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Letters

REVAMP TRAINING

With 30,000 troops en route to support Operation Enduring Freedom and thousands of troops leaving Iraq, it is clear that airmen will be hard at work in 2010. That’s especially true because Afghanistan is accessible primarily by aircraft.

Security Forces will need more training at the apprentice level — from experienced members — to ensure that both our garrison mission and expeditionary one remain intact.

Getting more civilian contractors and augmentees will not help. They are not held to the same standard, nor do they have the same expertise or get the same training as someone in the 3P0X 1career field.

During contingencies or exercises, contractors are on the clock and either need to go home or get paid overtime; augmentees have no idea what’s going on.

Defenders across the Air Force can carry on the legacy of securing bases, if we are given the tools for success.

Staff Sgt. Markeis McCray

Charleston, S.C.

TRUST GONE BAD

The article about the airman who died during the game of “Trust” depicts a tragedy on two fronts: The end of a promising career and the end of a life with a promising future [“Trust, gone in a heartbeat,” Dec. 28].

I was a cop in the Air Force. Most of the time I carried around live ammo, both loaded and unloaded, including private firearms. In my 10 years as active-duty and reservist, I did not know of an incident in which an airman was hurt or killed playing such a game.

I disagree that the death of Senior Airman Michael Garcia is linked to a so-called warrior ethos. Safety has always been key, so much so that we practiced with unloaded weapons. We were repeatedly told that it is the unloaded weapon that will kill you — that your firearm is only as empty or cleared as the last time you cleared it. Whether you have used your weapon one time or 100 times you always, always clear it.

This so-called Trust game needs to be stopped. Carrying live ammo into combat requires a high degree of trust that your battle buddy will be fighting and shooting at the enemy, not be behind closed doors putting a bullet into another airman, soldier or Marine.

Former Staff Sgt. Sheldon “Chip” Rice

Columbia,S.C.

PROTECT AIRMEN IDENTITIES

Criticizing Air National Guard efforts to keep MQ-9 Reaper crews anonymous, Robert F. Dorr wrote in his column, “No enemy of the U.S. has ever targeted a member of the armed forces by name” [“Troops can’t expect total privacy,” Jan. 4].

That depends on what Dorr means by “enemy of the U.S.” and “by name.”

Several U.S. military attaches have been killed because they were U.S. military attaches. Marine Lt. Col. Rich Higgins, serving as a U.N. observer was kidnapped, tortured and killed because he was an American serviceman. The captain of the Vincennes, which shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in July 1988, received FBI protection when he and his family returned to San Diego. A short time later, his wife narrowly escaped a pipe-bomb blast that destroyed her van on a San Diego street.

Offering the Korean War as example, Dorr criticized Mexican authorities for protecting the names and identities of special operations team members who participated in a recent drug takedown. He must have written his column before drug gangsters killed the family of a special operations man who died in the firefight and whose name was publicized.

Members of the armed forces do give up some of their security, but when they’re fighting their war from Syracuse, must they give up their families’ security as well?

Col. Michael Noone (ret.)

Warrenton, Va.

Editor’s note: Dorr’s column was written before the killings.