An aside…

As I was reading about today’s Air Force resignations, I decided to see what else was in the “Paper Pushers and Powerpoint Rangers” section of Danger Room… (very amusing category, by the way… but of course I am a proud Excel Warrior, thank you very much…) In this post about the byzantine twistings of Pentagonese (an obscure offshoot of the original English, American dialect), they include a picture, courtesy of the Defense Acquisitions Agency.

The chart is intended to be indicative of the overabundance of acronyms, etc., that plague Pentagonese. However, as I looked at it… and looked closer at the enlarged version of it… I felt this sick sinking feeling in my stomach that I knew this chart. I had seen it before. I remember spending many, many horrible hours staring at something like this in order to see if I could figure it out…

And sure enough, a little more exploring, and I’d found it. Oh horrors, I remember the days of studying the acquisitions lifestyle! My career path is actually owned by the Acquisitions people and it’s more than likely I will encounter the horror more than once again in my career… (click to see it in its full glory, where you can click and highlight different sections of the chart)

Strange things are afoot at the Pentagon

Well, the news today was very interesting and quite surprising. One of the people I work with called out in our main cubicle farm that AF Secretary Wynne and AF Chief of Staff Moseley had both resigned today… There was much speculation (similar to what you see in this article) about why it had happened. This might not be the biggest news ever to most of you, but for someone who works in the AF, it is truly earth-shaking.

Whether or not the senior officials have any direct impact on your life in the service, they set the tone of the service as a whole. Each new Secretary (civilian leadership) or Chief of Staff (military leadership) shapes the new policies and requirements that in turn shape our lives. Most of ‘em come in with the intent to change something, and this resolve can be seen in the ever-metamorphosing Air Force uniform policies and fitness policies. I’m sure they also spend their time on more substantial things, but that’s definitely one of their main ways of affecting each AF member directly. (I’m sitting here hoping for a more realistic–and fair–PT standard, and for some serious reconsideration of the PT uniform. We’ll see if it happens.)

There seems to be some serious disagreement between top-level government officials and the Air Force about the role of our service. The outsider argument is that we haven’t faced a serious air threat in decades, and our current risk assessments indicate that we’re not terribly likely to encounter–in a war in the near future, at least–any rivals with whom we’d fight an air war beyond a week or two. The Air Force perspective is that we’re a victim to our own success; that the US military is so used to having air dominance that it’s just considered a given, and that were the nation to reduce AF capabilities (and funding), we’d eventually encounter an enemy that could successfully engage us. And how would the ground troops like it, once they’re being shot at from the sky and watched from enemy UAVs?

I can see the merits to both arguments, and I’ve swayed back and forth in my personal opinion. I guess that when it comes down to it, we (the Air Force) need to recognize the needs of the greater military and be willing to play ball, without completely relinquishing our unique perspective. Really, an air war requires a completely different sort of thinking than a ground war, and we need to continue to have that capability for the nation as a whole. As a strategic deterrent, if nothing else.

And further than that I shall not pontificate… because to weigh in publicly with one’s personal opinion about senior officers and the people who hire and fire them is a very dicey proposition! Besides, I know I don’t see the whole picture.