for a Dutch vaccination team.

My God it rocked, it absolutely friggin' rocked

I've been blessed.

Birdwatcher

I'll bet those pre-AIDS days in Africa were a hoot.

...and I'd bet one of the ships you was on musta sailed through the Estrogena 7 anomaly, I hope the rest of the crew weren't affected

But seriously, this is a veteran warrior's thread, I ain't a member of that club, time fer me to sign off of it. You'll doubtless find opportunities to disparage me later, gotta go, gotta get to work early.

I've been to Pattaya.

I win.



Dave

Ya but all mine really were women

Our unit had a retired USAF Col. give us a class on "crew resource management" back in the 90s. He said the problem with the air force is we used to drink whisky and f*#k women and now they drink diet pepsi and f*#k each other!

Here is one of those young ones, best of the best. I met him a couple of times, last time at his graduation from test pilot school.
the best of the best.
http://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/edwards-air-force-base-pilot-dies-in-plane-crash

those wings mean something.

As were mine.

Mostly.



Dave