May 02, 2007
The green and blue Air Force
This is a great essay on the deep-seated culture clash between warriors and ... anti-warriors.
The Air Force is culturally divided into two camps: The Blue Air Force and The Green Air Force.
The Blue Air Force wears the blue uniform to work while the Green Air Force wears fatigues and flight suits.
The Blues do essential tasks like stock the warehouses, maintain the motor pool, and push piles of paperwork around base.
The Greens take wing in chariots of fire like sky gods. The Greens are shooters, the Blues shoe clerks.
The Blues are preoccupied with trivia like stopping people from whizzing in the woods outside the Officer’s Club after Happy Hour and making sure your ribbons are in the right order on your official photo. The Greens are preoccupied with putting bombs on target.
There is a clash of cultures within the Air Force, where the Blues impose their spit-shined, regulation-happy, utopian culture on the Green’s realist, pragmatic, quick and dirty combat rules culture.
The Air Force Memorial is a monument to the Blue Air Force. I’m surprised they don’t have a bronze statue of a clerk at his desk typing a form in triplicate. That’s what it’s all about for the Blues.
The payoff is a series of photos, highlighting the differences between the Air Force and the other services, using their respective memorials as exhibits.
As you may have guessed from the excerpt above, the Air Force memorial comes up short.
When you're done looking at that post, be sure to read the follow up, wherein the author (a) says that he's still ticked off about the memorial, and (b) explains how "Jazz Hands" have a role in the Air Force of the 21st Century.
I'm glad Gen. Doolittle didn't live to see this. I wonder what Gen. Chuck Yeager thinks.
Posted by Mike Lief at May 2, 2007 11:22 PM
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