Time article:
Helping the Air Force Win WWII
Time neglects to mention+ China is developing next generation fighters.
+ Last few weeks Russia has been more boisterous with the west.
+ The Air Force flies many other kinds of planes than fighters that are essential to national security.
+ The Air Force flies every single wounded or sick military or DOD person home for care.
+ Every single military member or DOD employee that deploys for the war on terror flied in an AF bird at some point.
+ Not to mention the AF moves supplies, and personnel all over the theater.
+ Not to mention the AF is responsible for rapid on call transport of national leaders and essential personnel.
+ Not to mention space command - our communications and eyes in the sky
+ Not to mention the state of art medical facilities we maintain in the theater of operations
Personally I'd prefer to fight the terrorist somewhere else so we have no more 9/11s and keep our military technologically and professionally superior so we don't have any more Dec 7ths either.
ps. I love the bit about dogfighting. Shows a total ignorance of how real combat tends to shake down. I guess they forgot the lessons of Vietnam where our pilots were taking a beating with stand off tactics until the AF returned to teaching them dog fighting skills. But it sounds like "stand off" or "stay out of it" might be the thinking cap this writer is using. Someone should tell the ostriches that you can hide your head in the sand but your hiney is still up in the air. I can imagine the next editorial will be directed toward law enforcement telling them to make do with 25 - 40 year old automobiles since there aren't really any bad guys out there any more (just take it easy on the curves and watch the acceleration.)
