An Interesting Read
 

Good call by the crew. Bad call by the CO.

Not the same scenario, but heartened to see the USAF has evolved since Bud Holland. Not only an ability to say no, but institutional backing to ensure it sticks.

Tinker AFB issues
 

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/y...ion-at-tinker/

Sounds like a Colonel might decide to "spend more time with the family".... Interesting comments about the culture between the battle crew in back and the drivers.

Also noted is the FJ Fighter Jock Mafia still rules the USAF.

he’s (Donovan) not a pilot - ABM I think.

Yes, the article referred to a "bro network" of Weapons School graduates in leadership roles, and explained that in AWACS world those are ABMers and not flight deck crew. So to say it's the fighter mafia is not quite correct.

I'm surprised there has been no mention of:

a) The recording of this briefing. Surely it would have been unauthorised and therefore surreptitious
b) The posting of the recording on social media.

these actions must breach a lot of USAF regulations.

Easy,

The AWACS Operation is just one part of the USAF....and yes in the AWC Wing the guys in the back end are in charge and the folks up front are just the Chauffeurs.

Look at the Order of Battle for the USAF....and research the Commanders of the rest of the Air Force and you shall see that indeed the Fighter Jocks figure mightily in the Senior Ranks.

Remember the efforts made to do away with the A-10? That was a direct result of that FJ Mafia looking out for its own interests.

In its heyday....it was the SAC big Bomber drivers that tended to rule the roost.

Times change but factionalism in the USAF is just as prevalent as it is in the RAF.

Leading to some entertaining senate hearings with Senator McCain - available on UTube......

McCain did away with several fast jets himself.....before his last Carrier deployment on which he was shot down in downtown Hanoi.

There is a marker at the lakeside where he was pulled from the water by the Vietnamese beginning his extended stay at the Hanoi Hilton.

I tried to find my photo of the monument without any luck, but there's one here:

Visiting the John McCain monument in Hanoi, Vietnam

Part of the Hỏa Lò prison - the “Hanoi Hilton” - has been preserved and is now a museum. When I lived in Saigon, I knew an American who was a US Army Ranger during the war. He was captured in Laos and sent to Hỏa Lò, where he was one of the few non-aircrew prisoners. Some friends persuaded him that he should visit the museum. He told me that he got as far as the front gate, but was unable to bring himself to go inside!

Having visited Hoa Lo as a tourist....it is heart stopping to think of what the POW's endured there and at other prisons.

It is one thing to read their accounts but to actually experience how utterly horrible the place is....leg irons on the bunks...darkness...rats and bugs....torture....I can begin to understand the fellow's inability to return to the place.

552 ACW OG Commander fired after the investigation

AWACS ops group commander at Tinker fired after investigation (airforcetimes.com)

Sad it has to come to this - but I think it's the right decision.

Absolutely the right decision. Any bullying culture must be stamped out. His personnel made the right call, and he called them out for doing so; that cannot be acceptable in a rightly safety-focussed environment.