Air-Minded: Putin Rears His Head

I was fascinated by this exchange during Katie Couric’s interview of Sarah Palin the other night: Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians? Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears […]

Air-Minded: Jack the Clock

In an earlier post, I promised to tell you about our resident spy at Soesterberg Air Base in The Netherlands. His name was Jack van Beek, but we called him Jack the Clock. I honestly don’t know that he was our resident spy, but everyone knew there was a resident spy, and most of us […]

Air-Minded: Where Are the Eagle Drivers?

I invited a few F-15 buddies to join me on Facebook, where I started a by-invitation group for current and former military aviators. For the past year or two I’ve been looking for the presence of other F-15 pilots on the net.  Just did another quick sweep, and AFAIK I’m the only one.  Although the […]

Shakeup in the US Air Force

Some thoughts on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ sacking of USAF Secretary Wynn and Chief of Staff Moseley: The nuclear weapons SNAFUs described in the linked article were too serious to excuse, and ample reason to replace senior leadership.  I can’t say I saw it coming, but I did wonder, back in 1992, what then-USAF […]

320 Days Left

You know, I always thought it odd that the Bush administration would tolerate a non-political independent-thinking military leader like Admiral Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command.  It’s so uncharacteristic of the “surround me with yes men” mentality of George W. Bush and his sycophants. Well.  It appears Bush is getting ready to replace Admiral Fallon with a […]

Must Maintain Purity of Essence

There’s always been a strong strain of puritanism in military leadership, perhaps nowhere stronger than in the U.S. Air Force.  The latest expression of it is the outright banning of blogs and blogging on USAF computer networks, including USAF-operated internet cafes at bases worldwide. For years now, the USAF has filtered liberal and progressive web sites […]