"Redefining what it means to be a modern air warrior.... pilots who flew their planes from an Air Force base outside Las Vegas.... create a new type of pilot.... missiliers"
Wit a medal covered in mass-murdering blood pinned on his chest?
Related: More Drone Data Than They Know What to Do With
If nothing else it is job security, right?
"Drone pilots rise on winds of change in Air Force; New way of war may call for new definition of valor" by Greg Jaffe, Washington Post | March 7, 2010
WASHINGTON - The Air Force’s identity crisis is one of many ways that a decade of intense and unrelenting combat is reshaping the US military and redefining the American way of war. The battle against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq has created an insatiable demand for the once lowly drone, elevating the importance of the officers who fly them.
These new earthbound aviators are redefining what it means to be a modern air warrior and forcing an emotional debate within the Air Force over the very meaning of valor in combat.
Since its founding, the Air Force has existed primarily to support its daring and chivalrous fighter and bomber pilots. Even as they are being displaced by new technology, these traditional pilots are fighting to retain control over the Air Force and its culture and traditions.
The clash between the old and new Air Force was apparent in the aftermath of the 2006 strike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the Al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq.
See: Al-Zarqawi Video Is A Pentagon Propaganda Psy-Op
So are what we call newspapers here in AmeriKa.
Predator crews spent more than 630 hours searching for Zarqawi and his associates before they tracked him to a small farm northeast of Baghdad. Minutes later, an F-16 fighter jet, streaking through the sky, released a 500-pound bomb that locked onto a targeting laser and killed Zarqawi.
For the up-teenth time.
The F-16 pilot, who faced no real threat from the lightly armed insurgents on the ground, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the same honor bestowed on Charles Lindbergh for the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Related: Charles Lindbergh's Anti-NWO speech
Media never liked him much after that.
The Predator pilots, who flew their planes from an Air Force base outside Las Vegas, received a thank-you note from a three-star general based in the Middle East. Senior Air Force officials concluded that even though the Predator crews were flying combat missions, they weren’t in combat.
Four years later, the Air Force still hasn’t come up with a way to recognize the Predator’s contributions in Afghanistan and Iraq. “There is no valor in flying a remotely piloted aircraft. I get it,’’ said Colonel Luther “Trey’’ Turner, a former fighter pilot who has flown Predators since 2003. “But there needs to be an award to recognize crews for combat missions.’’
It is the job of General Norton A. Schwartz, the Air Force’s top general, chief of staff, and a onetime cargo pilot, to mediate between the old and new pilot tribes. In August 2008, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates tapped him to lead the service, the first chief of staff in Air Force history without a fighter or bomber pedigree, reflecting Gates’s frustration with the service’s old guard.
A quiet and introspective leader, Schwartz has turned his attention to dismantling the Air Force’s rigid class system. At the top of the traditional hierarchy are fighter pilots. Beneath them are bomber, tanker, and cargo pilots. At the bottom are the officers who keep aircraft flying and satellites orbiting in space.
Schwartz has also pushed to broaden the Air Force’s definition of its core missions beyond strategic bombing and control of the skies. New on his list: providing surveillance imagery to ground troops waging counterinsurgencies. Today, the Air Force is flying 40 round-the-clock patrols each day with its Predator and Reaper unmanned planes, an eightfold increase over 2004.
Of course, the CARBON FOOTPRINT raises NO CONCERNS here!
By 2007, the Air Force started to realize that it didn’t have enough traditional pilots to meet the growing demand from field commanders for Predators and Reapers. When Gates pressed for an expedited program to train officers without an aviation background to fly drones, the Air Force initially resisted. Only a fully trained pilot could be trusted to maneuver an unmanned aircraft and drop bombs, some officials maintained.
At the rate the Air Force was moving, it would have needed a decade to meet battlefield demand. Schwartz changed the policy.
“We had a math problem that quickly led to a philosophical discussion about whether we could create a new type of pilot,’’ said Major General Marke F. Gibson, the director of Air Force operations and training. With Schwartz’s backing, Gibson crafted a nine-month training program for officers from nonflying backgrounds, including deskbound airmen, military police officers, and “missiliers.’’
The crash program has been controversial, particularly among traditional pilots, who typically undergo two years of training. “We are creating the equivalent of a puppy mill,’’ complained one fighter pilot.
One of eight initial trainees was Captain Steve Petrizzo, who joined the Air Force in 2003 hoping to fly F-16s. He was too nearsighted to fly planes, so the Air Force assigned him to a nuclear-missile base where he manned a concrete capsule 50 feet below ground, waiting for the order to launch. Petrizzo leapt at the opportunity to fly the Predator. “I wanted to be in the fight,’’ he said.
By riding a computer console 5,000 miles away?
His first six months of training beginning in early 2009 focused on the basics of flying. The last few months of instruction were spent in a ground control station maneuvering a simulated Predator through video-game reproductions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now you know why those things have been marketed so long and for so hard here.
TRAINING the KIDS for the JOBS of the FUTURE!
The graduation ceremony for Petrizzo and his classmates raised a new set of questions for the Air Force: Should the new graduates wear the same wings as traditional pilots? Should they even be called pilots?
Why don't we just call them murderers?
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