AF Honchos Fired

[Swanee]

LA Times reports that Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynn, and AF Chief of Staff, Gen. Michael Moseley, have been fired.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-airforce6-2008jun06,0,4548639.story?page=1

 

[FLYTPAY]

The writing was on the wall, you heard the predictions on AW first!

 

[snake020]

Gen Moseley's firing was long overdue dating back to the Thundervision scandal. I didn't care for the way the whole Jill Metzger scandal was swept under the rug either.

IMO, the last Chief of Staff the AF had was Gen Ronald Fogleman. Now there was a leader who stood for accountability. They've had 3 CEOs take his place since then.

 

[Xtndr50boom]

^^ Truer words were never spoken. Fogleman was a true leader!

 

[Bevo16]

My Air Force buddies are saying that these guys are the first two confirmed kills of the F-22. They seem to think that all of the scandal talk is a bunch of smoke and mirrors to the real problem of poor budget decisions over long periods of time (and the overall slugish Air Force way of doing business) The F-22 is looking more and more like a giant mistake to most of them. Cool plane. Way to costly.

Their joke is that the F-22 is a great gig because it is only deployable to Hollywood and NASCAR races. You have to go to a movie or a race to see the F-22 because you are not going to see it on an ATO anytime soon.

 

[usmarinemike]

Maybe this will be a renaissance for everything that all the other services make fun of the Air Force about, because it was all those things that caused this.

 

[Bevo16]

Maybe this will be a renaissance for everything that all the other services make fun of the Air Force about, because it was all those things that caused this.

I could not agree more mike.

The USAF was the first to use the "business model" for their service. I hate the steps that the Navy has taken in that direction. We already have started "electronic mustering" with our cac card. What's next, time sheets and clocking in? Fine, I want back pay for those 100 hour + work weeks on workups and deployment.

 

[Flash]

Gen Moseley's firing was long overdue dating back to the Thundervision scandal. I didn't care for the way the whole Jill Metzger scandal was swept under the rug either.

IMO, the last Chief of Staff the AF had was Gen Ronald Fogleman. Now there was a leader who stood for accountability. They've had 3 CEOs take his place since then.

The whole 'Thundervision' thing still makes me scratch my head, $50 mil for air show support and a video? Why not get a rock group do one for you? It still stinks, and I am qutie disappointed that no one got fired directly from that.

For those that are not familiar with it:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0305airforce0305.html

The Metzger thing is still a mystery to me, is there anything more to the story that you know about, and can share?

 

[snake020]

The Metzger thing is still a mystery to me, is there anything more to the story that you know about, and can share?

This is the last time the mainstream media reported anything on it. Since then, silence.

The folks at baseops.net have a pretty long discussion going about this subject.

Again, if Fogleman were in charge it's likely this would have been resolved and not hidden as we know from the Kelly Flinn situation.

 

[HuggyU2]

My Air Force buddies are saying that these guys are the first two confirmed kills of the F-22.

Sort of. My take is that the F-22 is indicative of the fact that the USAF leadership blew off The Administration's direction: fight the current "war" in the Middle East. That war requires ISR,... and lots of it. The F-22 is great for a war with China,... but that's not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, many "experts" figure that will end up being an economic war anyways.
But, if the Combatant Commanders (including Navy and Marine flag officers) want ISR assets, then f'ing deliver them!. YOU are the force provider. And if you don't provide the assets The Bosses need to kill the current bad guys, you are going to get canned.

Disclaimer: I'm an ISR guy. I'm biased toward ISR. I've seen the light. ISR is good. Ask any Marine or Army ground guy. Ask the Commanders of PACOM, CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM (can anyone say "Key West"???), EUCOM,....
If you don't have good ISR, what are you going to attack/bomb/shoot/kill/interdict/laze?

The new SecAF and CSAF will be proponents of ISR, and embrace The Administration's guidance.
While there are many worthy candidates, Gen Chilton is a tremendous leader/warrior/mentor/officer/pilot.

 

[HeyJoe]

Sort of. My take is that the F-22 is indicative of the fact that the USAF leadership blew off The Administration's direction: fight the current "war" in the Middle East. That war requires ISR,... and lots of it. The F-22 is great for a war with China,... but that's not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, many "experts" figure that will end up being an economic war anyways.
But, if the Combatant Commanders (including Navy and Marine flag officers) want ISR assets, then f'ing deliver them!. YOU are the force provider. And if you don't provide the assets The Bosses need to kill the current bad guys, you are going to get canned.

