Air Force Ground Troops?

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I would not put too much trust in NPR "news" they tend politically liberal and heavily slanted. The USAF DOES have a lot of people on the ground doing infantry stuff. There is not a whole lot of close air support to need the FACs they would have you believe make up the ground assignments.
 
Re:jimwatson

Now a days, NPR isn't any more or less believable then anything else on the public airwaves. Like my original post here stated, it is one of the few stations we get around hear. While I do realize they have a slant to their stories, I have noticed they report on things no one else does.

Unless you think that everything is Peaches and Cream in Iraq.
 
I would not put too much trust in NPR "news" they tend politically liberal and heavily slanted.
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Yeah, that's a myth*, but I do agree with your recommendation of paying attention to who you get your news from.


* scroll down to the topic heading "Liberal bias?"
 
The Story, Not The Source

I started this thread to discuss using Airmen in direct combat roles. I did not intend it to become a debate on which media we can trust.

If anyone believes this story to be bogus, please link up something. I assume if this was NPR lie, someone, somewhere should have a website to counter this story.

If this story is false I would be relieved.
 
So, assuming it is true (if not just ignore this thread, I guess) Why is it such a bad thing? Theoretically, if you go through 6 weeks of boot camp, you are good to go to war, no?

Are y'all trying to say the air force is soft?

Figure they can't be worse than Australian troops ;)
 
Read the story, don't believe it is false. I do believe maybe it is not the whole story or needs more details.

Giving the AF guys only ten days training in Urban Warfare would be down right criminal.

My guess is, they are probably just giving them a taste or outline of the complete training. Probably prepping them for the more logical tasks of providing a better perimeter around the air bases, and running supplies between air bases, which was more likely an Army escort job.

To truely know, we would need a better article on the true tasks they are given once they get in country, not just the training. Heck I was trained to be a division level Intell Analyst and when I got to where I was going at a Bn S-2 shop I pulled more maintence on a 577 than just about anything else.
 
Re:twoxforr

Then why would you need 5,000 troops a year? This also sounds like it will be going on for awhile.

Should they start training the Civil Air Patrol?
 
+1 FireCaptDave

The Forward Air Controllers (FACs) and the rescue (SARs) guys in S.E. Asia showed no lack of 'nads by getting right into the thick of things. It's the same in today's fighting - you need those specialties on the ground close to the fighting to be effective.

My hat is permanently off to the paramedic jumpers and the search and rescue (SAR) guys for personal reasons. It takes quite a pair to dive in, unarmed, to rescue someone in hostile territory and expose yourself to enemy fire to get him to safety. The same can be said for unarmed medics in all of the services - they are truely exceptionally brave people.

To Mr. Meyer, who's opinions I often agree with, I'll have to disagree with yours this time around. The volunteer military has shown excellent results with the exception that it is difficult to keep enough career soldiers and even harder to keep many volunteers during wartime.

A draft is unpopular at almost all levels of society, regardless of exclusions, defermets and "loopholes". I don't know that we can ever get a majority of the population to agree to another draft for any war now. And if one of our cities becomes a glass-lined ruin, I have a hard time believing one party in particular would support a draft even then -- unless they held both Congress and the White House.

Vietnam taught us, U.S., that military strategy and planning are best left to the military commanders in the theatre, not the politicians, bureaucrats and diplomats in D.C.

The Iraqi war is teaching us that technology can help win battles and save the lives of troops & civilians alike. But during the occupation phase after the primary war, there is no substitute for plenty of boots on the ground.

By the way... The USAF has good chow and better facilities because they're usually well behind the lines and have good supplies. Navy food is probably the best of all deployed forces and they have the most creative cooks, IMHO.
 
+1 on the Zoomie chow and their overall standards of living.
When I was in Korea, we took every opportunity possible to run up to Osan AB for lunch on our training days.:D

One side of the dining facility had TVs facing just about every direction tuned in to AFKN and usually running Headline News. The other side had music. Both sides had tables with linen table cloths and big old swivel chairs that you sank up to your armpits in when you sat down. We felt underdressed and low class when we went in there in our BDUs and should at least be wearing Class "Bs". The mess sergeant? Cookie whites and a chef's hat. The only thing comparable to an Army mess hall was you still had to move through a line to get your food. :eek:

The Zoomies have needed to integrate ground combat training in their mission for a long time. Someone has to defend the air base from attack. Airplanes are pretty much useless in that role and Army or Marine infantry aren't always going to be available.
 
Reread The Story Link

The article clearly states that the training will be used to clear villages. That is not the same as guarding bases or supply lines.

Do some of you still think everything is going well over there?

I guess the airmen are smarter then members of the other services. In ten they days will become warriors. How long does take the Army or the Marines to turn a raw recruit into a fighting machine?
 
"He was deluded to believe in war on the cheap with a volunteer army made of the poor and lower social classes."

That concept seemed to work in Gulf War I.

Or did I miss something and that military was made up of all rich kids from the Hamptons and Knob Hill?



My current job is working on a project that develops software for the Air Force. Interestingly enough, we have a BUNCH of former Marines (enlisted and officers) on the project along with a bunch of former Air Force E & Os.

