Military | Air Force Outreach

Why Don’t we Bomb Terrorists?

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Certainly everyone who has fought terrorists has, at some highly frustrated moment, offered up such a question to themselves and to any higher power which might be listening in. But unfortunately, there are several different reasons why we can not simply drop bombs on areas which are known to be infested with large numbers of terrorists. Chief among these reasons is the simple fact that terrorists are not exactly marked in a way that designates them from noncombatants. Another reason why we can not simply wail away on terrorists with napalm and cruise missiles is because there are simply too many people who would be harmed, simply as a consequence of dropping that much ordinance onto any area where people might actually be living.

Terrorists are not like movie ninjas of the early 1970s, where they all wear bright red costumes which have the word “NINJA” (or in this case, “TERRORIST”) emblazoned across them. If it were that simple, our military would need snipers aplenty instead of the implements of bombing. The simple fact is, terrorists are so effective at what they do because they can blend in so well with the rest of the population. Since terrorists actually take up such a small percentage of the population, they can be extremely hard to spot, and thus to take into custody or eliminate as threats.

And terrorists live in the same places where other people live. If all of the world’s terrorists stayed in some distant part of Antarctica, or occupied their own private island, it would be relatively easy to just drop some bombs on them. It would still be inhumane, though- they are still people. But since terrorists live among large numbers of ordinary, basically innocent civilians, to attempt to get the terrorists through saturation fire would essentially involve committing genocide. Terrorists can come from anywhere, so literally no one in the entire world would be safe. That sounds like terrorism in itself.

Filed Under: Military, Safety, War Tagged With: Bomb, Terrorism, War on Terrorism, Warfare and Conflict

Our Military in a Nuclear Age

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Some people have come to the conclusion, perhaps through recreational drug use, that a modern military force is fairly unnecessary in the wake of having access to long range nuclear weapons. And for the sake of argument, there is some theoretical reason behind this conclusion. After all, who needs to have a standing army, when you can essentially incinerate your enemy’s entire country or region, and pretty much take them out in a way that ensures that they will never come back? Of course, after you get over the initial rush of ultimate power such a mental image may grant you (or perhaps it’s more of a rush of sickness that such a thing is even possible), you have to realize how utterly silly such an idea is.

After all, the concept of completely anhilating an entire country is both logistically absurd and inhumanly cruel. Any military strategist who would seriously consider destroying an entire country and irradiating its soil should not be allowed to command anything (even including the sharp objects used to issue orders). And even if a maniac of that ilk were able to command our military (heaven help us all), even the attempt to take out an entire country would undoubtedly exhaust our entire nuclear arsenal. At that point, we would be both vulnerable to attack from other (more sane and humane) countries, and guilty of a war crime.

The simple fact is, there are many types of military scenarios which extend beyond merely protecting ourselves within our own borders. And of these scenarios, almost none among the group call for the use of nuclear weaponry. And in cases such as those, this usage is to be severely limited, as was the case in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the most part, our military needs to have a strong human element, and a very substantial non-nuclear element, unless we want to devote ourselves to essentially ruining both our international relationships and environment.

Filed Under: Military, War, War Photography Tagged With: Iran, Military, Nuclear weapon

How Could we Improve our Military?

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Our military is a group of humans which was designed by humans, which means that it is never going to be a perfect thing. However, there is a lot we can do to constantly push our way further and further towards perfection, both in the military itself and in our relationship to it as civilian citizens. For one thing, we can understand that there is both a need to question and confront our leadership and a need to support and aid our troops, and that these needs may intertwine with one another into bettering the overall relationship between civilian and military. For another thing, we can alter our thinking of the landscape and nature of war, and take it into a more modern paradigm.

Supporting our troops and questioning our leaders can coexist with one another. Supporting our troops means paying our taxes and continuing to work on our entrepreneurial efforts, especially when such efforts may be able to help us win wars more efficiently in the future. By contrast, questioning our leaders (and thus keeping them accountable for the decisions that they make on our behalf) consists of asking them why our troops are going to particular places, and when they are going to return. The more we dog our leaders, the more responsibly they are going to have to work with our troops.

A way we can improve our military itself is to move into the 21st century in more than just a technological basis. Our chief military minds still tend to feel as if we are fighting our battles in massive armies or fleets on large, open fields or seas. Modern warfare is not so organized, as guerrilla engages guerrilla and as anyone can move from non-combatant to full fledged threat in an instant. The romantic notions of war and combat are going to have to fall by the wayside, as we begin to think of war as less organized and muddier.

Filed Under: Army, Military, Safety Tagged With: Active duty, Military, Uniform Code of Military Justice, Vietnam war

A Brief History of the Air Force

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Early Beginnings

The United States Air Force originally began as the aeronautical division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1907. After trials with balloons and alternative forms of air flight, the Wright brothers sold the signal corps their flying invention –the airplane, in 1909. Capt. Benjamin Foulois headed the first section of men that conducted experimental flights and in December 1913 the unit known as the 1st Aero Squadron. In 1918 this division was renamed the Army Air Service, at this point there were over 19,000 officers and 178,000 men that were included in the Air service, with over 11,754 aircraft that were being employed in their practice and maneuvers.

