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Letters

Defending the brass

I rarely agree with Robert F. Dorr’s opinion pieces but two of his assertions in “Leaders fail to fight for weapons money” [Opening Shots, May 25] are so absurd they need to be addressed.

First, Mr. Dorr suggests that “a lot of air power [was] left out of” our budget request even though the Air Force is slated to receive $160.5 billion (roughly the size of the entire economy of Finland or South Africa) of the Defense Department’s budget of $663.8 billion (the economies of Mexico or South Korea). Considering the U.S. outspends all its direct military competitors combined, and with the current degraded state of Army and Marine Corps ground combat systems after seven years of deployment and combat, either asking taxpayers to increase the overall defense budget or taking more from our sister services in a bureaucratic battle is not in the long-term interests of our country.

Second, Mr. Dorr states that “only long-range, land-based air power ... can achieve victory” while stating “boots on the ground can’t win wars.” Without boots on the ground Saddam Hussein is still in power. Without more boots on the ground we will probably lose in Afghanistan. Of course, air power is a critical component of our joint war-fighting capability but to suggest elevating it to a “commanding presence” instead of being “part of the team” is both simplistic and counterproductive to our efforts to win today’s wars and prepare for tomorrow’s.

-- Lt. Col. Todd R. Laughman, Algonquin, Ill.

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I am disappointed with the vitriolic spewing from Robert F. Dorr’s column on about a monthly basis. I usually chalk it up to an old-timer offering tidbits of sage wisdom mired in chronic complaining. However, his May 11 column [“Donley, Schwartz should step up,” Opening Shots] warrants a response.

He suggests that the new secretary of the Air Force and chief of staff should resign for not defending the F-22 more. I don’t remember Mr. Dorr suggesting the same for former Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and former Secretary Michael Wynne when they both signed a statement saying that the F-22 program of record was 183.

Mr. Dorr laments the “gutting” of the Air Force budget by less than 1 percent by even the most basic calculation — instead of writing more columns complaining about the fleecing of the Air Force by its largest contractors.

He also cites a member of the Air Force who calls the current leaders of the Air Force “careerist pygmies,” but this current chief of staff is on record chastising retired Air Force leaders in industry for negatively impacting the tanker fiasco under the previous leaders’ watch. It doesn’t look like he is a careerist to me.

Rather than criticize Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz regarding their F-22 op-ed, maybe Dorr should take some of its advice. It is time to move on.

-- Former Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Harding, Arlington, Va.

Its own worst enemy

While I have little patience with the petulant former Marine who has suggested that the Air Force is a redundant branch of the military, the Air Force does little for its image as an equal partner in the war on terrorism, with its nonsensical focus on uniform changes.

Yes, physical training standards should be addressed and a new regimen put in place in order to ensure that airmen can respond to whatever dynamic situation they might encounter.

Yes, have the secretary and the chief of staff fight for whatever systems are necessary to support the mission and the people who carry them out. Yes, Veterans Affairs education benefits and medical care are important.

But uniform discussions are a petty and distracting waste of time.

-- Former Sgt. Dr. Philip Cate Huckins, Henniker, N.H.

Decal consistency

I agree with the writer of “Bring back decals” in the April 27 issue of Air Force Times. I applaud the money-saving initiative of discontinuing the decals, but when I removed them from my car, I felt I’d lost a bit of my identity, especially as a retiree. It’s interesting to see how so many cars in my local area still have cracked and weathered decals on the windshields because I’m sure the owners feel the same way. They don’t want to remove them.

I understand the security issue, as well, but so many of us were proud of our registered car decals and the strip underneath that identified which base we were from.

The financial and security impacts of the decals make sense, but the services need to put their heads together and determine whether decals are required or not, and make it standard across all Defense Department installations.

I usually don’t have a problem driving onto non-Air Force installations in northwest Florida, but when I tried to enter a Navy base in another state, the gate guards told me I needed a visitor’s pass for my vehicle, despite my having a valid ID card. I mentioned the Air Force had done away with the decals, and the guard said she knew that was the case, but I still needed the visitor’s pass and that it had to be displayed while on their installation.

Personally, I’d like to see the Air Force bring our decals back, even if it means paying a small fee.

-- Maj. Nate Fite (ret.), Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

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As a follow-up to the letter regarding vehicle decals, I was recently denied access to Fort Knox, Ky. I explained to the guard that I had always registered my vehicles at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., but the current Air Force policy is to no longer issue decals. He understood this, but stated the new post commander had issued an edict that no vehicle was to be granted access to the post unless it had a valid Defense Department decal affixed. I could either get a Fort Knox decal or a visitor’s pass, both of which entailed over an hour wait.

It would seem to me that prior to making the change, the Air Force would have coordinated this action with the other services to ensure they would honor the “no decal” policy.

-- Master Sgt. Jim Treat, Santa Claus, Ind.