What's wrong with the Air Force?

[disgruntledemployee]

19 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

In my last assignment alone my sq was directly tasked with/involved in 3 ops to either rescue or recover Americans in harms way.  If you don't believe things like that "matter" we'll have to respectfully agree to disagree.

  I understand and partially agree with what you're saying writ large about whether OEF/OIF/OFS/OIR brought us a better peace/world.  I personally don't believe it was all for nothing but I definitely understand the viewpoint of those that do. 

I suppose a lot us fit into that role, that is, something done directly help our fellow military peeps, be it giving gas at a critical point to dropping something to the ground and so on.  Most us of didn't do the BIG thing that created victory, but maybe just helped save the day, 1 dude at a time.  That might enough when you think of the little successes.  Dwell too much on the losses and I understand that feeling of effort and sacrifice for nothing.  This was a topic me and my pops, a Nam Marine, discussed once and only once.

[Majestik Møøse]

22 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

I enjoyed serving. But I didn't make the world a better/safer place in the long run because those in charge failed to use our efforts effectively (or with any particular goal in mind). Afghanistan is still run by the Taliban, with newer, better weapons and equipment. Saddam is gone, and Iraq is a bigger mess. Libya is a mess. Tunisia, meh. Iran is still exporting terror and chaos all over the Middle East. Pakistan is still a shitty ally. Syria is more of an enemy than before. Turkey is belligerent to any Western interests, but can fuck up NATO votes. Islamic extremism has spread through more of the West than when 9/11 happened. And all of that added to a catastrophic debt situation. 

Alright, I’ll take a crack.

Afghanistan: we went in to kill bin Laden and as many Al Qaeda as possible. Remember them? They’re all dead! Sweet! Did we bring democracy to Afghanistan? Hell no, and the mistake was to say that was an objective. The real goal was to kill terries, and we did. No Al Qaeda left. But we were too soft to dump the Afghans on their sympathizer asses immediately after Neptune Spear.

Iraq: not done yet, honestly. If we leave, they’ll fail. We need to stay and keep buying their oil. Unpopular opinion, I’m sure.

Libya: a mess? Yep, but that’s ok because we kicked ass with air power, lost almost no one, and left. Let them figure it out.

Iran: we never fought them. If we did, we’d ruin their ability to export terrorism to the rest of the ME just like we did with AQ and ISIS. Would we try to bring them democracy also? I sure hope not! Because fuck them, that’s why! Just destroy their military and means of Shahed/TBM production in a month and leave.

Syria: ISIS! Remember them? When all the murderous assholes from all around the world gathered in Syria to kill/rape the locals by the thousands. They were so bad even AQ was cringing at their videos. We gave them the apocalypse they were looking for and now they’re all fucking dead. Sweet!

In all, we did a shit ton of good work, but our national/military leadership is too inept to know it. Organizationally, the USG needs a lot of work.

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, Majestik Møøse said:

Afghanistan: we went in to kill bin Laden and as many Al Qaeda as possible. Remember them? They’re all dead! Sweet! Did we bring democracy to Afghanistan? Hell no, and the mistake was to say that was an objective. The real goal was to kill terries, and we did. No Al Qaeda left. But we were too soft to dump the Afghans on their sympathizer asses immediately after Neptune Spear.

If the limited goal of killing some terries took 20 years, that's a failure in my book. And the fact that the Taliban won (and they did) makes it pretty hard to see Afghanistan as a win. I think it might be our Vietnam...

1 hour ago, Majestik Møøse said:

Iraq: not done yet, honestly. If we leave, they’ll fail. We need to stay and keep buying their oil. Unpopular opinion, I’m sure.

And before we decided to kill Saddam, they were a key check on Iranian power in the region. So... why are we there in the first place? Bad intel. That's a loss...

1 hour ago, Majestik Møøse said:

Libya: a mess? Yep, but that’s ok because we kicked ass with air power, lost almost no one, and left. Let them figure it out.

Like Saddam, Gaddafi kept Libya under relative control. Now? How has "let them figure it out" worked for us so far? It was figured out, then "we came, we saw, he died." Is that better?

1 hour ago, Majestik Møøse said:

ran: we never fought them. If we did, we’d ruin their ability to export terrorism to the rest of the ME just like we did with AQ and ISIS. Would we try to bring them democracy also? I sure hope not! Because fuck them, that’s why! Just destroy their military and means of Shahed/TBM production in a month and leave.