As a result of the Army Reorganization Act of 1920, the Air Service was declared an individual combat unit of the Army. Soon after in 1926, the units name was changed to the Air Corps. Even though the U.S. had sent fighter pilots to be utilized by its allies in WWI, as of 1935 the Air Corps was still a relatively small force.

World War II and the Air Force

World War II began in 1939 when Hitler began his assault against Poland. The Air Corps had methodically been increasing their numbers. When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred and the U.S. was forced to enter the war, the Air corps began playing a pivotal role in transport, pursuit, attack, and reconnaissance missions. The U.S. aviation industry began to boom and soon the early warplanes like the C-47 Sky train, the P-51 Mustang, and the B-17 flying Fortress came to life. Soon the Air Corps had over 80,000 aircraft in its control and over 2.4 million enlisted men. The Air Corps soon began to dominate the skies in WW II and sealed the victorious ending of the war in 1945, when the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1947, Congress made the Air Force its on separate branch freeing it from Army control.

Filed Under: Air Force, Army, Flight, Military Tagged With: Air Corps, Air Force, History, United States Air Force, United States Army

The United States Air Force Through History

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To many around the globe, the flying wing of the United States military is not only the best and the most advanced, it is also the closest to what can be described as the ideal air force. You will find it quite difficult to contradict this statement when you know the United States Air Force is the most sophisticated on the planet with the capability to bomb nations into oblivion in a matter of minutes. Such is the reach, lethality and stealth that has been features of the greatest air force in the history of humanity.

However, it is interesting to know that the United States Air Force did not just sprout from the ground to become the most powerful on the planet, it had it humble beginnings just like other great organizations. It is noteworthy to know that the United States Air Force was not always the lord of the skies, at least history tells us that there was a time when the much-dreaded German air force, the Luftwaffe commandeered by the icon of ruthlessness himself, Adolf Hitler, was once the most powerful military force in the skies. But the times have changed and the once unknown United States Air Forces has evolved into one of the most feared in the world.

At the beginning, the Wright planes used by the United States Air Force (which was initially a branch under the US Army before gaining a full status in the 1940s) will pale in comparison with the ultra-modern F-16 fighters and B-2 stealth bombers that have become the face of the United States Air Force today. Interestingly, the evolution of the United States Air Force continues till this day and only the future will unveil some of high technology gadgets and weapon systems that have been developed by industries such as Northrop Grumman and the Lockheed Corporation.

Filed Under: Air Force, Military Tagged With: Lockheed Corporation, Northrop Grumman, United States Air Force

Why we Have Bases all Over the World

Some people have taken to theorizing that our military is somewhat akin to an occupying army, in that we have our military bases spread out far and wide all over the world. It is true, we do occupy space in many countries, and we do have a substantial presence in many places where there are people who may decide at any moment to begin fighting, whether or not there is an immediately apparent reason for it. While it may seem that we are trying to suppress or oppress someone in some distant part of the world, the reality is that our military’s goals are to support more freedom for the people who generally show that they can handle it.

Consider that most of the world is generally peaceful, at this point in history. However, as most people know, the world has not always been such a peaceful place. Our species loves to cause trouble for itself, and the difficult mission of any military force is to use force to halt the use of force. It may sound a little paradoxical, but it is the only method which works almost all the time to quell the tendencies of people who feel the need to be violent for its own sake. Thus, having military bases all over the world is partly a matter of convenience.

A military which can’t move is a military which can’t properly stop the practice of unnecessary violence. As such, they need to be able to move at a moment’s notice, and get to wherever they need to be, in order to stop the suffering and slaughter of the innocent. The fact is, the only efficient means of being able to be “where the action is” is to have bases in pretty much every corner of the globe. While some might see this as an occupation, it can also be seen as a guardianship over the common peace we’re all trying to maintain.

Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Military, Military base, Peace, United States

Gas Prices in the Air

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If you think that you have it bad on account of gas prices, just imagine that you had to fill up tens of thousands of helicopters, transport planes and fighter jets on a daily basis. The United States military (and the Air Force in particular) have long since discovered that aircraft simply can not be run on fresh air and good intentions alone. Therefore, they need fuel, and they need an awful lot of it, just to keep up in the sky. This does not even take into account how much fuel they end up needing when they fly a lot of difficult missions, either to save lives or to take lives (which hopefully serves the purpose of saving more lives, at least in theory).

Simply put, one of the reasons why our national defense budget is so insane is because we have a lot of equipment that needs to be fueled up. As nice as it would be to have a solar powered Humvee, that wonderful dream simply has not materialized as of this moment. And if you think that a piece of ground based equipment is going to go through a lot of gas (which they do), just imagine that every moment spent operating took up fuel whether you were actually accomplishing anything or not. In the case of our Air Force, this is an unfortunate reality.

