#U.S. Airmen

[military1st]

U.S. Airmen during a small unit training at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

The U.S. Air Force photo by Alejandro Peña (2020).

[stone-cold-groove]

Peace is our profession.

[still-searching-for-something]

Seriously, the glorification of violent suicide as the greatest form of protest that a person can engage in on the pro-Palestine side deeply shocks me. What’s next? If we can justify violent, traumatic public suicides in pure agony, are we so far off from justifying violent public murder suicides? If a person suicide bombs a synagogue and shouts “I am engaging in an extreme form of protest to raise awareness, but it’s nothing compared to what Palestine is going through! Goodbye! Free Palestine!” just before he blows up, what will the reaction be?

Will they loudly and publicly condemn this act of domestic terrorism? Will they say “We disavow any and all antisemitic violence and we stand with the Jewish community in this difficult time?” Will they do some introspection and realize they’ve been radicalized and indulging in the oldest form of hate in the world?

These people have been claiming the man who self immolated was a hero with courage. What does that make a man who “takes the fight to the Zionists!” What does that make the man so devoted to the cause of “freeing Palestine” that he won’t just die for it, but kill for it?

This is why we Jews are so incredibly unnerved and nervous right now. I already have to worry about getting doxxed, stalked, assaulted, and insulted for wearing a Magen David, for attending shul, and for refusing to play the left’s purity politics game and disavow my Jewish identity. Do we also need to start worrying about being suicide bombed by US airmen with two kids who’s so disgusted by the Jewish state defending itself but not the U.S. fighting in the Afghanistan war? Do I need to be on the lookout for people with bulging vests and a literally burning desire to become another martyr?

Enough. Seriously. If you’re mentally prepared to kill yourself for a cause, you’re mentally prepared to kill others for it. Even the most Zionist Zionists that I’ve seen aren’t demanding people kill themselves to save Israel. Martyrdom stands in opposition to everything we stand for—because we know life is precious. We are commanded to violate almost any mitzvah to save a life. If you’re reading this plea for calm and your first instinct is to leave a snarky comment about Zionists not understanding the weight of that man’s “sacrifice”, then this post is about you.

You are on the road to radicalization. You are being indoctrinated into a cult. You are being groomed to either justify, deny, or perpetrate antisemitic violence. Please, for the love of God, stop. Please stop self immolating yourselves. Please understand where you are going. I am begging you to stop killing yourselves here. Seriously. This isn’t a game.

[mimi-0007]

Paul Adams 1920-2013, joined the Tuskegee Airmen shortly after graduating from South Carolina State University. He flew with the 332nd Fighter Squadron (the famed "Red Tails") throughout WWII. He would retire from the military in 1962. He then would become a teaching in the Lincoln (NE) public school system. They named Adams Elementary school for him in 2008.

Paul Adams and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American aviators in the U.S. military, whose distinguished record many historians credit with helping pave the way for the civil rights movement.

The group set an unprecedented record, flying more than 1,500 missions in Europe and North Africa. Adam served in nine major campaigns and received the Commendation Medal with three Oak Leaf clusters, each of which signifies subsequent bestowals of the same honor.

Doane College recognized him with the President's Honor of Distinction Award the same year. In 2007, he received the Congressional Gold Medal along with other Tuskegee Airmen, who were known as "guardian angels" by white airmen who were escorted by the African-American pilots during the war. Adams received a bronze replica at a ceremony in Lincoln. Doane College recognized him with the President's Honor of Distinction Award the same year.

And two years later, Adams, at President Barack Obama's invitation, attended the inauguration of the first black president along with other Tuskegee Airmen. Adams went on to become one of the first black teachers in LPS, and in 2008, his accomplishments were honored when the district named a new school after him.

He became a frequent visitor at Adams Elementary, where books about Tuskegee Airmen fill the library and teachers make a point to read them to students. The history became an integral part of Adams Elementary school

[readyforevolution]

History They Didn't Teach You In School

Scholars have left him out of the history books and Hollywood couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge his existence either. He was Howard Hughes’ top engineer and lifelong best friend. This is about Frank Mann, the hidden genius behind much of Howard Hughes’ success in the world of aviation and mechanics. Frank Calvin Mann (November 22, 1908 – November 30, 1992) was an African American engineer who was known for his participation in many Howard Hughes's projects including the Spruce Goose. He also starred in the Amos 'n' Andy radio show. Apparently, his lifelong friendship with Hughes was instrumental in opening doors for Mann's exceptional talents.

