A note from a recently retired Air Force reader:
Believe it or not, the recent SNAFU with the Air Force’s strategic assets can be traced directly back to Barack Obama’s military advisor General Merrill McPeak. The changes that McPeak set in motion 15 years ago eventually came back to bite the USAF in the a$$. I was a young LT, a wrench-turner, assigned to the 351st Strategic Missile Wing when McPeak was Chief of Staff. In addition to his most notable legacy –the infamous uniform changes that were immediately repealed when he retired– McPeak was the man who dissolved Strategic Air Command. We were reassigned to 8th Air Force under his new Air Combat Command, and with the abolishment of SAC went many of the long standing regulations that guided the control and transport of nuclear weapons. It was only a matter of time before the Air Force suffered an embarassing nuclear incident. Furthermore, McPeak stovepiped the promotion line so that fighter pilots were funneled up the ranks above all other [career fields]. Career nuclear weapons officers, once the men who ran the Air Force, now found little room for their expertise in the elite circles of Air Force command. I have heard General McPeak’s name floated as a possible candidate for SECDEF if Obama wins the election. May God have mercy on the US Armed Forces (not just the Air Force) if that’s the case. His tenure as Chief was nothing short of disastrous. Imagine the damage he could do at the helm of the ENTIRE military.
McPeak’s name is still a dirty word in many military circles. He was a deeply unpopular Chief of Staff (October 1990 – October 1994) –though he was, by all accounts, a phenomenal fighter pilot and a real hero of the Vietnam War. It’s important to note that the sweeping changes that Secretary Gates made last week directly contradicted the McPeak philosophies on how the broad sword of air power should be wielded. The Gates purge was very new-war, very 21st century. McPeak’s changes, though originally configured for the Cold War, never really had a place in any century.