Now, nobody ever said that tanks get good gas mileage. With all of that armor, they get far less than a mile to the gallon. But when you think about it, a tank can always just sit there, spin its turret and defend itself from whomever might happen to come along talking trash. A helicopter, on the other hand, is at a distinct disadvantage if it should ever stop moving. So it pretty much has to either stay in the air and burn up fuel, or fall back to land somewhere safe. That’s an expensive choice.

Filed Under: Air Force, Military Tagged With: Air Force, Gallon, Helicopter

How Much Military do we Need?

Some people believe that it is distinctly possible to have too much government. And by extension, this could possibly mean that we might even have too much of a military, as well. If you believe this way, you might think our military is too large because we have to spend so much money (roughly a trillion dollars every year) just to maintain it, to say nothing of continuing to fight a war in a far off country. You might also believe that the military is too large because we have so many problems in our own country, and the military’s primary purpose is to operate in other parts of the world. Some say that it is unwise to watch your neighbor’s home more closely than you watch your own.

It is obvious that we are always going to need a military. It would be lovely if our entire world was composed of people who only solved their problems through the use of reason, kindness and a strong desire for mutual understanding. However, this is not, has never been, and will probably never be the case moving forward. We live in a world where a war is pretty much always brewing somewhere. The big trick seems to be in keeping wars small, keeping them from interrupting trade and from endangering the existence of entire races of people.

These tasks are anything but small, and they keep our military busy all the time. As for how much of a military we need, this is a matter for individual conjecture. Perhaps the ideal amount of military would be just enough people to ensure that if we needed to recruit and train more (such as in the case of another world war’s outbreak), we could use our existing forces to hold the enemy at the gate until reinforcements could arrive on the scene. In this case, however, there are simply too many variables to consider to make easy judgments.

Filed Under: Military, War Tagged With: History, Military, Wars and Conflicts, World war, World War II

The Military’s Role in Civilian Life

Unless you happen to live near a military base of some sort or have someone close to you serving, you most likely do not think too much about the military’s role in your daily life. However, whether you realize it or not, they really do play a very significant role in everyone’s lives, even if you never see a uniformed soldier, sailor, airman or Marine walking around. Their role may not be immediately visible to you, but the effect our military has on our society is a highly pronounced one. For one thing, the military keeps many businesses in operation through their contracts, and a lot of people are employed because the military has a great deal of different needs that must be fulfilled.

First off, the simple fact that people are able to walk around without being constantly harassed by the weapons of unseen enemies is a testament to the role of our military as a sort of “immune system” on the national level. They keep us safe enough that we are able to go about our daily business and live our lives without the constant threat that the citizens of some countries have to go through. For that alone we should all be grateful to our brothers and sisters in uniform. Keeping us safe enough to live our lives is a pretty nice thing to do, after all.

Another reason why the military carries a significant role in our lives is in how many jobs they create. Granted, many of these jobs are as a part of the military, but an even greater number are not. For instance, there are a lot of civilian contractors who work under the military providing support for their foreign operations. Also, a lot of manufacturing and transportation companies make a fine living off of the constant supply of contracts which the military provides. After all, they do not make their own planes, bullets and outfits, you know.

Filed Under: Life During & After, Military, Society Tagged With: Military, Military base, People

The Military Makes Jobs

If you think that companies such as Walmart and Eli Lilly create jobs… well, you’re right, they do. But they pale in comparison to the number of jobs which the military creates as a part of their support requirements. Our military has an awful lot of needs, after all. And it only makes sense that whenever it can possibly be done, they use American civilians to fulfill those needs. Consider how many things you use on a daily basis. Now just imagine that there were a few million of you, and you needed everything you used to be highly customized because you had extremely complicated, potentially life and death requirements for every possession you use. That is the basic thought process behind how many jobs the military creates all around them.

The military obviously creates a lot of jobs as members of the armed forces themselves. We need a steady stream of sailors, soldiers, Marines and airmen to keep our country safe and to keep our wars being won. But aside from just the people who are employed in active duty roles, there are also millions of people who are employed as civilian contractors, keeping the various (and massive) logistical needs of the military being met on a daily basis. Without civilians backing them up, the military would have to work very hard to stay organized.

And direct assistance notwithstanding, the military even creates a lot of jobs when it comes to manufacturing, distribution and service industries. When soldiers need to eat, a lot of farms benefit from the demand. When they need fatigues to wear, someone has to supply them. And when they need planes to fly, weapons to fire and bullets to come out of those weapons, someone needs to provision those needs. And all of the “someones” which supply the necessary provisions have a lot of opportunity to create and maintain reasonable jobs for American civilians. The military creates jobs for people.

Filed Under: Military, Navy Tagged With: Active duty, Eli Lilly, Marines, Military, United States