tac airlifter

Didn't -52 dudes bring a lot to the CAS fight during the opening days of OEF? I know some ground guys who wish the -52 still did CAS.

Was he fabulous at Karaoke?

I'm not asking to be dickish, so don't take it that way. In my job we also support customers and although standardized procedures exist, different users have different preferences. I always flex to the user regardless of what the reg says; in fact our "flex to your demands" approach has made us very popular and useful. So with my experience, I'm curious why you'd tell the customers how it's going to be instead of the other way around? I know there are times when you have to tell the user "no" for whatever good reason, but if they want something and your only reason not to acquiesce is because you are using a standard flow and you don't want to modify.... bro, that seems like exerting aurthority solely to exert authority and not helpful to the dudes in the fight.

Standing by for: "If they had an FE they'd never go NORDO!"

Are you sure about that first part? You may want an update on HOA. As for the second part, how much experience do you have with non-CAF airframes and missions to back up that assertion? If you are in the WEZ for 12.7mm or anything guided and going 110 kts, it can ruin your day.

As of now, HOA and OEF-P both count as seperate operations. If Kosovo is still a designated combat zone it would count as well, although I don't know if it is. And obviously, anything can happen in the future. The AFCAM has been an embarassment. I was told by the first 0-6 in my chain of command that LR would not authorize the awarding of any AFCAMs unless someone higher dictated we should. Meaning, I tried to submit my guys for one after a 3-shot one night, and was told that my home unit wouldn't even foward the package to the board unless we did something worthy of a DFC in which case we'd be told we also qualified for the AFCAM. By the way, same 0-6 had a BSM herself for managing operation at the Deid. Life isn't fair. Medals are not the measure of any of us; but as a leader I wish I could ensure the 19 year old airmen doing his job at war while his peers are smoking pot and living at home is recognized accordingly. I have philosophically accepted the injustices of our awards system, but I don't want to rain on the idealistic kids who still attach worth to ribbons.

From the AFPC website: Only one AFCAM may be awarded during a qualifying period. Subsequent qualifying periods will be determined by the secretary of the Air Force. Only one award per operation is authorized. Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom are considered one operation. Subsequent operations will be approved by the Air Force chief of staff and will be indicated by the use of gold star on the ribbon and medal.

