Proposing a New Air Force Memorial

It's time to bring back the Army Air Corps. Less glory, but air support and transport are the main mission today.

Awww Johnny,

I'd feel bad for you if you hadn't purposely joined that fraternity. Look at it this way, you have a crap memorial, but you don't have to carry 120 lbs in 120 degrees while someone is shooting 120 mm mortars at you.

Cordially,

Uncle J

I wince at the mention of tops in blue. As a cadet I was forced to see them perform so the auditorium was not empty. I will never claim them. If anyone is mad at where money is going, they should be mad at that.

UUhhhhhh, wow, the whole band thingy, just wow. So John, how's that and the Memorial sittin' with you, honestly????

Actually, we had one of the Air Force bands come through my home town last summer. They stuck mainly to the good ol' traditional Soussa marches......they were quite good, the kids loved 'em. But no sparkly jazzy thingy goin' on (thank goodness)

Uncle Jimbo: "Awww Johnny, I'd feel bad for you if you hadn't purposely joined that fraternity. Look at it this way, you have a crap memorial, but you don't have to carry 120 lbs in 120 degrees while someone is shooting 120 mm mortars at you."

Jimbo, you have us there. I've only done a little grunt stuff, survival school and downed flier exercises, and it was fairly miserable. And I was only carrying a light backpack I made out of parachute gore, no 120 pounds. Maybe ten pounds, tops. So you have my complete respect just for sheer animal endurance down there on the ground.

But you know, Jimbo, none of us at 18 knew what the hell we were getting into. Sure, we all had some teenaged fantasy about what lay ahead but only specks of that fantasy matched the reality. I never thought my career in the glorious fighter jock world would include spending the weekend painting the squadron and then repainting it the next weekend for a visiting general who never showed up.

Nor did I think I would ever be really afraid in a jet like when we pitched down into the cloud deck for night bombing on a range in a narrow river valley. Or when the front seater pressed it too low on a strafing pass. Or when I looked off my wing on recovery from a dive bomb pass to see my bomb flying formation with me. From the time you get up at 4 AM until you walk out of the squadron at 5 PM, there is a tension due to the fear you will screw something up that will kill you. And it doesn't have to be something big, either.

Half a dozen of my friends got killed in tactical aircraft, most of them in training. That's a typical experience. So while we don't have to shoulder a pack and hump it across the hills, it's a pretty dangerous profession, flying tactical jets. It comes right behind lumberjack and fisherman in fatalities.

It would be nice if we could have a memorial that reflected some of that human element instead of this big aluminum potato peeler.

One usually builds a memorial to honor those who died in service to their country. Although the Air Force sustained considerable casualties in the Korean War and Vietnam, and a few in the decades after that, its losses have been miniscule in comparison to WWII - which doesn't lessen the honor of those serving in the USAF in the slightest.

Instead, the most appropriate memorial I can think of would depict B-17 or B-25 aircraft with its engines burning and crew bailing out - an uninjured crewman helping his striken fellow - in the wake of an attack upon Schweinfurt or Tokyo.

Not easy to visualize, right? But that's a problem for the artist, not us!

Solomon2

That's the ticket, an injured B-17 trying to land at an RAF field after a bombing run over Germany.......much more fitting, and warrior like....

I think right in the middle of that memorial above you should have another memorial of a formation (pick your favorite jet) peeling off in the missing man formation. I feel you should use the height of the memorial to draw the viewer in to see the smaller memorial that really transmits the message of service and sacrifice.

My idea of a memorial would be an equipment-laden pilot, one foot in the cockpit and the other on the ladder, his head turned skyward looking into the "wild blue yonder". Or maybe two pilots walking down the flightline, hands demonstrating another "there I was on his six" story.

As for the band, the Army has one too, although I've never seen them. I wonder what their patch looks like.

We all might laugh at them, but I liken them to male cheerleaders. Yeah, they get made fun of... but think of the, er... "fringe benefits".

Tops in Blue??? OMG!

Just visited that web site. Talk about instilling a warrior ethos!

You just wait, Noonan! This weekend you'll get no shortage of grief about Tops in Blue!

