Interesting
article in the LA Times today
Straining to find ground troops to maintain its force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has begun deploying thousands of Air Force personnel to combat zones in new jobs as interrogators, prison sentries and gunners on supply trucks.
Talk about Bait and Switch. I am sure many signed up in the Air Force to get away from any chance at hand to hand combat. But not in Bush's military.
The changes within the Air Force, even if temporary, run counter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's overall vision of the military as a lighter, faster and more lethal force that relies on technology and efficiency to accomplish national security goals more quickly.
The situation also represents a reversal of sorts for the Air Force, which had played a dominant role in recent conflicts, including the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the war to expel Serbian troops from Kosovo.
"At that point the Air Force looked to be the dominant service," said Steve Kosiak, a military analyst at the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
"That has changed."
In the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kosiak said, the Army has been the dominant branch.
"It's been the Army, and the Air Force has played a supporting role," Kosiak said.
I guess when you decide to occupy another country it actually takes a lot of feet on the ground. Of course it took our highly trained leaders at the Dept of Defense a couple years to actually figure this out.