Apparently, I’m good at derailing threads. Again I poorly communicated my point via a personal attack, and that was wrong. I would happily buy flea or any who may not agree with me a beer. The US needs to be able to discuss differences without automatically assuming the other side is dumb or a Russian Plant.
The air force in the 40’s, 50s and 60s was run by men with vast combat experience. Somewhere in there the notion that academics can solve everything with missiles became prevalent. We saw how that worked out. The hit rate of the Aim-7 in Vietnam was in the single digit percentiles. How was McNamara’s F-111. There is an F in front of it because it was supposed to do air to air. To sum it up, common sense combat experience is extremely valuable and can’t be bought via a degree.
And no, I don’t need the standard O-6 speech of how would I fly my jet without AFE. Well, I’d probably inspect my own gear, but I sure as hell need MX and LRO. Finance questionable. Our recent awards ceremony only had one ops winner. We as a whole have lost sight in the value of guys hacking the mish. In my view it’s due to 60 years of domination.