It has finally arrived.  Effective today, I have been permanently promoted to “civilian”.  We don’t often put it that way, but it is the constitutionally correct description of what I am today.  As a result, I now have constitutional rights which I abrogated on 7 May 1978, and I intend on exercising them, especially the most important, starting today!

It’s not really accurate to say I left the air Force today because, in fact, my air force left me a long time ago.  It wasn’t a sudden thing, like being thrown from a moving truck, but a slow insidious almost methodical breakup.  Like buying a new car and as the years go by, and the rattles start, and the suspension begins to creak, and the radio cuts out, eventually you realize it’s not that fun to drive it any more.

No organization is perfect, but when I went on active duty, I felt like I was a part of something so much bigger than I could comprehend. It had a clear mission, an obvious mission and, at least from my perspective at the bottom, leadership with direction.  Maybe I’ve just been in too long, but I’ve seen the air force take on a personality more like an inside the beltway politician than an organization sworn to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States”.  For example, this years’ FSA (Force Structure Announcement).  You didn’t have to be a genius to see that the only decision-making filter used was “What can we do to circumvent congress?”  You can have as many folks sign non-disclosure agreements as you want, but the truth always gets outs.  Not using any sort of cost benefit analysis to make informed decisions was the first mistake, but then to continue to stonewall the public by not responding to FOIA requests and giving inaccurate data to congressmen and staffers moves it into Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals” territory.  Just repeat the lies often enough and they will become the truth.

It is the responsibility of the military to rise above the political fray and tell the truth.  If we’re asked to find ways to cut costs and make us more efficient, integrity demands that we set aside parochial arguments and execute our oath to “well and faithfully discharge the duties” of the office to which we have been appointed.  And that’s just the beginning.

Political correctness has infected the air force.  We are not airmen and airwomen, we are airmen.  Let’s stop driving wedges between people by feeling the need to he/she, him/her everything the we put in print.  Grow up, get over it.  We need to be blind to gender, race, religion, shoe size, and whatever else the left comes up with to Balkanize us.  We can’t afford to waste the time and manpower.  We need everyone who is willing to commit themselves to defending this country and we need to put to good use all of their talents.  My first assignment was in SAC (Strategic Air Command) flying the venerable B-52 and I eventually was in TAC, MAC, AMC, ACC, and AFRC.  But looking back, SAC was the command where I learned how to take care of families.  Every commander I had back then knew that the mission was tough and that families were an integral part of making it work.  There was no formal organization to send families to Disney world, but commanders were, well, commanders.  When you deployed, someone from the squadron would just show up at your house to mow the lawn, or shovel the snow because they knew your wife was home with a new baby or just had surgery.  It’s what commanders did and taught us to do.  Programs, especially government programs, can’t and shouldn’t replace people who really care.  I could go on, and in the future I will, but I want to close with something that happened yesterday as we all waited for Frankenstorm to smash the east coast.

We got a call from TACC with an interesting request.  They asked if they could start sending C-130s and C-17s to The 911th to begin a 24 hour airlift staging operation to support the impending relief efforts on the east coast.  The answer was, of course, yes and we would be able to begin receiving aircraft immediately.  Then we asked the question to which we already knew the answer: “Why did you pick Pittsburgh?”.  They answered: “We were sitting around trying to figure out what would be a strategic location within easy reach of the east coast with access to recovery assets, open 24 hours, and near other transportation hubs and Pittsburgh and the 911th was the obvious choice”  Shazzam!  A room full of Majors and LtCols took five minutes to figure out what a Pentagon full of generals couldn’t.

To Tina, Aazita, Diane, and Tracey;

I miss you all already!