Letters

Well-Oiled Machine

What a great story you had on “Inside the CAOC” [March/April, p. 29]. As a now-retired Airman from the 122nd Fighter Wing, Indiana Air National Guard, Baer Field, Ind., the article brought back many good memories. I spent 30 days there at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in late 1998. 

As I recall there were nine of us young Airmen. Some were also from our sister unit down at Terre Haute, Ind.—the 181st Fighter Wing. The large part of our group were auto mechanics from both units. Our first job was to get fire trucks cleaned up and working again so Al Udeid had proper fire protection when runways opened. 

Their runways were still being built, and it was a very bare base in November 1998. As there were no quarters on the base, we were put up in one of the two Sheraton Hotels in Downtown Doha, the capital city.

I was the supply guy who kept the parts coming in from outside sources. Some came in from or through Doha International Airport, and we had a local supplier who ran an auto parts business. He got us tools from the U.K. and Pirelli Tires from Italy. Besides those fire trucks, there were approximately 400 wheeled vehicles stored at Al Udeid at the conclusion of the Gulf War with Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s. Our fellows were the first men to work in the brand-new Motor Pool building. It was big and beautiful.

I was a traditional with the Air Guard, or a “weekender.” Back home my full-time job was with the Indiana-Michigan Power Co., in Fort Wayne. What an experience to be in a foreign culture for the 30 days! I learned a lot. Memories I will never forget.

MSgt. Tim B. Donovan,
USAF (Ret.)
Fort Wayne, Ind.

Small Field of View

My thanks to letter writer Dennis Trynosky [“Honored to Serve,” May/June p. 6], who brought to my attention an article on medical disqualifications that I’d previously overlooked. 

The article brought to mind a number of DQ experiences that I’d been aware of during my time in the Air Force family.  

The first was as an enlisted squadron training administrator assigned to an F-4 aircraft generation squadron with a large number of trainees to monitor. A young female Airman apprentice bomb loader had finished all her upgrade training course work on time and performed her daily duties on the flight line for months.  Fortunately/unfortunately, depending on your persuasion, to complete her training and be fully qualified she had to demonstrate she could lift a weight (let’s say 50 pounds) to a certain level above the ground. 

For whatever reason, she was unable to perform the task and was later cross-trained into an office job where she excelled. 

While working on a Majcom’s air traffic control (ATC) staff we received a medical waiver package on an air traffic control officer for review. The officer had been determined to be color blind, a medical disqualifier for ATC.  

The case was unique in that the officer was already fully qualified and serving in the career field before the issue came to light. As the functional, we recommended approval of his “common sense” waiver and sent it along to the command flight surgeon.
The waiver was subsequently denied and the officer was cross-trained. He thrived in his new career field, and I believe later retired a colonel.  

After retirement I became aware of a situation involving a first-term male six-year enlistee in the ATC career field. The Airman completed tech school, all the required on-the-job training at his next base, and was certified as a controller. 
Time passed, the controller performed satisfactorily day-to-day in his ATC facility and was assigned to a mobility slot. Then “he” decided to transition to “she,” and was disqualified from ATC by the flight surgeon because of the medications taken during transition. 

The Airman ended up performing non-ATC duties around the squadron and another controller took the deployment slot.

Medical disqualifications can be a two-edged sword that cuts both ways, depending on the inclination of the candidate.   

One renowned American was scorned by politicians and media alike when it came to light that bone spurs had kept him out of military service after college in the late 1960s. With that in mind, I shudder to think what politicians could do to correct this problem.

Col. Bill Malec,
USAF (Ret.)
O’Fallon, Ill.

Air Force Standards 2.0

When the March/April edition of Air & Space Forces Magazine arrived, I did my usual thing. I grabbed a big cup of freshly made coffee, curled up in my favorite chair and read it. I looked forward to the March/April edition because I knew there would be plenty of letters discussing Airman Hayden Perez’s letter, “Compromising Standards” [January/February, p. 5]. I wasn’t disappointed. 

In the ’70s I saw firsthand the constant battle among Airmen trying to maintain civilian grooming standards while they were in uniform on Active duty. 

The use of “Dippity-Do” and other hair styling products of the day were the way to hide the length of your hair—but wasn’t foolproof. I thought it humorous most of the time, and I was more focused on learning my Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) and staying out of trouble. 