A native of Houston, Texas, Frank Calvin Mann's parents wanted him to become a schoolteacher, but from childhood, he had a natural ability to fix things. At age 11, he had his own mechanic shop. As a teenager, he worked alongside airplane mechanics, repairing engines. By the ago of 20, he had designed and built several of his own Model-T cars. It was unheard of in the 1920s for a Black man to have anything to do with cars, trains, or airplanes. His life-long friend Howard Hughes was instrumental in opening doors for Mann's exceptional talents.

Mann attended the University of Minnesota and UCLA where he earned a mechanical engineering degree. World War II equipment that revolutionized military weaponry would not exist if not for his involvement. Incredibly, few Americans are aware of Frank Mann. He was the first Black commercial pilot for American Airways. He was also a distinguished military officer. In 1935, following Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Frank Mann flew reconnaissance missions for the Ethiopian army.

He served in the World War II Army Air Corps and was the primary civilian instructor of the famous Tuskegee Airmen in 1941. He left Tuskegee after a rift with the U.S. government, which didn't want the Squadron, an all-Black unit, flying the same high caliber of airplanes as their White counterparts. An angry Mann had refused to have his men fly old "World War I biplane crates," because his airmen had proven themselves as equals.

Though they were being given inferior equipment and materials, their squadron never lost a plane, bomber, or pilot, and they were nicknamed the "Red Tails.” After the war, Mann was instrumental in designing the first Buick LeSabre automobile and the first communications satellite launched for commercial use.

His pride and joy was a miniature locomotive enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute, Mann also played a principal role in the Amos ‘N’ Andy radio show. He moved back to his hometown in the 1970s.

Frank Mann died November 30, 1992 in Houston.

[captain-price-unofficially]

U.S. Air Force special tactics Airmen with the 320th Special Tactics Squadron pull an MC-130J Commando II across the flightline during Monster Mash, an operational readiness and resilience training exercise May 5, 2023, at Kadena Air Base, Japan

[dangerousthingobservation]

F-15C Eagles from the 44th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron - PICRYL - Public Domain Media Search Engine Public Domain Search

Download Image of F-15C Eagles from the 44th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron. Free for commercial use, no attribution required. F-15C Eagles from the 44th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron takeoff at Prince Sultan Air Base, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Aug. 25, 2020. The 44th EFS conduct flying sorties daily to deliver air dominance in the U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Cary Smith). Dated: 24.08.2020. Topics: deployed, centcom, uscentcom, saudi arabia, deterrence, afcent, f 15 eagle, usafcent, air force, united states air force, usaf, air dominance, deployed airmen, kingdom of saudi arabia, ksa, cary smith, staff sgt cary smith, prince sultan air base, psab, 378 aew, 378th air expeditionary wing, 378th aew, wintoday, prevailtomorrow, 44 efs provides deterrence support to region, dvids, ultra high resolution, high resolution, jet aircraft, military aircraft, us air force

[usafphantom2]

On this day in 1941, the U.S. Army establishes the 99th Pursuit Squadron, America's first all-Black flying unit. They'll go down in history as the "Tuskegee Airmen" — a reference to the group's Alabama training field.

@Milhistorynow via X

[aviationgeek71]

Major General Claire L Chennault, Commander of the 14th Air force, drops in for a chat with U.S. airmen in China.

[mariacallous]

The collapse of the Afghan state amid the United States’ withdrawal in 2021 gifted the new Taliban government with more than $7 billion worth of U.S. military equipment. Afghanistan’s new overlords suddenly found themselves with fleets of Humvees, mountains of machine guns, and forests of radars and satellite dishes. The vast hardware hoard also included dozens of aircraft: a motley mix of Hind and Blackhawk helicopters, cargo planes, and close air support props.

Before the Taliban even had time to inventory their new arsenal, Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Nash’at arrived in Kabul. From his home in Berlin, he had seen the scenes of civilians storming Kabul’s international airport in a desperate attempt to flee, and he had managed to obtain permission to come to Afghanistan and film. But his plan—to record the suffering of ordinary Afghans—was swiftly dashed. Accompanied by a Taliban minder at all times and forbidden to film anyone other than a Taliban commander and his men, Nash’at was forced to switch tack. That commander happened to be Mawlawi Mansour, the Taliban fighter in charge of creating a new Taliban air force from the equipment and pilots who were left behind.

Under orders from Mansour, Nash’at became the unexpected chronicler of a high-profile facet of Afghanistan’s regime change. The result is Hollywoodgate, a 90-minute documentary named after the sprawling U.S. base in Kabul, where the Taliban created their new air force after U.S. forces fled. In a total of seven months in the new Afghanistan and assisted only by a lone translator, Nash’at shot 220 hours of footage, later culled down with a team of five producers and nine Afghan translators. Overcoming his subjects’ extreme suspicion, Nash’at managed eventually to blend into Taliban meetings, inspections, and military missions, becoming so invisible that his subjects forgot about his camera and relaxed.

