By Michael M. Dunn, Lt Gen (Ret)
President/CEO, Air Force Association

The American public has heard many times about the success or failure of US efforts in Iraq and in Afghanistan. What it has not heard much of are the unsung efforts of America’s almost-invisible and indispensable force – the US Air Force.

Every day of every year, your Air Force flies about 350 sorties in the war effort. These range from combat sorties flown 24/7 over both Iraq and Afghanistan to reconnaissance drone sorties in South West Asia flown by Airmen via satellite from Nevada, to Air Defense sorties flown by our great Air National Guard forces protecting the skies over the United States. A little known fact is that an airlift aircraft takes off every 90 seconds … somewhere in the world … to support our forward troops, our embassies, and our interests. And all of this is not new – Airmen have been at war constantly since Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait in 1990 – first to defend Saudi Arabia, then to prosecute an air campaign which facilitated one of the shortest and most effective ground campaigns in history, then to monitor the no-fly zones specified by the UN Security Council, then to the conflict in the Balkans, then to conduct Operations Noble Eagle (patrolling America’s skies), Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), and Iraqi Freedom. Further, Air Force and national satellites are quietly orbiting … watching, listening, passing communications, providing navigation guidance, monitoring the weather, gathering critical intelligence to support not only our forces, but our nation’s intelligence needs. These are being flown by Air Force men and women in some out of the way places … quietly and without fanfare.

Even in defense circles US Air Force capabilities are many times simply assumed, even taken for granted. The last soldier to be killed by an enemy aircraft occurred in 1953. Air superiority, even supremacy, is implicit in any military operation conducted today … as is Air Force performance in the theater of operation. What the public has not heard is what one AF commander told me last month … that is we are killing large numbers of terrorists and Taliban in Afghanistan today. I have kept my ear to the ground … no mention of it in the press … other than to point to cases where so-called “civilians” have been hit.

And yet this wonderful and terribly necessary force may not be there in the future. Aircraft are aging; maintenance costs are rising; technology is passing some systems by; and many politicians are unwilling to let Air Force leaders retire aircraft which are no longer able to conduct their missions, and your Air Force is absorbing the costs of maintaining them. Consider that the average age of the fleet … is almost 25 years old. Some aircraft are over 60 years old. That was the case this past month when a Missouri Air National Guard pilot ejected from an 30 year old F-15C which – at first report – had a structural failure. Now all F-15s are grounded, pending inspections.

Modernization plans have suffered. The Air Force did not receive sufficient funding for procurement of replacement aircraft … so it offered to cut 40,000 people from the force to free up the funds. The impact is that your Air Force, today, is smaller than the Army Air Corps was on 7 December 1941. And still there is not enough money. What everyone needs to realize is that we need a sustained investment in our Air Force … one which begins to take us to aircraft built in the 21st century, not mid-20th century.

As we look to the future, we will eventually be out of Iraq. And it will be the US Air Force which transports all those soldiers and marines home. It will be the US Air Force who stays behind to provide rapid combat power to support Iraqi forces. It will be the US Air Force who continues to fly the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft to provide much needed information on terrorist activities. It will be the US Air Force who flies the space satellites, who stand guard in the skies and in the missile fields, and conduct re-supply missions to every outpost in the world. It will be the US Air Force … among others, who will be called upon to prosecute America’s campaigns in the future … be they in Iran, North Korea, the Taiwan Straits, or elsewhere. It will be the US Air Force who will quietly execute policy-simple, logistically-complex, humanitarian relief efforts in far-away and hard-to-get-to places. Finally, it will be the US Air Force who is called upon in the cyber-realm to project American power and defend American interests. This great force must not be taken for granted. It must be modernized, nurtured, and funded … not only for our future … but for the future of our children and our grandchildren.

Michael M. Dunn, Lt Gen (Ret)
President/CEO, Air Force Association