US Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) wrote a letter to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus questioning why no US Marine has been awarded for their actions in Libya — despite the very public search and rescue of a downed F-15E Strike Eagle crew.
“It has come to my attention that no awards or recognition have been approved for Marine aviators who flew combat missions over Libya,” Hunter wrote in a recent letter to Mabus. Read more
Jason Torpy of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers picked up last month’s post on Tebowing, even plagiarizing text from ChristianFighterPilot.com in the process. He reached a different conclusion, however:
Tebowing with Afghan kids is clearly an evangelical activity that must be pulled from the site with reprimands for the troop involved. The NFL game is misappropriation of government resources — and any Marine will tell you his body is a government resource.
First of all, Tebowing.com a private website, so there is no governmental Read more
The official USAFA Twitter feed was alerted to the presence of US Air Force Academy cadets from CS-38 parodying cadet life the song “Sexy and I Know It” on YouTube. Their response was fairly strongly worded:
We’ve seen it, and we’ve notified their commanders. Their conduct is unbecoming of future Air Force officers.
If Public Affairs was reporting the official position that their “conduct is unbecoming,” that’s one thing. But their statement that they’d only then notified their commanders indicated it was a personal judgment, not an official position. Other surprised Read more
A New York Times article on recent mishaps posits that instinctive reactions to pending emergencies may actually make the problem worse. After noting the memorable feeling of stalling an aircraft:
What is harder to remember, in the heat of the moment, is the proper way to regain control of the aircraft…
“You have to overcome what your instinct tells you to do,” said Mr. [Jean-Pierre] Otelli, whose book “Pilot Errors, Volume 5” was the first to publish the unedited transcript of the Flight 447 cockpit voice recordings.
For the hundreds of pilots Read more
The Air Force Times reports 12 California National Guard fighter pilots are “being disciplined” for taking improper pay. As noted last year, they were investigated for spending alert time at home and getting more than a day’s pay for a day’s work.
None were charged criminally:
Keegan said six officers received letters of reprimand and one of those was removed from the Guard.
None was charged Read more
It has long been considered a wound so severe it’s often the first question troops ask after they’ve been hit. Now the Veterans’ Administration is recognizing the value of that most valued of body parts (at least to the male psyche): Read more
The widow of US Air Force Capt Eric Ziegler, killed in June in a crash due to G-LOC, has demonstrated a calm reliance on her faith. When asked about knowing the circumstances of her husband’s death, Sarah Ziegler said she found them “kind of irrelevant.”
“I’ve always believed, and still do, that everything happens for a reason and a purpose, and so I didn’t need a source or object to blame or anything like that,” she said.
While there is still grief, faith can help people deal with such loss. Why? Knowing there is an ultimate purpose, and the grief is temporary. Sarah understands the fact that she and her husband had — and still have — a platform for Christ: Read more
Fresh off accusations the US military forces its young, impressionable troops to pray in formation, an entire formation of US Marines did so in front of nearly 75,000 football fans.
Marines perform their version of ‘Tebowing’ before the Broncos-Jets game on Nov. 17. (AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)
Actually, they’re Tebowing. Then again, Tebowing is praying, by definition. And they’re in uniform. These Marines must be Read more