They're Kidding...Right?
Been a long while since I've posted anything. Guess that means I am less disgruntled recently. Does that make me more gruntled? Anyway... on to the business at hand.
We Aviators are pretty cool... Just ask one of us, we'll tell you. That being said, I am going to go out on a limb and say that I can speak for most of my aviation breathren by voicing a collective "What the...?" at the news that UAV operators will now be elligible to receive Distinguished Flying Crosses, Air Medals, and aviation qualification badges.
Granted, I will personally never likely wear a DFC or Air Medal. But I am pretty sure I earned the Aviator Qualification Badge on my chest. I cheated death daily for a year to earn that badge (ask my old instructor pilots, they will confirm that). Giving aviator qualification badges to someone who only risks impacting the earth if they trip out of the control van just makes no sense to me, and frankly, lessens the accomplishments of generations of aviators who have not only earned their wings, but the medals for valor that UAV pilots are now apparently entitled to.
I have a friend who refused a recommendation for an Air Medal while performing duties in the back of a UH-60 in the Balkans because he wouldn't be able to face his father, who earned his as a UH-1 pilot under fire over the mountains and rice paddies of Vietnam. Now people who never even break the bonds of gravity are eligible. The comparison almost seems like a joke.
Hat tip to RofaSix.
We Aviators are pretty cool... Just ask one of us, we'll tell you. That being said, I am going to go out on a limb and say that I can speak for most of my aviation breathren by voicing a collective "What the...?" at the news that UAV operators will now be elligible to receive Distinguished Flying Crosses, Air Medals, and aviation qualification badges.
Granted, I will personally never likely wear a DFC or Air Medal. But I am pretty sure I earned the Aviator Qualification Badge on my chest. I cheated death daily for a year to earn that badge (ask my old instructor pilots, they will confirm that). Giving aviator qualification badges to someone who only risks impacting the earth if they trip out of the control van just makes no sense to me, and frankly, lessens the accomplishments of generations of aviators who have not only earned their wings, but the medals for valor that UAV pilots are now apparently entitled to.
I have a friend who refused a recommendation for an Air Medal while performing duties in the back of a UH-60 in the Balkans because he wouldn't be able to face his father, who earned his as a UH-1 pilot under fire over the mountains and rice paddies of Vietnam. Now people who never even break the bonds of gravity are eligible. The comparison almost seems like a joke.
Hat tip to RofaSix.
Labels: Air Medal, Aviation, Distinguished Flying Cross, UAV
posted by LDM Grand Poobah at 4/12/2007 05:57:00 AM
9 Comments:
Can you get a Purple Heart for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
No, wait, as long as you wear Nomex, that shouldn't be a problem, right?
Hope this means you are going to post more regularly now that you are more gruntled. Your two readers would appreciate it!
P
Gruntled works.
I have never understood the physics that keep helicopters up and off the ground, never mind the mentality and intestinal fortitude of pilots who fly those things, but I have a healthy respect for them and what they do...with or without the stress of hostile fire.
But look at it this way: Distinguished Flying Cross could be the equivalent of their freestyle falling...a 9.0 from the judges, as it were.
*running for cover from everyone*
Simply.amazing.
JoA.
Okay, I've got a box full of AMs I don't have any further use for -- where do I send them to be re-awarded, Atari?
BTW, has the Army rewritten the definition of "valor"? If so, I have a couple of NDSMs I'd like to get upgraded to Silver Stars...
I left active duty as a CPT after Nixon pulled the plug in RVN, so I'm not sure whether my comments qualify for the rarified intellectual atmosphere of the Majordom board, but I'll take my chances.
I was honored to fly with the 229th Assault Helicoptet BN, 1st Cavalry Div in Viet Nam as a rated aviator. This whole topic of UAV guys sharing badges, medals, or insignia of any kind (beyond service branch) rankles me down to my toes. Even though I believe some moderate level of rationality has been brought to this award eligability issue since it was first announced, still I believe much more needs to be applied.