I found this excellent article in the Washington post. The key emphasis items for me are two-fold: First, I find it interesting that after this much war we still can't figure out how to recognize guys for doing outstanding work but not worthy of DFC. Some communities are big on single event air medals, some are not. If we're going to keep good guys motivated to be the best, we need to reward them publicly with some kind of medal/ribbon. I'm not a fan of increasing the bling, but seriously, the awards available to UAV guys pale in comparison to the value of their work. That needs to change, and re-defining the meaning of valor thereby diminishing the valor of army guys breaking contact is NOT the right answer (ref final paragraph). Secondly, and this is highly controversial, I think all our senior/strategic thinkers failed us from the end of Vietnam to the start of the current wars. We had decades of guys writing issue papers about what the "next war" would look like and what assets should receive the most money/time/attention. The fact is, those guys uniformly failed to predict the importance of UAV's or the importance of winning guerilla war. I question our ability to think 30 years into the future when our senior leaders have been failing at this for so long. I know a former dean of the national war college who thinks we'll have to lose a war before we can radically change the content of the curriculum. The following article is long but excellent: Combat Generation: Drone operators climb on winds of change in the Air Force By Greg Jaffe Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 28, 2010 The question, scrawled on a Pentagon whiteboard last fall, captured the strange and difficult moment facing the Air Force. THIS STORY "Why does the country need an independent Air Force?" the senior civilian assistant to Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the service's chief of staff, had written. For the first time in the 62-year history of the Air Force, the answer isn't entirely clear. The Air Force's identity crisis is one of many ways that a decade of intense and unrelenting combat is reshaping the U.S. military and redefining the American way of war. The battle against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq has created an insatiable demand for the once-lowly drone, elevating the importance of the officers who fly them. These new earthbound aviators are redefining what it means to be a modern air warrior and forcing an emotional debate within the Air Force over the very meaning of valor in combat. Since its founding, the Air Force has existed primarily to support its daring and chivalrous fighter and bomber pilots. Even as they are being displaced by new technology, these traditional pilots are fighting to retain control over the Air Force and its culture and traditions. The clash between the old and new Air Force was especially apparent in the aftermath of the 2006 strike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq. Predator crews spent more than 630 hours searching for Zarqawi and his associates before they tracked him to a small farm northeast of Baghdad. Minutes later, an F-16 fighter jet, streaking through the sky, released a 500-pound bomb that locked onto a targeting laser and killed Zarqawi. The F-16 pilot, who faced no real threat from the lightly armed insurgents on the ground, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the same honor bestowed on Charles Lindbergh for the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The Predator pilots, who flew their planes from an Air Force base outside Las Vegas, received a thank-you note from a three-star general based in the Middle East. Senior Air Force officials concluded that even though the Predator crews were flying combat missions, they weren't actually in combat. Four years later, the Air Force still hasn't come up with a way to recognize the Predator's contributions in Afghanistan and Iraq. "There is no valor in flying a remotely piloted aircraft. I get it," said Col. Luther "Trey" Turner, a former fighter pilot who has flown Predators since 2003. "But there needs to be an award to recognize crews for combat missions." The revolution It is the job of Schwartz, the Air Force's top general and a onetime cargo pilot, to mediate between the old and new pilot tribes. In August 2008, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates tapped him to lead the service, the first chief of staff in Air Force history without a fighter or bomber pedigree, reflecting Gates's frustration with the service's old guard. A quiet and introspective leader, Schwartz has turned his attention to dismantling the Air Force's rigid class system. At the top of the traditional hierarchy are fighter pilots. Beneath them are bomber, tanker and cargo pilots. At the bottom are the officers who keep aircraft flying and satellites orbiting in space. Schwartz has also pushed to broaden the Air Force's definition of its core missions beyond strategic bombing and control of the skies. New on his list: providing surveillance imagery to ground troops waging counterinsurgencies. Today, the Air Force is flying 40 round-the-clock patrols each day with its Predator and Reaper unmanned planes, an eightfold increase over 2004. "This is our year to look up and out . . . to ask big questions," Schwartz said in an interview. "Who are we? What are we doing for the nation's defense? . . . Where is this grand institution headed?" One answer to those questions is taking shape at Creech Air Force Base, an hour's drive from Las Vegas, where the Air Force launched a trial program to train a first-ever group of officers with no aviation background or training to fly the Predator. Before the trial program, virtually all of the Air Force's Predator and Reaper pilots began their careers flying fighter jets, bombers or cargo aircraft and were temporarily assigned to three-year tours as drone pilots. By 2007, the Air Force started to realize that it didn't have enough traditional pilots to meet the growing demand from field commanders for Predators and Reapers. When Gates pressed for an expedited program to train officers without an aviation background to fly drones, the Air Force initially resisted. Only a fully trained pilot could be trusted to maneuver an unmanned aircraft and drop bombs, some officials maintained. At the rate the Air Force was moving, it would have needed a decade to meet battlefield demand. Schwartz changed the policy. "We had a math problem that quickly led to a philosophical discussion about whether we could create a new type of pilot," said Maj. Gen. Marke F. Gibson, the director of Air Force operations and training. With Schwartz's backing, Gibson crafted a nine-month training program for officers from non-flying backgrounds, including deskbound airmen, military police officers and "missiliers." The crash program has been controversial, particularly among traditional pilots, who typically undergo two years of training. "We are creating the equivalent of a puppy mill," complained one fighter pilot. One of eight initial trainees was Capt. Steve Petrizzo, who joined the Air Force in 2003 hoping to fly F-16s. He was too nearsighted to fly planes, so the Air Force assigned him to a nuclear-missile base where he manned a concrete capsule 50 feet below ground, waiting for the order to launch. Petrizzo leapt at the chance to fly the Predator. "I wanted to be in the fight," he said. His first six months of training beginning in early 2009 focused on the basics of flying. The last few months of