USMCFLYER,
I browse all the forums on APC. I'm not now, never will be, nor ever have been a rated military aviator. Am I welcome to post in this area when some point of discussion interests me?
Assuming I am, I read the article you started this topic with and thought, that's pretty stupid on everybody's part. Complaining about the handle and filing suit looks to me like this guy's retirement plan. The guys who planted it on him sure seemed to have low SA to not be aware(or care) that their target 1) might not like it, 2) have any effective countermeasure.
After reading everyone's responses to that point, I was surprised that the consensus was its such a shame that we can't get away with anything we want anymore and that the rules of society don't apply to us because we're warriors and 'they' just don't understand what we go through.
Well I do know something about warrior culture, and what I was reading didn't really sound like it. It sounded like Frat culture. I fully expect every combat pilot to think he is absolutely invincible in the air. I also expect him to be smart enough to recognize he is not incapable of faults elsewhere. There has been almost zero recognition that somebody stepped on their **** here. When it ends up in the newspaper, then you look bad. Game over - you lost.
As for the super awesome comment, yeah it was snarky and could have been better put. The life expectancy of a Spitfire pilot in 1940 was 4 weeks. The average B-17 crew survived just 14 missions, including the period in which the Luftwaffe was no longer effective. As close as I can tell 13 US tactical aircraft were lost in the Iraqi theater 2003-2009, with a loss of 9 souls. You risk your lives every time you strap the jet to your back, but you don't honestly expect to die. Seventy years ago, they really didn't expect to come back. The US Army casualty rate is awfully hard to find, but the British are taking about 10% KIA/WIA in their infantry units. My point being, there is a lot of talk about the need to blow off steam after being involved in combat, but other groups, and your own group in other times, seem to have coped with a bit more decorum, even when faced much harsher conditions.
Who's smarter, your average grunt, or your average fighter pilot? I remember helping drag my squad leader out of a Ft. Walton bar after he got into a 'discussion' with some Specter guys about who was harder - something about "So you were a Ranger? That's too bad, cause if you're not Specter you're not *******". They were obviously wrong. But it was also obviously their bar, in their town. Nobody ever got their name in the paper, and nobody's CO ever heard about it either. Because there never was anything to hear about. That's not to say that your average leg is too smart to get into a bar fight. But we aren't Officers and Gentlemen. And I do think you should be smarter than us.
"Unless you've ever been in a combat flying squadron, then you will never understand what namings are about. They aren't about insults, they are about acceptance."
As UAL phlyer pointed out they're also about exclusion. And yeah, everybody gets that, because its not very subtle. (Even if they don't get that it can be a positive motivator.) I said in both my previous posts, that I don't know if I'm right. But I'm not wrong that you look bad. It really doesn't affect me one way or another if you find any value in what I write. But if you're too arrogant to even consider an outsider's opinion, well why are you even reading this?