During the first week of August 2010, CNN presented an absorbing and excellent program showing the process that takes our wounded warriors from the battlefield through the medical healing process. For those who know how casualties were handled in past wars it was awe inspiring. Emergency room doctors say that the first hour after the injury is the “golden hour.” If the injured can reach a comprehensive trauma center within that time, their chances of survival and eventual healing are extremely high. Once that hour has passed, their chances drop steadily and rapidly. The one hour special followed wounded soldiers brought to Bagram AB in Afghanistan from the field via helicopter for further evaluation and medical treatment. Those too seriously wounded for treatment at Bagram are then airlifted in a medically configured and staffed USAF C-17- four engine jet transport - to Ramstein AB in Germany and Landstuhl Army General Hospital. Here again complete evaluations are performed. Those too seriously hurt for treatment at Landstuhl are then airlifted to the United States again by C-17 to Walter Reed and Bethesda in Washington DC, or to San Antonio for treatment at either Wilford Hall or Brooke Army Hospital – the DoD Burn Center. All of this takes place within two days – 41 hours for those staying at either Walter Reed or Bethsaida - for those cases that must be moved to the United States.

This is a quantum leap from conditions even as recent as Vietnam and Desert Storm. However, key to all is rapid movement by air. This rapid movement is possible only when there is no means by which enemy air can interdict such evacuations. Such conditions apply only when the United States and its allies have absolute air superiority. Obviously unarmed medical evacuation helicopters and aircraft have no means of defense. Such air superiority has been a given - except for the first months during the Korean War - since the fall of 1944. Anyone who believes that those radical extremists who were willing to fly airliners filled with innocent men and women into purely civilian targets on 9/11/2001 would not happily attack wounded US military anywhere they could is not, in my opinion, living in 2010.

Maintaining that air superiority requires adequate numbers of fighter aircraft and superbly trained personnel to fly and maintain them. Now comes the problem. Such conditions require adequate resources, both material and human. However, those resources - especially funding – are at their lowest ebb since before World War II. We presently devote around 3.65% of our gross domestic product to defense. This low a percentage has not been seen since the middle 1930s.

So what is the answer? We must take as our guide the oath that all of us who have served or are serving in the military took when we entered military service: “…preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies domestic and foreign.” Such preservation and protection must take priority over everything else. If this requires additional DoD resources, so be it. Fulfilling that oath requires nothing less.

Ken Walters is a retired USAF Chief Master Sergeant and a retired senior USAF civil servant. He spent over 50 years as a meteorologist supporting Department of Defense operations worldwide. Ken retired from 14th Weather Squadron here in Asheville in September 2004. He presently is the President of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Air Force Association and an AFA Air Power Advocate. The Walters and their border collie live in Marion.