This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Air Force

  • Bronze Star Medal woes cause problems

    Our buddy Jeff Schogol sent us a link yesterday to the Air Force Times story about the Bronze Star “winners” we talked about last week. Apparently the two female airmen have been getting harassed over the award;

    Stories about both awards were posted on the Air Force website and drew dozens of comments attacking the women as well as the decision to award them Bronze Stars. The Air Force removed the story about Gamez “because no one deserves that level of criticism for meritorious service in a combat zone,” David Smith, a spokesman for Air Education and Training Command, told the Times.

    Many commenters said that the women should not have gotten awards simply for doing their jobs, and that the Air Force awards too many medals.

    [Tech. Sgt. Sharma Haynes] could not be reached for comment by press time. In the story about her award, she said she was busy while deployed to Afghanistan, but it was time well spent.

    “I know when most people see the news and read the papers, the majority of what they see are the bad things that occur here, but the U.S. presence is making a positive impact on this country,” she said in the story.

    [Tech. Sgt. Christina Gamez] declined to comment for this story. In the Air Force story that was taken off the Web, she was modest about receiving the award.

    “Ask me to recognize anyone else and I can talk for days, but to brag about myself, I’m not the best,” she said in the story. “I feel like I did my job, kept a very busy pace and made improvements any place I could.”

    While I understand the sentiment expressed by many, that clerical work doesn’t really rise to the level of deserving a Bronze Star Medal just because it happened while the Sergeants were receiving imminent danger pay, neither is it their fault and they probably don’t deserve the abuse that’s directed at them.

    I’ve told the story before that when my commander in Desert Storm told me he was putting me in for a Bronze Star Medal, I was violently opposed to it. I begged him not to give it to me and physically threatened him (COB6 will tell you that I physically threatened that moron at least once a week), but that didn’t stop him. Our First Sergeant had been awarded a Bronze Star in Vietnam for pulling his squad’s collective ass out of an ambush, and I didn’t think that anything I did rose to that level of proficiency or bravery.

    Obviously, my Bronze Star Medal meant more to my commander than it did to me, but there was no way I could convince him to not give me it. So, because of my experience, I don’t blame anyone for the awards they get. I didn’t blame Jessica Lynch, and I don’t blame these two young ladies.

    Giving them shit on the internet about it probably isn’t going to change the whole situation. Anyone who is bullying them should probably take a bottle of chill pills. Get pissed at their commanders, or the Air Force, or the culture that made someone think it was a good idea, but it’s certainly not their fault.

    And I don’t think any of us want to be the squad leader of the patrol which everyone seems to think that those two airmen need to “earn” their BSM. There are enough things to be scared of outside the wire without giving an Air Force finance clerk a loaded weapon and putting them in a free-fire-zone.

  • AF disciplines Dover officials for whistleblower retaliation

    In the case of mishandled remains of fallen troops processed at Dover Air Force Base, the Air Force has begun disciplining the officials who used threats of firing, terminations and disciplinary letters to retaliate against those who tried to stop the practices there;

    One of two civilian mortuary supervisors involved in the retaliation, Quinton “Randy” Keel, has resigned from the Air Force. The [U.S. Office of Special Counsel] said the Air Force has begun disciplinary procedures against Edmondson and the other former supervisor, Trevor Dean. The disciplinary action the OSC referred to is in addition to earlier censures taken against the three in the fall.

    The Air Force released a statement saying disciplinary proceedings have begun, and that it expects to complete its decisions by mid to late April. It also said it is working with OSC to make appropriate corrections to the whistleblowers’ records.

    “The individuals who reported the allegations in this matter performed an important service to the Air Force and the nation,” the statement read.

    Yeah, see that’s what whistleblowers do, that’s not what “Breanna” Manning did.

  • Phony PJ? (Linked now)

    Robert sends a link to a discussion in the Orange County Register over an obituary of Patrick Shayne Murphy who claimed to be an Air Force Pararescueman. Apparently, the folks in the discussion can’t find him listed in the tiny database of PJs.

    Pat was trained as a pararescue man and medic, known in the Special Forces by the moniker “PJ”. As a PJ he served as part of a helicopter rescue crew highly trained for the retrieval and treatment of downed American pilots in the jungles of Southeast Asia (i.e., Vietnam Cambodia, Laos and the China Sea), thereby saving many lives. His time in the service of his country had a profound impact on him.

    Understandably, the family is trying to defend the deceased from his detractors, an uncomfortable position to be in, I’m sure. But they’re using things like the fire at the National Archives to explain why he’s not listed in their database. The fire only affected the section of records which contained Korean War veterans’s records, so since this guy had served in the Vietnam War, his records should be intact. They also say that they have a maroon beret as proof. Yeah, berets don’t prove much of anything, other than the fact that he had the money to buy one somewhere.

    Since there are so few PJs it almost doesn’t make sense to pretend to be one, neither does it make much sense to argue with the community about a supposed member. they all know each other.

    But, Stolen Valor is a victimless crime.

  • The wayback machine

    Today Real Clear Politics’ Morning Edition very slyly ran an Airpower article from 1972 titled The Press and the TET Offensive: a flawed institution under stress.

