Hmmm, if only a ground combat service had integrated fixed and rotary wing air wings? And if the senior officer would command the combined air, ground, and logistics support from a command element?
Wait, one does! From the halls of....
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As much as I respect the US Army and Air Force personnel and capabilities, it was always comforting to me that our USMC pilots had the same training to include new and better ways to crawl through the mud with full combat gear and rifles in Marine Corps (officer) The Basic School (TBS). Many of our pilots would serve a "ground tour" as a foward air controller (MOS 8002). Later as a new Warrant Officer, after being a Gunnery Sergeant, I also had the pleasure of re-learning the joy of crawling through the mud, again and again.
Almost 40 years ago, a Marine Corps Commandant stated the correct position of a F/A-18 (F/A being Fighter / Attack) is in a 45-Degree bombing angle. It was an evening in 1978 when deployed at Camp Lejeune OP-5, AV-8A Harriers were dropping napalm. Those British-made birds were swooping in at a shallow dive angle as Lance Corporal me, and Sergeant's Kirl and Garcia a quarter mile away watched large napalm canisters falling from the Harriers' undersides. The birds were close to the ground, maybe 100 to 200 feet, maybe. The planes were a little ahead of the strike point of the canisters. Suddenly the earth erupted in a fast, forward moving fire rising twice the Harriers' height, engulfing them. A half or full second later the Harriers exited the flames only to rise up and come around again for another drop.
Then and there I gained a lot of respect of Marine Corps pilots.
www.bbc.com