I know what we could do. We could have won in Afghanistan too. The question is what actually happened/happens. 

1 hour ago, Majestik Møøse said:

Syria: ISIS! Remember them? When all the murderous assholes from all around the world gathered in Syria to kill/rape the locals by the thousands. They were so bad even AQ was cringing at their videos. We gave them the apocalypse they were looking for and now they’re all fucking dead. Sweet!

Yes, Isis, the Islamist psychodrama that was only possible because we destabilized the region by removing or attempting to remove the strongmen in charge of their countries. There is no ISIS if we didn't kill Saddam. That's the best example of "we created that problem."  

1 hour ago, Majestik Møøse said:

In all, we did a shit ton of good work, but our national/military leadership is too inept to know it. Organizationally, the USG needs a lot of work.

We did excellent work at the tactical level in all of your examples. But all of your examples are exactly what I'm referring to. The pre-US-involvement status quo was better than how we left it. We did a lot of good work for ultimately worthless (or in some cases counter-productive) endeavors. 

 

I do appreciate the dialog. 

[SocialD]

Reverend!  

 

I can't say it felt like #winning as we watched a bunch of ANA/ANP getting overrun by the Taliban because of ROE and chicken shit civilian and military leaders.  Felt like a metaphor for our time in Afghanistan.  The few employments we had were probably just killing the kids of the guys we killed when I was there a decade earlier.  We didn't have any semblance of a gameplan or objective when I was there in 2011...2021 was way worse.  If we had taken out OBL at Tora Bora and subsequently pulled out (or left when we finally got him), I might have considered Afghanistan a win.   Did we stop a possible terrorist attack on US soil during that time...maybe.   Did we create more people who want to repeat 9/11 down the road...absolutely.  We did find ourselves with aged jets,  a few trillion in debt and more dead/broken soldiers, so we got that going for us...

 

 

[herkbier]

Sounds like a win for the military industrial complex! 

[di1630]

Reverend!  
 
I can't say it felt like #winning as we watched a bunch of ANA/ANP getting overrun by the Taliban because of ROE and chicken shit civilian and military leaders.  Felt like a metaphor for our time in Afghanistan.  The few employments we had were probably just killing the kids of the guys we killed when I was there a decade earlier.  We didn't have any semblance of a gameplan or objective when I was there in 2011...2021 was way worse.  If we had taken out OBL at Tora Bora and subsequently pulled out (or left when we finally got him), I might have considered Afghanistan a win.   Did we stop a possible terrorist attack on US soil during that time...maybe.   Did we create more people who want to repeat 9/11 down the road...absolutely.  We did find ourselves with aged jets,  a few trillion in debt and more dead/broken soldiers, so we got that going for us...
 
 

I remember clearly the sortie I was on in Early 2006, my second deployment, thinking “WTF are we doing here?” when chiefs were on a reflective belt kick and the ROE was rediculous.

I like to think maybe I helped someone make it home but in big picture look back, what a waste of time and resources.

And everyone at the Maj level and below knew it while leadership just padded stats to get ahead.


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[Swizzle]

1 hour ago, herkbier said:

Sounds like a win for the military industrial complex! 

[Guest nsplayr]

The sooner you understand that the Department of Defense is *the* biggest, fastest, most efficient way to spend taxpayer money, and that that's the purpose, the sooner it all makes a bit of sense 😄

Only sorta kidding...

If there's a more expensive, more jobs-intensive way to have an effect on the battlefield, gosh darn it we owe it to the U.S. taxpayer to do it that way. Ask yourself this, how can I expend more of my SCL on this operation? Couldn't this CONOP call for more versions/personnel/fuel/airplanes in the stack? Anytime you try to make a DoD mission more cost-effective you're doing it exactly backwards.

"Giving" weapons to Ukraine/Israel/Saudi/whomever-the-fuck = middle-class manufacturing jobs in 50 unique states + territories.

[ClearedHot]

Now Fat Tony thinks he is an Athletic Director.  The only scores he understands are his round trip currency to the endless donut buffet.

[dream big]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

Now Fat Tony thinks he is an Athletic Director.  The only scores he understands are his round trip currency to the endless donut buffet.

Words from bros that are AOCs is the place is now pure toxicity. Surviving the next 1-2 years is their only concern. 