One of the things I did notice was the inconsistent enforcement of the standards that led to conflicts among supervisors, managers, and senior commanders. Usually this was settled pretty quickly with decisive decision-making and the power of the pen in the forms of Letters of Counseling, Letters of Reprimand, fines and, for repeat offenders, a discharge from Active service. 

The Air Force is a Profession of Arms, not a job, and the focus of any Airman must be to hone his/her skills so they are the best in their AFSC so they can fight and win when called upon. Airmen must also maintain their image as an ambassador for the military to the people of our country who expect the best of them in times of war and peace, to include projecting the image of a clean-cut warrior. 

Back in those days, I would ask my peers why they were so intent on looking like their civilian counterparts and by and large it was so they would fit in with the locals. 

My next question was why were you in the Air Force if you wanted to be/look like a civilian. The responses usually revolved around money, GI benefits, etc., but rarely was there any mention of the Air Force mission, goals, requirements, and serving their country. There is no difference between then and now.

If you want to be a civilian, stay in the civilian community, and if you want to be part of the finest Air Force in the world, embrace the program and its requirements and move on. Maj. Ken Stallings’ comments were spot on regarding why we have grooming standards: the requirements of combat, chem. gear, hygiene in the field, and the potential for Airmen who can’t/won’t embrace the established standards as candidates for civilian employment.

I read Col. Don Parden’s three anecdotes and chuckled with each one and was a little angry too. In each of those cases the issues should have been addressed by leadership, either privately or in general during appropriate forums, i.e., commander’s call. 

I had the occasion to have a commander call me into his office to spread the word about customs and courtesies when he was around. He told me that when he was driving in his staff car people didn’t salute, when he walked into a squadron ready room no one called the place to attention, and finally he said folks were getting a little scruffy. I asked him why he didn’t stop and address these issues when they happened. He said that wasn’t his style.

 I didn’t know that being a commander was a style. You lead from the top-down. I did what a good SNCO does. I had a roll call for all three shifts in my squadron and reminded them about their responsibilities and encouraged them not to be one of the Airmen this commander was talking about. I also briefed the chiefs group about my meeting, and the word hit the streets about consequences for not following customs and courtesies. 

The commander saw me a couple of weeks later and thanked me for turning things around. I reminded him that as the wing king he could have fixed all of this by hammering these individuals and their commanders when the issues happened and let the rumor mill take care of the rest.

I hope Airman Perez will read the responses to his letter in your magazine and understand that hair, sideburns, and earrings won’t protect you in combat or win wars. It will be your technical skills, tenacity, dedication, and attention to customs and courtesies that will carry the day. If not, I hope he will be the best at his job until it comes time for him to separate, then he can return to civilian status and wear whatever he wants to. 

 If you want to attract more qualified people, make the changes that will make the Air Force more attractive. Increase the pay, benefits, and incentives to get the right people to investigate the Air Force as a career. Make sure the housing they live in is well taken care of so they don’t have to worry about their families when deployed and make sure that the future platforms and equipment they are given are safe and fully operational before they are fielded. 

Hopefully Air Force/civilian leadership at all levels will quit letting the tail wag the dog and implement policies that don’t create confusion or cater to a culture that doesn’t belong in uniform and make the necessary investments to attract highly skilled and patriotic individuals who want to serve their country.

CMSgt. John P. Fedarko,
USAF (Ret.)
Xenia, Ohio

Peace Was Our Profession

I have to say I was gratified to see a salute, ever how brief, to the Strategic Air Command [“World: Leaders Roll Out Big Changes for Air Force & Space Force,” March/April 2024, p. 15]. As one who spent four years helping to get the B-47s in the air as a ground maintainer; and four more after re-enlistment and re-training helping to get the B-52s back on the ground as an air traffic control radar technician, I remember the alerts and the 24- to 36-hour shifts. 

People today probably don’t realize that in those days we had bases all over the states and also worldwide with planes in the air 365/24/7, and we kept a lid on the evil empire. That’s peace! And it was our profession!

Peter Hansen
Torrance, Calif.

Home Is …

When you grow up in the Air Force you know your whole life that your idea of “home” is different than everyone else’s. While growing up we know that we will never have a childhood house, or elementary school teachers who will one day come to our graduation parties and our weddings. 

