Sunday, March 19, 2017

The mission of any Air Force is to put ordinance on targer...

This used to be on the cover of the aircraft log book (AF Form 781) at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.  I imagine it was well circulated among Strategic Air Command.

The mission of any Air Force is to put ordinance on target.  Everything else such as Shoe Clerking, Trash Hauling, Passing Gas, and Air-To-Air, are simply in support of this mission.

You win a war by killing the enemy on the ground by the thousands, not one at a time from 20,000 feet.

In wartime, our POWs are not released because the enemy sent representatives to sit smugly at “peace talks.”  They are not released because some famous movie actress  betrayed her countrymen-at-arms, and they are not released because the enemy lost five aircraft to certain individuals who became aces.  They are released because the brave men took their bombers downtown and spoke with the enemy personally, in the only language the enemy understands; iron bombs failing on its head.

You can shoot down all the MIGs you want, but when you return to find a Russian Tank Commander sitting in your snack bar, Jack you’ve lost the war.

These lessons have been forged in blood and steal, by all those bomber pilots who have gone before you, and flew back in a time when men where men and women were sex objects, and the rest of the world knew not to fool with the USA or we would nuke ‘em off the map; back when SAC patches were twice the size of of every other commands; back when bomber jets were built to be cart lightin’, water drinkin’, and sturdy, and only quiche-eating airline pukes flew fans.  Times change, technology changes, but the man in the cockpit must remain the same brave warrior every age has counted on in times of peril.

Finally, real men fly bombers because the understand the fundamental law of wartime negotiations. You negotiate with the enemy with your knee in his chest and your knife at his throat.