instruction were spent in a ground control station maneuvering a simulated Predator through video-game reproductions of Iraq and Afghanistan. One day last summer, inside the cramped and aggressively air-conditioned ground control station, the tension between the old and new Air Force was obvious. Maj. Andy Bright, an F-15 pilot turned Predator instructor, was coaching Petrizzo through the simulations. In one scenario, Petrizzo followed a squad of soldiers through a village. Suddenly, the troops were hit with a blast of sniper fire and sprinted for cover. Although Petrizzo quickly spotted the insurgent, it took him almost five minutes to maneuver his plane into a spot where he could get off a shot that wouldn't also spray the soldiers or nearby civilians with shrapnel. Those few minutes amounted to an eternity to soldiers under fire. Bright counseled Petrizzo to think more about how he positioned his plane. "Flying a Predator is like a chess game," he said. "Because you have a God's-eye perspective, you need to think a few moves ahead." Four hours and several ambushes later, Petrizzo and Bright sat across from each other in a conference room for a mission debriefing. Bright was professional. But it was clear that he had doubts that any officer could be ready to fly combat missions after just nine months of training. "I have to spend a lot of time with them on the very basics," Bright said of Petrizzo and his fellow officers in the program. "They are still learning how to maneuver a plane." The graduation ceremony for Petrizzo and his classmates raised a new set of questions for the Air Force: Should the new graduates wear the same wings as traditional pilots? Did they qualify for extra flight pay? Should they even be called pilots? Schwartz decided the graduates were pilots. Even though they didn't leave the ground, they would receive flight pay. On the day of the ceremony, the general flew in from the Pentagon to pin a specially designed set of wings on each of the trainee's uniforms. The traditional shield at the center of their wings was festooned with lightning bolts to signify the satellite signal that connects the ground-based pilots to their planes. "You are part of the major new Air Force development of the decade," Schwartz told the graduates. A few days later, Petrizzo and his classmates were flying missions over Afghanistan. Top-down changes Lasting cultural change won't take place in the Air Force until officers who serve in these new fields rise to the top ranks, which are still dominated by fighter pilots. Because of the huge demand for drones, the pilots who fly Predators and Reapers aren't being allowed to leave bases such as Creech for other assignments that would give them the experience they need to ascend to higher ranks. Today, there are about a dozen officers with experience flying Predators and Reapers on the Air Force staff in the Pentagon, compared with more than 100 fighter pilots. "My guys understand this mission is important," one squadron commander told Schwartz on a visit to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico in late January. "But for them this tour is never-ending." Some senior Predator and Reaper commanders are leaving the military because they probably won't make general. In a few weeks, Col. Eric Mathewson, who has more experience with unmanned aircraft than just about any other officer in the Air Force, will retire after 26 years. The former F-15 pilot started working with the Predators in 2000 after he hurt his back and was unable to fly. As a squadron commander during a bloody 15-hour battle in eastern Afghanistan in 2002, Mathewson saw his Predators outperform the Air Force's most advanced fighter jets. Dug-in Taliban insurgents had surrounded a dozen U.S. troops who were fighting for their lives. F-15s and F-16s screamed overhead. But the fast-moving planes couldn't get off a clean shot at the enemy's main bunker without also wounding the American troops. Army commanders refused to bring in vulnerable helicopters to evacuate the dead and wounded until an enemy machine-gun nest was destroyed. Crouched behind a cluster of boulders, the Army Ranger platoon leader radioed that one of his soldiers was bleeding to death in the snow. He needed help fast. A pilot from Mathewson's squadron at Creech Air Force base guided his drone over the Ranger position. The Predator had never been used in a hot battle to support ground troops, and the Air Force controller embedded with the Rangers was hesitant to let it fire. To prove its accuracy, the Predator crew launched one of its two Hellfire missiles at an empty hilltop. The hit was accurate, but it left the drone with only one missile. The pilot steadied his plane and squeezed the "pickle" button on his stick, setting loose his last missile and obliterating the Taliban machine-gun nest. "We would have all died without the Predator," the controller recalled months later to Air Force officials. A few months after the battle, Mathewson unsuccessfully nominated several of his airmen for the Distinguished Flying Cross -- an early effort to win medal recognition for Predator crews. Blocked from rewarding his troops with traditional battlefield honors, Mathewson searched for other ways to build camaraderie among his pilots and camera operators. Shortly after he arrived at Creech for his second Predator tour in 2006, Mathewson wrote a new mission statement for his squadrons. "Most mission statements are long, complicated and italicized," he said. "Mine was three words: "Kill [Expletive] Heads." His troops shortened it further to "KFH" and painted it on the cluster of trailers that served as their makeshift headquarters. They emblazoned KFH on their unit letterhead. Everyone in the unit carried a poker chip bearing the three letters. "It reminded us that our job was all about the combat and doing things right," Mathewson said. After Creech, the Air Force sent Mathewson to the Pentagon, where he spent most of 2009 drafting the service's road map for developing remotely piloted aircraft through 2047. The plan that Mathewson produced for the Air Force envisions unmanned planes not only providing surveillance and striking targets, but also hauling cargo around the world. Instead of flying just one plane, a single pilot would probably control as many as four or five planes simultaneously. "If I am doing a surveillance mission where the plane is literally just staring at the ground or at a road for eight or ten hours, I don't need a pilot actively controlling the plane," he said. "So maybe I have a squadron of 40 aircraft but I only have four or five people monitoring them." The Air Force and Mathewson have already demonstrated in training that one pilot can fly as many as four Predators. Col. David Sullivan, who commanded a Predator squadron at Creech, describes Mathewson as one of the Air Force's "visionaries." The next generation of unmanned planes is likely to demand even greater changes from the Air Force, Mathewson said. The craft will require new kinds of organizations, new types of bases and new kinds of officers who will never peer through a fighter-jet canopy in search of the enemy. Old notions of valor are likely to disappear. A decade of drone combat has already led Mathewson to adjust his definition of the word, which is a part of almost every combat award citation. "Valor to me is not risking your life," he said. "Valor is doing what is right. Valor is about your motivations and the ends that you seek. It is doing what is right for the right reasons. That to me is valor."