    The Tet offensive of 1968 must surely be regarded as one of history’s chameleon campaigns. When the North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops assaulted targets throughout the Republic of Vietnam at the end of January 1968, they expected to trigger an uprising of the South Vietnamese people against their government. Despite some spectacular early successes, the attacks failed. The South Vietnamese did not embrace the cause; thousands of sappers, assault troops, and cadres met their deaths before overwhelming allied counterattacks; and the insurgent infrastructure was so decimated at the end of the fighting that no large enemy offensives could be mounted for four years.

    Nonetheless, the Tet offensive was a turning point in the war, and the North Vietnamese were successful in altering the course of the war far beyond the accomplishments of their army. The American people were shocked that the Vietcong/ North Vietnamese Army (VC/NV A) possessed the strength to make the widespread strikes. In the public clamor that followed, President Lyndon Johnson announced a bombing halt and withdrew from the 1968 Presidential race. The policy of Vietnamization was launched, and many Americans concluded that the war was too costly to pursue.

    It has always been clear that the press played a vital role in this dramatic shift of opinion. It has been evident that dissatisfaction with the war among media opinion-makers helped form an American public attitude of discouragement.

    Written at the very tail end of our war in Vietnam the article details the ignorant and sometimes ideologically duplicitous role the media played in spinning the Tet Offensive. Of course a substantial amount of contemporary scholarship has covered this subject in great depth but to see that, even then, those in the know were well aware of the media’s role in shaping the vital public perception of our wars is quite the juxtaposition of the understanding of the war as portrayed by popular culture. There isn’t much new here but, as we fight out own wars at home against corrupted media institutions, perhaps it will serve as reinforcement of the very real, very tangible, stakes 40 years later.

  • Video of Zoomies beating their girlfriends investigated by OSI

    According to Stars & Stripes, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) has taken over the investigation of the video you guys have been emailing me for a week. Initially, the Army was investigating until it was determined that the members of the military who were abusing the sheep were wearing Air Force uniforms. I guess investigators were fooled by the old saying: The Army; where men are men and sheep run scared.

    I’ve resisted writing about this, because it’s pretty disgusting. I won’t post the video, because I’m squeamish about abused animals and I won’t compound the media frenzy over the little shit.

    It doesn’t help investigators that PETA, another group of perpetually outraged hippies, brought the video to the media’s attention.

    Just like the Marines’ urination video, it’s bad enough that they did the act, but they filmed it and then some dim bulb decided to post it on the internet. What are these ass clowns thinking?

  • PolitiFact busted, again

    Politifact, the nominally non-partisan “fact checker” which takes a statement by a politician, surveys a group of “experts” of their own choosing and then coughs up a “truth-o-meter” score, has landed in hot water, again. Previously it was when the liberal media establishment got all asshurt over Politifact calling the claim that Republicans were trying to end Medicare the “Lie of the Year”, much to the amusement of columnists like Mark Hemingway over at The Weekly Standard. Hemingway had previously worked to expose so called “fact checking” organizations as being fundamentally misrepresentative highlighting, among other things, the absurdity of using AP reports as the arbiter of proper military analysis after Politifact went after Romney on a Iran statement.

    This time around it again concerns our military.
    (more…)

  • Air Force heroes

    AverageNCO sends us a link to remind us that zoomies can be heroes, too;

    The members of the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron at Hurlburt Field received 33 medals, including a Silver Star, an Airman’s Medal, six Bronze Stars with Valor, three Purple Hearts and 22 Air Force Combat Action Medals.

    Lt. Col. Chris Larkin, commander of the squadron, said the ceremony was special because the citations gave the airmen’s families a peek into top-secret missions.

    “They are all quiet professionals and they are not proven to boast about what they have done outside the confines of the team room with their teammates and a cold beverage,” Larkin said during the ceremony.

    Most of you know that my son has been serving in the Air Force for more than eleven years, and I’m proud of his choice to serve. Sometimes we forget that all who serve are equally honorable, and they all contribute to the Big Picture mission. You don’t have to be a SEAL, a Ranger, or a Green Beret to be special. You’re special if you choose something bigger and more important than yourself. Not everyone can be a SEAL, but those cooks and medics who keep the SEALs in fighting shape are just as important to the successful completion of the mission.

    But here’s a list of these awardees and their medals in a .pdf.

  • Germans to honor AF SSGT for apprehending terrorist

    I’m sure you remember the terrorist attack at Frankfurt’s airport which took the lives of 2 airmen and wounded two others last March, Well the German government is honoring two Americans with Germany’s Federal Cross of Merit, one is Air Force Staff Sergeant Trevor Brewer, 23, for helping to apprehend the little shit, Arid Uka (Stars & Stripes link);

    During the trial, Brewer testified that, after the gun jammed, he pursued the fleeing gunman and chased him into the airport, where he saw Uka surrounded by airport police.

    On Monday, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich is to present Brewer and Lamar Joseph Conner, an American who appears to have no connection to the U.S. military, with the federal cross of merit for “extraordinary efforts against an Islamist motivated terrorist deed,” according to a ministry press release.

    Thanks SSG Brewer for making the world a bit safe disregarding your own safety.