It's interesting to listen to them compare notes on the differences in service life.
 
There have always been a small number of Air Force guys doing this kind of job. Mostly Pararescue types, but I knew one guy in the first Gulf war that actually went to Ranger school (and passed!), he had a job that was pretty far forward. This program is something different though, I first heard about it a few months ago when Air Force generals were complaining that the Air Force was spending too much money augmenting the Army mission and might not have enough left for Air Force requirements. Apparently this program is gonna keep going though, and maybe even expand.
And about the chow halls, you can't say the Air Force is always best. The first time I went to the desert the Air Force guys all wanted to go to the Marine mess tent cause they had real eggs! But you're right about the difference in living conditions, it reminds me of a cartoon going around back then. There were four pictures, the first one was an Army guy digging a foxhole in the sand saying "This sucks!" Next was a Marine in his own foxhole saying "I love the way this sucks!" Then a picture of a Navy guy on deck looking through binoculars at the shore saying "Hey it looks like it sucks over there." Last picture was an Air Force guy sitting in a recliner watching TV and saying "What, no remote?? This sucks!"
 
That concept seemed to work in Gulf War I.

Or did I miss something and that military was made up of all rich kids from the Hamptons and Knob Hill?
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Well, in Gulf War I we went in, kicked butt, took names, then went home. We didn't have kids sitting around for year-on/year-off bomb-dodging detail indefinitely. Little different. Makes people worry about such things less.

Also, while I think the characterization of the lower enlisted ranks as being full of poor/minority kids who were practically drafted socioeconomically is just a wee bit off, I think there is some kernel of truth to it. No, it's not as though we're taking 100,000 poor kids and shipping them off to Iraq. But anybody who claims the enlisted ranks specifically aren't "filled out" by people who aren't really all that excited about serving/fighting and are instead taking what was one of the few viable options available to them to avoid abject poverty and a likely prison sentence/drug addiction....well, they've never spent time in the Army.

Put another way, while the bulk of soldiers serving in Iraq aren't "forced" into it by any socioeconomic "draft," the Army would have a hard time maintaining the troop strength for current deployments without that limited portion that is.


Of course, I personally find that whole issue less interesting than the heavily increased optempo faced by reservists/Guardsmen, in what for many pre-9/11 or even pre-Iraq enlistees is a dramatic change in the expected duties. I'm not saying that reservists should not expect deployments (they absolutely should, and have for years) but seriously, reservists should not be spending 3 years out of 6 on involuntary activations...and if the do they certainly should not be receiving less in benefits than active-duty soldiers who complete enlistments of merely 2 or 3 years.
 
"The article clearly states that the training will be used to clear villages. That is not the same as guarding bases or supply lines.

I guess the airmen are smarter then members of the other services. In ten they days will become warriors. How long does take the Army or the Marines to turn a raw recruit into a fighting machine?"
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Like I said though what you get trained for and what you acutally do, are sometimes two different things.

Overall I would say most Airmen are smarter than Marines or Soldiers, heck they, as a whole have to keep those birds flying. (and they joined the AF).

As for becoming Warriors well that is a whole differnt thing. Being a Warrior is a mindset, and it takes longer than ten days to develop a Warrior mentallity. I am glad they are getting the training, but the Soldiers and Marines have something the AF will probably never develop, and certianly not in ten days, a hardcore, tough proffesional Non Comminsioned Officer Corp that has been training for dirty, nasty, house to house, in your face fighting for the last two hundred years or so. There is all kinds of neat, and developed tricks and techniques that go with clearing an urban enviroment that are passed down from Sgt to Sgt over the years and it is not in any manual or training, just stuff picked up.

I hope the AF guys, if they acutally do the mission, are being lead by the Army and Marines.
 
By the way what is wrong with having people from the lower socioeconomic class join the military in porptionally larger numbers, if it is a way to get ahead. (Not that it is totally true as reflected by the numbers)

Do you remember the old John Wayne movies like, "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (I think that is the name) how the Sgts were made up of Irish guys, well that may have been Hollywood, but it was somewhat true, becasuse the poor immigrant Irish gravitated towards the military. (Gary Owen ring a bell)

Besides you don't get the true dirt bags, the ones that are not smart enough to see a way out through the military. No, those guys are already incarcerated and doing life a little bit at a time.

You don't get the extremelly stupid, they won't pass muster.
 
I don't know that we can ever get a majority of the population to agree to another draft for any war now.
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I believe we need a draft however do not think for a moment that the American voter needs to agree for a draft to happen. Our forces are too small and they need to remain separate branches if we are to remain a super power.If our society continues as it is the draft will return simply because no one will volunteer we are slowly moving in that direction.
 
By the way what is wrong with having people from the lower socioeconomic class join the military in porptionally larger numbers, if it is a way to get ahead. (Not that it is totally true as reflected by the numbers)
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Nothing, as long as we're willing to admit that such people (who, again, are not the bulk of the Army, but are absolutely essential to it) didn't necessarily volunteer to go fight and die so much as they volunteered to not live a dead-end life in the ghetto...and fighting and dying is simply what we as a society were pretty much requiring of them to get that done.
 
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