Thought this was a worthy addition to the thread. Issue Brief March 1, 2010 www.lexingtoninstitute.org SEARCH AND RESCUE: ANOTHER BLOW TO U.S. AIR POWER? Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D. The U.S. Air Force is at the lowest ebb in its 73-year history. Although its capabilities still far surpass those of other air services around the world, it is gradually using up the arsenal it acquired during the closing days of the Cold War. Over the last five years, the Air Force has seen its next-generation F-22 air superiority fighter terminated at less than half the required number, its next-generation bomber delayed by over a decade, and its plan to replace airborne surveillance planes canceled. Planners also want to end production of the service's admired C-17 cargo jet at a mere 222 planes, even though the oldest C-17s will soon reach the end of their design lives and there is no chance of building something else. You'd think at this point policymakers would be ready to train their sights on some other hapless victim of "rebalancing," but no such luck. Two articles in the defense trade press last week signaled that the next blow to U.S. air power will be aimed at the Air Force's search and rescue community, which for decades has led the joint force in retrieving downed pilots and other endangered personnel from harm's way. The need for agile rotorcraft and highly trained personnel who can survive in hostile airspace to save warfighters at risk used to be deemed so important that it was rated the Air Force's number-two modernization priority, second only to replacement of decrepit Eisenhower-era tankers. But apparently the rescue of lost soldiers and airmen doesn't command the constituency it once did, because both articles indicated service leaders are moving to embrace the least capable option. The first article, written by Stephen Trimble of Flight International, said "The Air Force has decided to buy 112 Sikorsky UH-60Ms to recapitalise its ageing combat search and rescue fleet, despite a standing requirement for a larger helicopter." Trimble attributed this information to the service's senior uniform acquisition executive, Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford. A second article appearing two days later by Marcus Weisgerber of Inside the Air Force cited Shackelford as saying no final decisions had been made on what would replace existing HH-60G search and rescue helicopters, but "it could be new H-60s modified to be rescue helicopters." Weisgerber noted that the search and rescue fleet had dwindled to so few flyable helicopters that the service was already buying new H-60s in 2010 and requesting six more in 2011 as replacements, but he described that as a temporary solution. Weisgerber quoted Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz endorsing an "off-the-shelf" solution acquired in the smallest feasible quantity, "given our resource constraints." Clearly, Air Force plans are trending away from the more capable alternatives considered only a few years ago, when Boeing's HH-47 Chinook was selected in a three-way competition with the AgustaWestland EH-101 and Sikorsky H-92. That decision was later overturned because the Government Accountability Office questioned the way life-cycle costs had been calculated, but then defense secretary Robert Gates canceled the effort, putting the future of the whole mission area in doubt. What's so odd about this process is that an "analysis of alternatives" conducted by the Air Force in 2002 cast doubt on the suitability of the H-60 for the mission given crew workloads, lack of defensive features, and other deficiencies. More recently, the Joint Forces Command re-validated requirements for a new search and rescue airframe in higher numbers than the Air Force is now apparently planning. One thing is clear, though: the H-60s the service is contemplating buying are far inferior to HH-47, EH-101 and V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor alternatives that are readily available. So unless something changes, this looks like yet another mission area where the Air Force is losing altitude fast.

