If even half of what L. Todd Wood reports about his former alma mater, the Air Force Academy, in OpsLens is true:
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.
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.â€
it fully justifies my opinion that, rather than increasing its size and budget, as President Trump has proposed, we should drastically reduce the size and budget of the USAF.
Should have known he was a Wall Street guy. I always thought that all of the sitting at attention and other stuff was mostly BS. Warrior? Is that good or bad? It is actually pretty bad if what you are breeding are the loners who do what they think is right, regardless of cost. Most of what is done today is based upon teamwork. The classic concept of warrior and team just don’t go together.
Now, if they simply mean discipline and working hard and not giving up, then warrior is a good thing. Not really sure how standing at attention when talking to alumni guarantees that. Didn’t see the connection when I was an Air Force officer and still don’t.
Steve
“it fully justifies my opinion that, rather than increasing its size and budget, as President Trump has proposed, we should drastically reduce the size and budget of the USAF.”
Ok, so what do you want the USAF to stop doing? What capabilities would you specifically cut?
BTW, I have two close friends who are currently professors at USAFA. Their opinion is the piece does have some valid points but the issues are not with USAFA but the USAF as a whole. Considering I recently retired from the USAF Reserve, I agree with them – there are major institutional problems regarding culture and priorities. Those issues get fixed through leadership, not budget cuts.
And just to reiterate, I’m not opposed to cutting the military budget as long as the mission and requirements are cut to match.
Ah, the Air Force. When I was in the Marines, I was stationed for a time at a Navy installation that did work on missiles. This was around 1960. One time we had to ship some of the work to an AF base. The stuff required an armed guard in transit, so two Marines were assigned the duty. When they had delivered the stuff, the receiving officer said, “Why don’t you two go over to the enlisted mess and have lunch.” When they got back to the base they said, “Jesus Christ! The fucking mess hall was like a fucking restaurant. Tables with table clothes, and fucking flowers, and this chick came over an took our fucking order!”
Differed a tad from what enlisted Marines were used to.
I’ve repeatedly said that I want our military to reduce operations. I can give you one example: I thought we should reduce our operational tempo in Afghanistan eight years ago. IMO one of President Obama’s greatest errors was his “Afghan surge”.
I’ve also said I think we should reduce the number of flag officers.
Beyond that it’s remarkably difficult to find solid analyses of how our military actually spends its appropriations. You can find breakdowns into broad classifications like “Operations”, “Procurement”, “R&D”, etc. but considering that operations is something like a $300 billion dollar line item I think a little greater granularity won’t threaten national security.
Dave,
This might give you some useful information.
sam- When I was an air-ebac corpsman I noticed that also. So, when I went back in as an officer I went with the Air Force. Of course I totally missed the fact that if we ever deployed they would send over those little portable Air Force Hospitals first. Nothing like a little sand and sun.
Steve