My F-15E painting's page started ...

Great stuff, Wade. The tradition of nose art and the linkage to our AF heritage is something often overlooked. The USAF is just now beginning to "get the picture" on the importance of that. (The Army has had it for a very long time!)

The guys and gals at Seymour are among the most active of the current fighter force in the River Rats, holding an annual mini-reunion in which the active duty guys and the fossils (like me) get to mingle and exchange stories.

I particularly liked the pages on your site describing your Smurf ride (although the new colors make the origin of the nickname a bit obtuse). For an old 435th driver from the days when the program was called "LIFT" (Lead-In Fighter Training), the look at the new cockpit was enlightening.

Great painting in "High Angle Gunshot to Separation".

Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled"

Thread drift:

Over the summer I took my daughter up to New York for a tour of the US Military Academy at West Point. During the walk around tour with a young graduate I was forced to admit that while the Army does have traditions, the Air Force seems to have fads (Hap Arnold wings anyone?).

Low blow.

You're right though. Part of it comes from the evolution of affiliations--Signal Corps, AAC, USAAF, and eventually USAF--but a bit of it is simply failure to recognize the importance of our history.

The Army makes sure that each new guy that comes into an organization soon understands where that unit has been, what they've done, what their heraldry means, etc. They become part of the history.

The AF has, in the past, managed to simply slap numbers on units and then without rhyme or reason move them around, change the patch or simply de-activate the unit. For example, after carrying a pretty heavy load over N. Vietnam, the AF simply walked in one September and announced that the 469th TFS would be deactivated and boxed up for the archives in St. Louis. Or, the 421st TFS would simply have the number moved from Korat to MacDill and be an F-4 unit. Later the unit members would change the patch (repeatedly) and few of them know that the "Black Widow--Kiss of Death" on the patch relates to their P-61 predecessors in WW II.

The 435th TFS (on Wade's site) is a good example of history as well as repeated de-commissionings. The squadron started in WW II as a P-51 unit, then flew F-86s in Korea. Decommissioned then reactivated for the Cold War with F-100s, then F-104s, then F-4s. Then decommissioned again. Reactivated as a AT-38 Lead-In squadron and decommissioned at Holloman in '97. Reactivated at Randolph about two years later. Now at Moody. Fortunately, a great reunion effort conducted by the squadron in '88 brought a lot of the history back to life and created some good documentation.

I still gag every time I see the shiny rhodium plated wings they wear today. And, I'm pissed I didn't get a leather jacket!

Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled"

Ed's right on this one. This is one area where the Royal Air Force seems to do a little better job, even though it is getting harder and harder to do with the continuing shrinkage.

Bill Shuey

Too true :-( Hell's Bells, we don't (or didn't) even try to give the troops a down day or even acknowledge the USAF's birthday :-( (For those who don't know, it's 18 Sep 47)

Unfortunately, even when the USAF tries to do something to remember its history we get it wrong :-(

Back in the '90s there was a program to re-flag current wings using the history and lineage from the wings/groups of the USAAF. Great idea but...

Ask the Special Ops guys what they think about it. The 1st Air Commando group had a long history back to WWII and as the 1st SOW through SEA. But, because the 1st Fighter Wing already had dibs on the number "1" they became the 16th SOW (a wing number with no history save guarding the Panama Canal in WWII).

Nor is "slapping numbers" restricted to flying organizations. Many communications squadrons had long (for the USAF) histories dating back to the AACS of WWII and Korea. Some had even been re-numbered post-SEA to keep that lineage alive. But when the wings were reorganized in the '90s, being four number "officially temporary" organizations they were re-numbered into just another wing-numbered support squadron :-( Bye-bye heritage.

But those wings and the "airliner suit" that goes with them were the brainchild of a "fighter pilot" :-0 Or was he just a pilot who flew fighters?

"Tony" was only mildly obnoxious when he was flying the F-100 for the Thunderbirds. As he gained rank, he became more than obnoxious, he became outright weird. There is very little respect for the individual among those who knew him or served in the AF he screwed up.

But, on the positive side, there's a list going around now of more than 350 flag officers (generals and admirals) who endorse retention of the current Commander-in-Chief.

Tony was most definitely a pilot who flew fighters.

Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled"

Same thing happened with my old command. When I joined it was the Electronic Security Command (ESC). Post Desert Storm it was changed to Air Force Intelligence Command (AFIC). We then lost MAJCOM status and became the Air Intelligence Agency (AIA). And, before I joined, it was the Air Force Security Service (AFSS).

During all of this renaming we also lost our traditional unit designations. The majority of the unit designations began with 69, and many units had long and storied histories within the command. If the unit at Clark still existed it would no longer be the "Double Deuce" (6922nd), but thankfully the 303rd at Osan (formerly the 6903rd) managed to retain its nickname of "Skivvy Nine" ("IYAS9YAS!").

I'm now off to catch a MAC flight to a SAC base to tell them how much better TAC bases are. Wait a minute...

I hope it is enough. I'm hearing stories of union organizers getting people registered to vote over in Ohio, some of whom turn out to be dead! Sounds like someone has taken a page out of Baltimore and Chicago's election habits. :-)

Bill Shuey (Who remembers when a lot of people got up out of Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore to vote for Tommy DeAlesandro. Sun papers editor joked about whether John Wilkes Booth voted.)