I enjoy listening, thanks for the responses here.

Slight thread drift-- I heard a rumor yesterday that there is a seperate pot of $9k, seperate from your TA, that can be used for a one time certification. I haven't yet had the chance to investigate for myself, but since I'm on here anyway thought I'd ask if anyone has seen this money used for an ATP or similar advanced flight certification? I should have free time next week and if an answer isn't posted I'll have one from my education office for everyone else.

Keep trying for a rated slot. The aero club at Eglin has twins and single engine. Mostly it's run by civilians. Your boss needs to sign a form allowing you to take a second job while on active duty. Not a huge deal, my neighbor is doing it and he's a major. That being said, I think whether your boss signs off depends on your job and how much time you have. I'm going to try working as a CFI or MEI at the aero club myself when I return from my next deployment; consequently I don't know yet how feasible it is. I'll keep you posted on my experience. Seems like a good way to fly a little on weekends when I can't fly at work; and since I'd fly 7 days a week if I were allowed, I'm interested. Edited to add: I had some experience with the old areo club at Quantico about 13 years ago, not sure if it still exists. My experience there was pretty negative, like you said, a lot of grumpy old guys who didn't want to let anyone else into their club. But I think that was the exception, not the rule. There was one in Hawaii when I lived there as well, but that was about 18 years ago so my knowledge is quite dated. My experiences there were great.

Dude, I'm kidding. I care about/earned 2 of my ribbons. The rest are useless.

Hiflyer, some questions on how you guys operated back then: Did you have daily sorties to known locations and fighters would rendezvous with you at predetermined times, or did you only launch for a TIC so you knew fast movers would be enroute? Were there several forward staging areas for FAC's so you'd be close to the action, or could you count on a lot of drone time to and from your destination? And if you can put up with all those questions, what kind of stations time did you have, or would you guys just go trolling for contact? I'm really curious about the tactical implementation of FAC's in the old days without all the whiz bang shit used currently. Thanks!

Sweet, can't wait to add the OND bling to my ribbon rack! My wife will be very impressed. Yes I am being sarcastic.

I just want to be part of airdropping gas. But yea, lot's of wordfucking going on there; who knows what really took place. They probably had a tertiary role and played it big on paper while hampering the dudes actually doing it.

Is there some kind of BX policy about gun sales? Mostly I've never seen guns or ammo in a BX, but I walked into Eglin a few months ago and it's like the friggen SHOT show in there. Great selection of handguns, shotguns and rifles, even high end AR's like LWRC. They sell the Sig 556 there and even had the new FN SCAR. But I haven't seen anything like that anywhere lese, including Hurlburt.

Who will you guys be training on the aircraft? Seems odd to give it to you guys unless a lot of others exist for you to upgrade people on. Or will yo be getting a new mission?

Be that as it may, the blog in question here had 19 year old SF girls on it. Not to be sexist or 'ageist' but I don't think their skills equate to the Tier 1 assets, no matter what schools they attend. But back on point, the Deid is gay. Wait, I guess in light of DADT dissolving I should instead say "the Deid is a bastion of homosexual liberation and frolicking!"

It may have happened to more than one crew. But yup, early 2006 that was me. The rest of the story was a backend full of rowdy PUC's and some shenanigans with the Army that almost became a major international incident while the O's watched helplessly from the field; but I'll refrain from details. Bottom line, the herc schoolhouse tells everyone to run into a field during an EGE because in the 80's some guy got hit by the fire truck responding to the incident (driving on the runway). I recommend staying on a paved surface when you're at an isolated shithole with the potential for mines; we were a solid crew but this is one of those things you just never think about.

I also agree with pretty much all your points except about Hassan himself. Especially the fact that Peters just smells like a passed over LtCol who is pissed at everything and looking for public revenge. But you are incorrect that this would be blown over if he had not been Muslim. If he had been a white supremacist this would be a major news story and would have led to all manner of additional CBT's. If this had been a homophobe angry at the imminent dismissal of DADT this would be headlines everywhere with long term repercussions in the military. The government treats crimes committed with an ideological bent as more dangerous than simply a dude whose wife dumped him and went nuts. The reason ideology is more dangerous is that it's contagious. And the military was wrong not to recognize this freak. This guy was a terrorist, the FBI has even said so now and they have access to the classified report. A terrorist attack doesn't have to be coordinated to be effective. Hassan was influenced by his religion to commit this act, shouted "allah akbar" while doing it and the federal authorities have concluded this was terrorism. Ralph's personality issues aside, why do you disagree with this labeled terrorism? Edited to add: didn't see your post below when I wrote mine, and you answered the question about why you don't see this as terrorism. I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

I've had my share of close calls, but getting scared while flying? Scared usually happens afterwards when I realize how close to disaster I came and how little my own skill had anything to do with averting it. That being said, I remember feeling genuine panic when I emergency ground egressed a smoking aircraft and ran my ass into an unmarked minefield. That sinking feeling that you've lost control of your own fate is definitely scary.