Disclaimer: I'm an ISR guy. I'm biased toward ISR. I've seen the light. ISR is good. Ask any Marine or Army ground guy. Ask the Commanders of PACOM, CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM (can anyone say "Key West"???), EUCOM,....
If you don't have good ISR, what are you going to attack/bomb/shoot/kill/interdict/laze?

The new SecAF and CSAF will be proponents of ISR, and embrace The Administration's guidance.
While there are many worthy candidates, Gen Chilton is a tremendous leader/warrior/mentor/officer/pilot.

Huggy is on target. It wasn't about F-22 except indirectly by focusing on that at expense of pushing more ISR to meet needs of Combatant Commanders (COCOM). Under Goldwater-Nichols/USC Title 10, services organize, train and equip to meet needs of the COCOMs. Gates has been exhorting USAF to respond accordingly and finally went to Maxwell AFB in April to publicly state the path he wanted the services to take (particularly the Air Force). Here is the transcript of that speech, the Air Force magazine coverage and Time article on its impact.

Interesting that news media and other services heard the message sent by Gates, but Air Force put a positive spin on it.

No wonder Gates finally stopped firing shots across the bow and went for the engine. Here's CSAF resignation announcement. Note that he comments on central issue of providing support for Global War on Terror.

6/5/2008 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley issued the following statement today:

Recent events have highlighted a loss of focus on certain critical matters within the Air Force. As the Air Force's senior uniformed leader, I take full responsibility for events which have hurt the Air Force's reputation or raised a question of every Airman's commitment to our core values.

For the past 36 years I have been privileged to serve my country as an Airman in the United States Air Force in peacetime and combat. I was honored and humbled to be appointed the Air Force's 18th chief of staff and have been proud to serve our Airmen and their families. Upon taking office, I worked hard with Secretary Wynne to ensure the Air Force provided the right forces at the right time to help our nation and allies win the global war on terror.

I think the honorable thing to do is to step aside. After consulting with my family, I have submitted my request for retirement to Secretary Gates. The Air Force is bigger than one Airman, and I have full confidence that the Air Force will continue working with the joint team to win today's fight, take care of its Airmen, and meet tomorrow's challenges. I love the Air Force and remain proud of America's Airmen.

 

[Scoob]

I agree with Huggy here ISR is the way to go...

I seem to recall from my History of the Vietnam War class, and damn near every documentary on the subject, that we learned our lesson about trying to fight a war from the Pentagon. Is there a reason that technology has now rendered this assessment as misguided?!? Sure, ISR allows some great things, but the apron strings are doing more harm than good.

On topic, hopefully this will be utilized as an opportunity by the Air Force to rejoin the rest of us in being a Military Service, rather than continuing their quest as a Fortune 500 contender; hopefully it will also serve to nip the Navy's current efforts to stray down that same path.

 

[LazersGoPEWPEW]

I seem to recall from my History of the Vietnam War class, and damn near every documentary on the subject, that we learned our lesson about trying to fight a war from the Pentagon. Is there a reason that technology has now rendered this assessment as misguided?!?

Was it not technology that motivated much of that in Vietnam?

It is my belief that reliance on technology has gotten us in a lot of trouble in the past e.g. dependence on satellites over HUMINT in some sectors of the world. That's my opinion though.

And as always there is a counter-argument.

 

[Scoob]

Was it not technology that motivated much of that in Vietnam?

It is my belief that reliance on technology has gotten us in a lot of trouble in the past e.g. dependence on satellites over HUMINT in some sectors of the world. That's my opinion though.

And as always there is a counter-argument.

Exactly my point. The Navy managed to come out ahead when it was using AM radio comms that went out whenever the wx rolled in. Of course, back then leadership development was something of a core warfighting capability rather than a concept that we're constantly trying to avoid through newer and fancier technological means.

 

[HackerF15E]

ISR is great, but it does not put ordnance on the bad guy's skull.

Everything has it's place in the force, but to say that "ISR is where it's at" is just as misguided as putting all your eggs in an Air Dominance basket. All those Preds will give the Generals a great view of the F-15s and F-18s getting shot down by Flankers and SA-10/20s in the Straits.