Mansour takes command of the former U.S. air base and immediately sets to work. He inspects his new force and is impressed by the scale of U.S. resources. But he is appalled by their Spartan aesthetics; “plant some trees here” is a constant command to scurrying subordinates as Mansour strides across the base. Taliban conversations show a sudden inversion: Off-screen holdouts against the new regime are “the insurgents” opposed by “our special forces.”

For Mansour’s men, the order of the day is repairing aircraft, many of which were purposely disabled by departing U.S. forces. After a perfunctory grilling, a handful of pilots from the old Afghan air force are welcomed into the new force. (Many others had fled with their aircraft to neighboring countries.) Training new Taliban pilots will take time, but Mansour gets a course up and running, his lecturers aided by a cardboard mock-up of a cockpit.

Women are immediately pushed to the margins of the new Afghanistan. With a whiff of amusement at their past effrontery, Mansour dictates that women in his ministry may return to work, but only if they are veiled. His own wife, he brags to his staff, is a doctor, but he restricted her to the home upon marriage.

The mood among Mansour’s future Taliban airmen is upbeat. We see low-ranking fighters exulting in their victory over the Americans and “the Jews.” An ambitious lieutenant is showered in confetti to celebrate his acceptance into the new air force academy. A gleeful door guard flags every comrade passing him in the hall with his U.S.-made M-4 rifle—the cocktail of frivolity and danger that characterizes many an insurgency or militia in the poorest parts of the world.

At times, the new overlords can verge on endearing. Mansour and his men visit the base’s well-appointed gym, where one Talib struggles to press a pair of dumbbells above his head. The boss steps on a treadmill and happily plods along, ordering one sent to his home “to make my belly smaller.”

I witnessed a very similar scene when I was deployed to Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine more than a decade ago. When we handed over a coalition patrol base to one of the Afghan government’s paramilitary forces, the incoming commander breezed by the fortifications, operations center, and mess hall. But a derelict elliptical trainer in our sandy outdoor gym fascinated him. He hopped aboard with a big grin and churned away, to the bemusement of the handful of watching Marines.

Outside the tight circle in which he was permitted to film, Nash’at was far less welcome, he told me in an interview this summer. In his wordless brushes with Afghan civilians, he felt indicted by their stares. He was convinced that they saw him as an Arab propagandist—a voyeur who had come to Afghanistan to see and celebrate the Taliban’s triumph.

Despite the restrictions placed on him as an outsider, Nash’at managed to get glimpses of ordinary Afghan life. Children occasionally appear onscreen, and we get a sense of the extent to which they have been formed and traumatized by a lifetime of war. Hanging on a tow ring of a hulking mine-resistant vehicle, one boy in a camouflage shalwar kameez mumbles that he will “take a weapon and kill you all.”

After months of maintenance, training, and reorganization, Mansour gets his triumph. Toward the end of Nash’at’s filming, the Taliban stage a military parade for their own men and a handful of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian dignitaries. After a show of marching infantry, armored vehicles, and a battalion intended for suicide bombing on motorcycles, Hinds and Blackhawks fly past the grandstand. It’s a successful first operation for the Taliban’s new air force, even if the fly-by is bit too fast for Mansour’s liking.

In the film’s final scene, Mansour is seen on his cell phone berating an official at the Tajikistan Defense Ministry for harboring the Taliban’s enemies. Nash’at told me he believes that many Taliban have aims beyond Afghanistan’s borders. One high-ranking leader told him, “I can’t wait until we conquer Egypt.” The Taliban believe they and their forebears have turned Afghanistan into the graveyard of empires, defeating the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and now the United States. One fighter exults that “with American weapons we will rule the world!”

Whatever their intentions, the film also leaves viewers skeptical of the Taliban’s ability to wield meaningful military power. Like many journalists since then, Nash’at immediately picked up on the boredom among the Taliban fighters that followed on the heels of military victory. While negotiating Kabul’s traffic in a sedan just weeks after the city’s fall, one of Mansour’s lieutenants tells the filmmaker that he already longs for war: the return of the Americans, 500 bullets, and martyrdom. Late in the film, an enthusiastic crowd of Taliban tries to pile into an aircraft for a VIP test flight and are beaten off with curses by Mansour’s men. Afghanistan’s new rulers are likely to have their hands full just keeping discipline among their own former fighters.

Nash’at likened the realities of governing after fighting to coming down from a narcotic high. Building a bureaucracy seems much harder work than winning a war. Staff meetings and wrangling over budgets are a poor substitute for ambushes and assaults. Early in the film, one Talib waxes nostalgic for the life of an insurgent, showing Nash’at the cave he and a few other men took refuge in.

