I love this. The B-58 Hustler epitomized the Air Force’s mid-20th century fixation on speed. It was operational for just 10 years, 1960 to 1970. How bad-ass was it? We crashed 26 of a total fleet of 116, damn near 25% of them, even though the men selected to fly it were hand-picked, the absolute crème de la crème. But damn, just look at that smokin’ hot motherfucker of a jet. A friend found the photo on Wikipedia and posted it to Instagram, where I saw it for the first time and now can’t resist sharing.
One thing I’m sure of: it’s not a real scramble but a staged photo, taken for PR purposes. How do I know? We don’t wear hats on the flight line — they’re a FOD (foreign object damage) hazard, easy to lose and hard on engines. Strategic Air Command, the organization to which this aircraft and aircrew belonged, was notorious for enforcing chickenshit uniform and personal appearance regulations, and my guess is some SAC general insisted the men have their hats on for the photo. Oh, and their dickies! I’ll also guess the zippers on their flight suits are closed and their boots in a high state of polish.
I infer the photo was taken closer to 1960 than 1970, based on the alert crew’s car, a 1959 Ford. It also seems the alert aircrew kept their helmets, checklists, and flight pubs in the cockpit, just like I did when I pulled alert in the F-15 Eagle. Parachutes and survival packs? All that was built into the ejection seats, which themselves were built into three egg-shaped capsules designed to close around the crewmembers to protect them should they have to eject at extreme altitude and supersonic speed. Oh, another thing? Had this been a real scramble, they’d have had a driver.
Even so! This is a shit hot photo, one of the best I’ve seen for capturing the spirit of an era in Air Force history.
Today’s PR stunt equivalent is the “elephant walk.” Like this one, taken last year at Osan Air Base in South Korea:
That’s every USAF aircraft type (and likely every individual aircraft) assigned to Osan Air Base: A-10 Warthogs, F-16 Vipers, C-12 utility transports, even a couple of U-2 spyplanes, loaded up and sitting, engines running, on an active runway. And for what operational purpose? None whatsoever! It’s pure PR, meant to give some general somewhere bragging rights and a stack of color glossy prints to hand out to visiting VIPs.
If anything, staged photo ops like this are a huge drain on operational readiness. You’re tying up all your aircraft, aircrews, plus maintenance and support troops, for hours. How long does it take to generate all those aircraft, taxi them into position, then taxi everyone back to parking afterward? How much fuel will you burn? How long will the runway at the most important USAF/ROKAF base in South Korea be closed while the airman from Public Relations climbs into a cherry picker to take the money shot? What if Kim Jong Un sends his minions south while you all are dicking around?
I guess this is why guys like me don’t make general. Okay, I’m through ranting. Or maybe not.
Speaking of generals, my friend Burt sent this today.
You can click on the image to link to the editorial, but it’ll likely be paywalled (it was a gift link for me, thanks to Burt). Basically, it’s about the doctrine of civilian control over the military and the duties military leaders have to the commander in chief, the president, and what presidential orders or directives they should refuse. Illegal ones, of course, but how to know what’s legal and what’s not?
When I joined the USAF, the duty to refuse illegal orders, established by Allied victors during the Nuremberg trials, was drummed into me, then periodically re-emphasized through professional military education. Every airman, NCO, and officer knows this stuff, and I’m sure it’s the same in every other branch of the service. Another thing everyone in uniform knows is not to participate in partisan political events in uniform, which is by the way a court martial offense under the UCMJ.
Very few military members ever advance to four-star general or admiral rank and have the opportunity to work directly for civilian authority (the president). The editorial made me wonder if general officers get a more specialized version of the training the rest of us get. I hope so.
Would our military leaders have the balls to say no if a president ordered them to mobilize troops to, say, knock on doors and round up undocumented immigrants? Or send troops to state election headquarters to stop the counting of votes and seize ballot boxes? Would they pass illegal orders down the line and leave it to more junior officers to sacrifice their careers by refusing them?
As for engaging in politics in uniform, the Army never did a thing to stop one of its generals from doing exactly that. Lieutenant General William Boykin, while still on active duty for the Army during the George W. Bush administration, started appearing at churches and Christian nationalist rallies in uniform, making anti-Muslim speeches. Although Bush made some effort to distance himself from Boykin, the Army never lifted a finger. He was allowed to retire at full rank, and is now a full-time Christian far-right activist and anti-Muslim propagandist, currently executive vice president of the Family Research Council, listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Way back then I wrote a blog post or two warning that letting Boykin skate would open the door for other senior officers to engage in politics, but so far I haven’t seen it happening. Yes, there are small groups of extremists in the ranks, and a few middle-level officers who tolerate and sympathize with them, but on the whole the rules are working.
There’s still reason for concern, though. More than a decade after Boykin, the Army refused to come to Alexander Vindman’s defense when Trump refused to sign off on his promotion from lieutenant colonel to colonel. Trump was retaliating for Vindman having blown the whistle (during congressional testimony he could not refuse to give) on Trump strong-arming Ukraine’s president to dig up dirt on rival Joe Biden.
Does it sound like I think the Army’s the weak link when it comes to standing up to the president? I do think that. It doesn’t help that just last month, Army leadership failed to stand up to Trump (now a plain-ass citizen like you and me) after members of his entourage abused a worker at Arlington National Cemetery. During, to tie both themes of this post together, a photo op!