That's okay. I'm in the AF and mad at it all the tiime.
The memorial is majestic and grand and it sucks. It dehumanizes the efforts of all Airmen and ignores the human loss. It is just like the current policy of dumping/RIF'ing good Airmen in order to pay for the overpriced F/A/R/C/E-22.
Idiots.

Tops in Blue might be justified on the basis of boosting the morale of deployed troops, but for my part the money would be better served by having more professional cheerleaders on the circuit and leave the music to honest-b'gosh-bands.

I remember being under the belly of a Phantom covered in sweat, hydralic fluid and fuel and in 120 degree heat with jet engines running trying to crank 1200 rounds of 20mm into a stubborn gun pod,with the pilot asking "is it done yet!" thinking "God I'm glad Im not in the band, cause it's tough duty"!! lol!!

You know, when I first saw it, I thought it was a huge jesters hat. Yup, all of the rest are much cooler.

TrustButVerify,

Please do your research...Tops In Blue is also funded by non-appropriated funds. So thank AT&T and Coca Cola. And thanks...the airmen on tour, who consist of SF, Air Crew, Services...the list could go on...sure do appreciate the comparison to cheerleaders. Here's an idea...piss and whine about something else instead of the hard work that these Airmen go through to support YOU.

If you insist on putting your pack of clowns on display, do it without money that could be spent on maintaining my flight's equipment. I'd rather see that NAF money spent on more Xboxes for the ESVS tent, or a better selection of reading material at the library.

Honestly. Cheerleaders. That's where the bang/buck ratio gets sweet. Turnout at the TiB show for my last deployment was marginal; a troupe of cheerleaders would've played to a packed house. I'm not even going to pretend to be PC here- no deployed woman stays lonely except by choice, but there's always a howling majority of men who haven't seen a bare thigh in months.

You know I remember sweating my tail off underneath an F-15E model swapping that damned heat exchanger for the 4th time. What a pain. I too would like to see a B-17 memorial, or maybe something from Vietnam. But you know what, when I toured with Tops in Blue, at the end of the show we got to sing songs that gave rememberance to all those Great Airmen before us. I sure felt the best memorial I could be part of was helping other Airmen appreciate the hereos that laid the footsteps todays Air Force tries to follow.

And I never worked an 8th as hard in all those deployments than I did in TiB. And please get your facts straight. IT aint your AIR FORCE money, its sponsors.

Wow...
I have to admit...as a AF vet...I am ashamed of the pilots -like "chic[k]pilot- writing on this forum. You are a bad example for others to follow...if I knew you were flying me over to Balad or any other place, i would definitely call you out on your vociferous opinions. You folks are clueless to the nature of what it really means to be part of the AF team. You have no clue as to how what it takes to even keep you whiny girls qualified to fly planes. Out of all the folks on base, I have had pilots come in whining about finance, parachutes and harnesses, medical waivers, etc... All you guys do is whine about everything!! It's incredible you don't have your mommas come along with you to wipe your asses before and after flights. I am going to begin making it my mission to make your lives a living hell on base... Don't bring your whiny concerns to finance, medical, maintenance etc... I have found a new calling! Thanks so much for making it easier to just say "NO" to you whiny little bitches...

Also,
TIB is more than just a retention tool, it allows bases to practice team work at a very high level without the high cost. You have to understand that TIB is an immense undertaking at each base. Logistics coordination in of itself gives each base a taste of what it takes to work as a "whole" team to get the mission done. This allows bases to see their logistical weak spots without the cost of a real ops-tempo. Maybe there should be a more open forum for folks to see what it really takes to run a "low cost" high ops-tempo regimen such as TIB. You would be AMAZED at what individual bases would learn from the after-action reports.

Most people that walk away from a TIB show are amazed that the Air Force can even accomplish such a feat as this on such a shoe string budget and tight schedule...they would be MORE amazed if they knew the logistics behind it. Lets make it more visible folks, thats the only way to prove it's worth...of which I already know...but one that cynical f*&ks like you will never understand.

JuanRamos TIB92