Exactly what in the article did you disagree with?

Obviously I read articles written by Ralph with a grain of salt, but I've got to agree on this one. With even POTUS now calling this a terrorist attack and not the work of a lone gunman I am suprised at how incomplete and empty this report is. Hood Massacre Report Gutless and Shameful By RALPH PETERS January 16, 2010 https://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/ hood_massacre_report_gutless_and_yaUphSPCoMs8ux4lQdtyGM There are two basic problems with the grotesque non-report on the Islamist- terror massacre at Fort Hood (released by the Defense Department yesterday): * It's not about what happened at Fort Hood. * It avoids entirely the issue of why it happened. Rarely in the course of human events has a report issued by any government agency been so cowardly and delusional. It's so inept, it doesn't even rise to cover-up level. "Protecting the Force: Lessons From Fort Hood" never mentions Islamist terror. Its 86 mind-numbing pages treat "the alleged perpetrator," Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as just another workplace shooter (guess they're still looking for the pickup truck with the gun rack). The report is so politically correct that its authors don't even realize the extent of their political correctness -- they're body-and-soul creatures of the PC culture that murdered 12 soldiers and one Army civilian. Reading the report, you get the feeling that, jeepers, things actually went pretty darned well down at Fort Hood. Commanders, first responders and everybody but the latest "American Idol" contestants come in for high praise. The teensy bit of specific criticism is reserved for the "military medical officer supervisors" in Maj. Hasan's chain of command at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As if the problem started and ended there. Unquestionably, the officers who let Hasan slide, despite his well-known wackiness and hatred of America, bear plenty of blame. But this disgraceful pretense of a report never asks why they didn't stop Hasan's career in its tracks. The answer is straightforward: Hasan's superiors feared -- correctly -- that any attempt to call attention to his radicalism or to prevent his promotion would backfire on them, destroying their careers, not his. Hasan was a protected-species minority. Under the PC tyranny of today's armed services, no non-minority officer was going to take him on. This is a military that imposes rules of engagement that protect our enemies and kill our own troops and that court-martials heroic SEALs to appease a terrorist. Ain't many colonels willing to hammer the Army's sole Palestinian-American psychiatrist. Of course, there's no mention of political correctness by the panel. Instead, the report settles for blinding flashes of the obvious, such as "We believe a gap exists in providing information to the right people." Gee, really? Well, that explains everything. Money well spent! Or "Department of Defense force protection policies are not optimized for countering internal threats." Of course not: You can't stop an internal threat you refuse to recognize. The panel's recommendations? Wow. "Develop a risk-assessment tool for commanders." Now that's going to stop Islamist terrorists in their tracks. The Fort Hood massacre didn't reflect an intelligence failure. The intelligence was there, in gigabytes. This was a leadership failure and an ethical failure, at every level. Nobody wanted to know what Hasan was up to. But you won't learn that from this play-pretend report. The sole interesting finding flashes by quickly: Behind some timid wording on pages 13 and 14, a daring soul managed to insert the observation that we aren't currently able to keep violence-oriented religious extremists from becoming chaplains. (Of course, they're probably referring to those darned Baptists . . .) To be fair, there's a separate, classified report on Maj. Hasan himself. But it's too sensitive for the American people to see. Does it even hint he was a self-appointed Islamist terrorist committing jihad? I'll bet it focuses on his "personal problems." In the end, the report contents itself with pretending that the accountability problem was isolated within the military medical community at Walter Reed. It wasn't, and it isn't. Murderous political correctness is pervasive in our military. The medical staff at Walter Reed is just where the results began to manifest themselves in Hasan's case. Once again, the higher-ups blame the worker bees who were victims of the policy the higher-ups inflicted on them. This report's spinelessness is itself an indictment of our military's failed moral and ethical leadership. We agonize over civilian casualties in a war zone but rush to whitewash the slaughter of our own troops on our own soil. Conduct unbecoming.