Despite his fear and disgust of the Taliban, Nash’at believes that the West should engage them. He said that if they are ignored, they will act out for the world’s attention, to the detriment of their own people and the region. But he harbors no illusions that such engagement will yield swift changes in the character of the Taliban.

With Hollywoodgate, now streaming after a limited theatrical release, Nash’at may not have made the film he originally set out to make. The suffering of the Afghan people was walled off from him. The Taliban’s strictures confined him to a narrow lane and, as he notes in an introductory voice-over, to the story they wanted to tell the world. But if the Taliban thought that they had put Nash’at on a short enough leash to force him to produce a piece of propaganda for the new regime, they were mistaken, too.

After Mansour’s air show, Taliban secret police demanded that Nash’at come to their office and show them all of his footage. As he told IndieWire in an interview, he knew then that his work was done: “I was filming the transformation of a militia into a military regime, and I realized at that moment the transformation was complete.” Through empathy, patience, and not a little audacity, Nash’at succeeded in capturing a story of Afghan nation-building—but a far different one than almost any Westerner could have imagined 20 years before.

[todaysdocument]

Black Sheep Squadron (VMF-214) – WWII Boyington

Record Group 127: Records of the U.S. Marine CorpsSeries: Photographic Reference FileFile Unit: General – Black Sheep Squadron (VMF-214) – WWII Boyington

This black and white photograph shows three Marine pilots posing with baseball bats over the wing of a military plane.  They are holding the bats as though they were guns.  All three wear St. Louis Cardinals’ caps.  Palm trees are in the background.

Transcription of text from the reverse of the photo:

WEARING CARDINAL CAPS: These Leather- neck fighter pilots in the South Pacific hope to catch more Japanese airmen off base. The baseball motif was inspired by 20 caps sent Major Gregory Boyington's Squadron by the St. Louis Cardinals. The ball caps were worn traditionally by Marine pilots when not actually flying. Left to right: On a Corsair fighter Wing, 1st Lieutenant Robert W. McClurg, 3 Zeros; 1st Lieutenant Paul A. Mullen, 3 Zeros; 1st Lieutenant Edwin L. Olander, 3 Zeros.

[banks-lawson]

Banks Lawson of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing of the U.S. Air Force. Stationed at Bagram Air Base. December 12, 2019.

“This one is good!” Banks called out as he smacked the side of the Black Hawk helicopter he just finished inspecting. “Number 3184 ready for liftoff whenever you’re ready, sir.” Turning, Banks saluted to his superior, Colonel Altman.

“Stand down, Lawson. I’ll take it from here.” The Colonel disappeared into an aircraft hangar to grab the group that would be taking 3184 to the nearby medical hospital.

The day before was hell on earth. The airbase was attacked by a suicide bomber that left 80 wounded and 1 killed. Black Hawk 3184 would be transporting the more critical patients to a safer place to recover.

Banks assisted wheeling gurneys onto the aircraft while doctors and nurses manned their medications and ventilators. It felt surreal. After being stationed there for years, this was the first time Banks witnessed true destruction. He’d been lucky until then; simply repairing and inspecting aircrafts on the day to day. Now, he was watching people with amputated limbs and bloody bandages load into a helicopter he inspected.

Banks and the rest of the airmen staying on the ground watched as the Black Hawk lifted into the clouds and disappeared, silently praying to themselves for safe travels and lives saved.

“Back to work!” Colonel Altman barked, making them all disperse to continue working on the endless amount of repairs that needed done from the previous day’s attacks.

An hour later, everyone’s radios started to pick up the same message. “Mayday, mayday!” Afraid of another bombing, Banks grabbed his radio and took cover beside the plane he’d been working on. “Is anyone there?” They asked. Banks heard a voice over the commotion answer the mayday. “Colonel Altman here. What are your coordinates? What’s happening?”

“It’s Black Hawk 3184.” The shaky voice spoke through the static. “All engines have failed. We’re going down.”

[thechildrensmuseum]

During World War II, around 1,000 Black pilots were trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to be a part of the U.S. Army Air Corps. It was the first time the U.S. had opened its doors to Black pilots. This print entitled 'The Lonely Angels' is of the famous Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group, also known as the Red Tail Bombers. They were responsible for escorting and protecting American bombers from German fighter planes, and had one of the lowest loss records of any escort flying group. 

[military1st]

U.S. Airmen during live fire training at an undisclosed location, which consisted of responding to incoming enemy fire and night-time shooting.

The U.S. Air Force photo (2024).