So when we hear the dreaded question, “Where are you from?” we understand that there’s a language barrier and that their real question is, “Where’s home?”

So, we give our knee-jerk answers that we’re “kinda from everywhere kinda from nowhere,” or we “grew up in the Air Force,” or maybe that we’re not from anywhere. But secretly we all know that that’s not true. 

Every Air Force brat silently knows that we do come from somewhere. We have a home. When we feel our bones rattle from an F-15 flying overhead, we feel as if we had walked out of our childhood home and heard the familiar song of the birds we’d woken up to hearing our whole lives.

No matter the country we live in, when we get to base it feels like extended family is there to welcome us home. But there’s a language barrier. So we say we’re not from anywhere, and contently go back home to our extended families and our songbirds.

Then we leave home. And we feel like we empathize with every graduating high school student who leaves home. We feel a love and pride for how we grew up and the home we came from. We grow and learn and live. We build our own lives and our own families with spouses on the other side of the language barrier. 

Somewhere along the way we forget what home feels like. 

But we’ll be reminded. Sooner or later, we’ll all hear our songbirds fly overhead and they’ll make us remember. We’ll feel the engines rattle our hearts—tugging—as if pulling us to follow them home. And then, never fully understanding until that very moment, we’ll all stand with the same realization. … We can’t go home.

Elizabeth Cruz
Richland Hills, Texas

History Lessons

Thank you for the very honest and frank editorial [“A Lesson Learned,” p. 2] you presented in the 2024 Almanac issue.

You laid out a historical perspective of the fabric of our nation. From the failure in Vietnam, to the very successful Powell Doctrine and victory in Kuwait, to the “deer in the headlights” debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, to where we are today.

With a feckless and impotent approach in Ukraine, and the devastating turn of events between a morally upstanding Israel facing evil victory by Hamas, a nation that has lost its moral compass will wind up in the dustbin of history. 

Welcome to the USA of 2024, unless we show the intestinal fortitude needed to turn this country around.

Col. John R. Strifert,
USAF (Ret.)
Exeter, N.H.

Second Thoughts

This particular issue about retiring 32 older F-22s which are deemed not combat ready has been eating at me since I first heard of it about a year ago [“World: Our Incredible, Shrinking Air Force,” May/June 2024, p. 14].

My question is, who is responsible for letting these valuable national assets get to this point? As it is they were already a low-density asset thanks to Bob Gates. I mean the Thunderbirds’ F-16s are considered combat-capable and can be readied in a matter of hours for combat. 

Why wasn’t the entire F-22 fleet maintained combat ready? Either someone is playing “chicken” or the Air Force is like a spoiled child with an old car passed down from his parents and is letting these F-22s rot until he gets the latest and greatest on the street. This is ludicrous!

SMSgt. Robert Mienscow Jr.,
USAF (Ret.)
Woodstock, Ga.

Educate, Develop, Train

This letter is submitted solely for the entertainment of the AFA audience.  It is in reference to the March/April 2024 “Editorial: Change and Shortchanged” [p.2].

I must confess to a hardy chuckle when I read about the newly named Airman Development Command.  I was assigned to HQ Air Training Command when it was dubbed Air Education and Training Command. We all just rolled our eyes and kept going without much notice.

Airman Development Command must have been developed by some overpriced consultant or a crafty staff officer.  Surely, the stars at the head of the table when this one was approved were asleep.

Operational and organizational changes are essential in the very changing threat environment. Maintaining the history of the ever-evolving Air Force is also very important. The tag Airman Development Command does not seem to fit or enhance either of these categories. 

It does appear to create a great deal of work and expense for the sign installers throughout the command.  It also seems to continue the lack of acknowledgement of the ever-growing female representation within the command.

Col. Frank Arnemann,  
USAF (Ret.)
Metairie, La.

Loyal Reader

 I joined the Air Force in 1961 and right away found out that the AFA magazine was a great publication.
I became a lifetime member in the ’80s (I think). Then, I retired in 1989.
Your magazine has been the source of a great many hours of pleasure—keeping up with all that is going on.
Keep up the great work. 

CMSgt.  Jim Lavender,
USAF (Ret.) 
Gainesville, Ga