Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Obama's USAF Academy Does Not Train Warriors Anymore

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."