Disclosure: I was lobbied by a couple of former US Army brass (retired colonel, retired major) who may have had an axe or two to grind and felt that the U.S. Air Force should be restored to its former status as the US Army Air Corps.
But, it can be argued the the US Air Force has been outstanding in sullying the reputation of the United States military.
Let me count the ways.
2005 Breaking: orchestrated attempts have been made to sweep this whole affair under the carpet but clues remain here and there.
Air Force Academy Staff Found Promoting Religion
.... Published: June 23, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 22 - An Air Force panel sent to investigate the religious climate at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs found evidence that officers and faculty members periodically used their positions to promote their Christian beliefs and failed to accommodate the religious needs of non-Christian cadets, its leader said Wednesday....
Lt. Gen. Roger A. Brady of the Air Force, who led the 16-member group, said in a news conference at the Pentagon that the academy and the Air Force as a whole were struggling to define the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable religious expression in a government institution, a reflection, he said, of a debate under way across the country.
"We believe that people were doing things that I think were inappropriate," General Brady said. "They had the best intentions toward the cadets. I think in some cases they were wrong."...
The group found that several incidents widely covered by news organizations were overblown. The report said a chaplain who reportedly exhorted cadets in a worship service to tell their classmates to accept Christ or "burn in hell" was merely using language "not uncommon" for his Pentecostal denomination....
Ah, the pondering of the ponderous US Air Force, nothing to beat it as it sets itself to "tasking" and "methodology" to conclude:
Religion is a subject of interest to many Americans in general, and no less so to the age group that the USAFA cadet wing represents. According to a recently published AP-Ipsos survey (a leading global survey-based research group), “Religious devotion sets the United States apart from some of its closest allies. Nearly all U.S. respondents said faith is important to them and only 2% said they do not believe in God.”
Amazing to use 100 pages of text and endless attachments to make a marshmallow observation. But a fellow named Lawrence Wilkerson had other conclusions:
Friday, May 10, 2013
Tomas de Torquemada in the U.S. armed forces
By LAWRENCE WILKERSON
About a month ago, I joined the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to replace Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL and member of the board who had recently been killed in the Benghazi incident. I was a reluctant recruit, knowing as I did the importance of spiritual solace amid the horrors of battle.
"Why," I asked myself, "should we meddle with something so important?"
When the MRFF's director, Mikey Weinstein, allowed me to study the extent and nature of the activities of certain fundamentalists within the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces - and I pored through records of their obscenities, vicious hatred and other manifestations of their more insidious members' minds - I changed my mind. That so-called followers of Christ could write and say such things, and their defenders and representatives in the media, Congress and elsewhere could ally with them, made my blood boil....
2007 Breaking: The “Bent Spear” Incident:
Six W80-1 nuclear warheads armed on AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles (ACMs) went missing. In August. In 2007. Hopefully, they are presently where they ought to be. Um, it might be a good idea for responsible American citizens to demand of their senators and congress persons that assurance is made that these damned things are accounted for and are where they should be.
Background:
The AGM-129A is carried exclusively by the US Air Force's B-52H Stratofortress bombers.
Raytheon (General Dynamics) AGM-129 ACM
The AGM-129 ACM (Advanced Cruise Missile) is a stealthy, nuclear-armed cruise missile used exclusively by B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers. It was originally planned to completely replace the AGM-86 ALCM, but limited funding led to the procurment of less than 500 missiles.
USAF studies for a new cruise missile with stealth characteristics began in 1982, when it became clear that the AGM-86 ALCM would become too easily detectable by future advanced air-defense systems. In 1983, General Dynamics was awarded the development contract for the new AGM-129A ACM. The first test missile flew in July 1985, and in June 1990, the first production missiles were delivered to the USAF.
Coverage of "Bent Spear" by mainstream media (WA Post):
Missteps in the Bunker
By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.
The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.
That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.
Current and ongoing: Rape of recruits and trainees by UA Air Force trainer in San Antonio, arrest of anti-sexual assault unit commander for sexual harassment and, oh heck, let’s go back to the Academy and 2003:
Air Force leadership blamed for sex scandal
Academy's climate of abuse traced to officers' inaction
September 23, 2003
By Judith Graham, Tribune national correspondent. Tribune staff reporter Shannon McMahon contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
DENVER — A failure of leadership at the highest levels of the Air Force is responsible for "a decade of ineffective action" to stop rapes and sexual assaults at the U.S. Air Force Academy, a scathing report said Monday.
The study by a congressional commission is the first to hold Air Force leadership accountable for inadequate attention to the sexual assault problem, and insufficient oversight of attempts to find solutions.
It suggests the Air Force may have tried to conceal its long-standing awareness of sexual assaults at its elite college in its own investigation released in June, and in deciding not to aggressively pursue earlier allegations of misconduct at the school by a former Air Force surgeon general.
This is not to say that the Air Force is alone in these sorts of abuses and that the remaining branches of the US military are squeaky clean. They are not. But ... if a telling example were made of the Air Force it might restore a bit of equilibrium between the military and defense and the rest of us, like maybe restoring civilian control of the military like it’s ‘sposed to be and restoring the honor and integrity that we all love in all of our branches of the military.