Back in the days of old, USAF fighter jocks served in a support capacity. Their primary mission was to keep the bad guys off our B-52 bombers and away from our nine ICBM fields. Vietnam changed all that. After the bomber community took horrendous losses during Operations Linebacker I & II and some heroic flying from the fast-movers, the fighter community rose to dominate the Air Force’s command ranks. They had a good run of things, too. Gulf War I was their crowning achievement: a 30 day air war that enabled ground forces to shatter the Iraqi army (then the fourth largest in the world) in 100 hours. Now, in what seems like a logical progression, the fighter pilots are handing off command of the Air Force to a career special forces and tactical airlift pilot. General Norman Schwartz
Interesting choice. Both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the SECDEF said that the top-level purging was due to a cavalier attitude towards our nuclear assets. But, if that were the case, wouldn’t a career missileer or bomber pilots with nuclear delivery qualifications have been the obvious choice for chief? It’s possible that the Donald Report was nothing more than convenient political top cover for Gates to mold the USAF into a more agile service, dedicated to better prosecuting the small war and low-intensity conflict paradigm. If so, the nomination of General Schwartz makes an awful lot of sense.