UAV is a technical specialty that deserves its own set of insignia and its own awards for excellence. I'd like to see an operator be recognized for pinging a safe house full of sleeping rag heads with a 250 lb surprise at 0300, or for mastering the art of hovering a drone over a windy mountain pass, catching an al-Qaeda gaggle moving into ambush positions that later become red mist. These are significant contributions to our effort to eradicate the scum from our planet. However, to borrow insignia and awards from generations who personally placed actual warm bodies on the line is beyond absurd.
Surely the same administrative structure that manages to award crews of C&C aircraft flying thousands of feet above the nearest projectile, the same awards given to those in cordite and shrapnel-filled cockpits, can manage to come up with specialty-specific A & D for the joy stick jocks.
Is that asking too frigging much of our admin legions inside the Pentagon?
Cav
The Air Medals were given out as follows:
1 for every 25 hours of ACTUAL combat (that means where people were trying to shoot you down) flying time
1 for every 50 hours of ACTUAL direct combat support (that means re-supply, ferrying ‘VIPs’, & logistics) flying time
I flew for 1148 hours for the time I was in Vietnam and receive an Air Medal with 35 Oak Leaf clusters; believe me when I say that I wasn’t sitting at some desk in an air conditioned container somewhere and called that flying in a war zone!
All the troops in my unit, 162nd AHC, that flew had the same type of flying experiences. They EARNED everything they were ever awarded!
OK, I had to fight my way to the edge of Baghdad with the first group in, yes shoot our way in, set up a hasty airfield off the side of the hasty FOB (think "wagons in a ring"), I stand on the side of the runway (while taking fire) launch a 3000+lbs aircraft in which I am in full physical control of by running it up to full power and guiding it straight at myself. Once I fly it up to pattern altitude and perform my in-flights I pass it of to the AVO who is controlling it in sticks mode (physically flying the plane) because the plane isn’t as responsive in auto, by the way that AVO is under fire in his GCS because he is right there on the front line with the ground unit so he can pass the information to the unit in action as fast as he is getting it, while communicating with the FAC and BN, BD, Div TOC’s.
This team locates dozens of targets and calls accurate fire on them for Divarty, M-1's, squirlybirds and fast burners. Helping clear the path safety for a division for 8 to 12 hours. Now the division has moved forward but guess who is left in the vacuum behind it, the launch and recovery team, we go out on the hasty field still under small arms fire stand on the edge of the runway and take physical control of the bird and fly that 3000 pound beast right at myself (yes total physical control of the craft) recover the aircraft despite the fact that one engine is out, one of the vertical stabilizers is out saving the govt a couple million dollars. Load it up and jump forward to the Div and do it all over again. Same situation, as we where amongst the first into Balad, through Fallujah and into Al Asad.
Do I deserve an AM, I don’t know, I didn’t get one, I don't really care, I didn’t do it for that. A DFC, no, never! What I can tell you is it sure felt good to have some grunt insist on shaking our hands telling us what we did made a difference and saved their butts a couple times, that was enough for me.
I physically fly an aircraft in the airspace, not point and click from the luxury of some room in Creech AFB like Air Force operators, but sticks and knobs standing on the runway while staring right at it, flying it at myself to land it (3000 pounds). I spent more than a year in school and in my case nearly 2000 hours of safely operating my craft in places like Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and patrolling the Mexican border. I am subject to all flight rules and then some! Yes I have to study the FAR’s, know airspace, mission management, operate FLIR, SLAR, SAR, TCAS, TPAS, GPS, IFF, VGU on board electro-surveillance systems, tactical relay systems, on board NBC detection sensors use VOR’s, I have to know the same things you by the seat of the pants guys do, flight physicals, bottle to throttle rules (I fly every day), everything is the same except one thing, I have to man the guard tower too!
As for my Air Crew Wings, I earned them wings! Just like every other Army Tactical UAV Operator.
Post a Comment
<< Home