[ClearedHot]

15 minutes ago, dream big said:

Words from bros that are AOCs is the place is now pure toxicity. Surviving the next 1-2 years is their only concern. 

Heard the exact same thing from civilian staff bros, complete toxicity just waiting for him to fire someone.

This is Slife's fault for protecting and enabling this sycophant. 

[dream big]

In other news in a deployed theater near you, Chief mafia is back in full force policing patches instead of, idk, being Chiefs and looking after the welfare of airmen. More concern with that than how our Airmen are affected by Iran and Israel in arguably one of the most unstable times in the Middle East. How we don’t get our asses kicked by China is beyond me. 

[cragspider]

15 hours ago, dream big said:

Words from bros that are AOCs is the place is now pure toxicity. Surviving the next 1-2 years is their only concern. 

I can attest to this as well. Hopefully some of the investigations going on can find a way to stick and get him out. He is out of touch.

[brabus]

7 hours ago, dream big said:

How we don’t get our asses kicked by China is beyond me. 

The only way is when all the warriors out there tell the pussies in leadership something like, “GFY, we’re doing it this way and if you don’t like it, come on out here and strap a jet on and fly west.”

There are some absolute retards in PACAF, and the counter will be the bros with a few good O-6s who get shit done the right way.

[Boomer6]

5 minutes ago, brabus said:

There are some absolute retards in PACAF, and the counter will be the bros with a few good O-6s who get shit done the right way.

Retards is putting it mildly. Godspeed on finding a few good O-6s. They're too busy searching the snacko closet for unapproved patches (true story)..

[SurelySerious]

PACAF already surrendered to the Navy, so they have practiced for China.

[brabus]

7 hours ago, Boomer6 said:

They're too busy searching the snacko closet for unapproved patches (true story)..

[McJay Pilot]

19 hours ago, dream big said:

How we don’t get our asses kicked by China is beyond me. 

Wars are not won by the most competent military force. Wars are won by the least incompetent military force.

Also, two oceans and decent relations with your border buddies are a helluva drug. 🍻

[HuggyU2]

13 hours ago, McJay Pilot said:

... and decent relations with your border buddies...

I contemplate what would be different, had we spent $2 trillion on Mexico (and other Central American nations) instead of Afghanistan. That money certainly didn't win us the war. 
 

I think back to 2004 and deployments  from then.  That was a long time ago.  
 

If we spent $300,000,000 every DAY since 2004, that sum today would be...

... $2 trillion.  That may have done something significant to preserve the dying Monroe Doctrine.  

 

Edited October 8, 2024 by HuggyU2

[Clark Griswold]

This 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/03/restoring-the-warrior-ethos-to-the-trump-military/

[O Face]

13 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

This 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/03/restoring-the-warrior-ethos-to-the-trump-military/

This guy gets it!

[di1630]

Joint Program Office releases this with the knockoff Chinese J-35. Stayed up for a few hours.


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[Lawman]

Joint Program Office releases this with the knockoff Chinese J-35. Stayed up for a few hours.


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PAO winning the war…

We’re not sure who the hell they are are fighting for or with but they sure as hell are wining in their own minds.


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[brabus]

Gov PA across the board will always have the legacy of being horrible at their jobs. I think they may be even worse than Finance, and that’s saying a lot.

[M2]

It doesn't have leaders like MG William Zana...

An Army general’s final ‘walk’ at the Tomb of the Unknowns

MG William Zana, the only guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to reach the rank of general, took a final guard shift on the night he retired.



At exactly 10 p.m. on the warm, last night of May, MG William Zana received his orders and began his final guard shift on the smooth marble stone plaza at the center of Arlington National Cemetery. In two hours it would be midnight, a new day and new month. A new guard would relieve him at his post, he would march off the plaza and suddenly, instantly, be a civilian.

But for the final two hours of his 37-year career, Zana wanted one last chance to stand a shift he had held as a young sergeant: keeping watch over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. 

“I was Pvt. Zana when I showed up to the Old Guard,” Zana told Task & Purpose.“You know, all of us who raise our right hand and serve, there’s things that define you. First combat tour, first loss of personnel. For me, volunteering for and serving at the Tomb was absolutely both defining and shaping.”

(Full story at the title link)

I don't know the man, nor do I know much about his career other than what I read in his bio; but based on this article, I have the utmost respect for him!