This story was in the dead-tree edition of the Rapid City Journal today, but I found a similar version of it online at the Las Cruces Sun-News. Air Force personnel are backing up the Army on the ground in Iraq.
They are part of a small but steady stream of airmen being trained to do Army duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.
Seems they're bringing Air Force guys back to Camp Bullis in Texas to train them on the Army way of doing things.
It's an interesting story in and of itself, since even Air Force ground combat units--the few that there are--don't normally have much of a role beyond the relatively short defense perimeter outside an air base.
But it's more interesting to me personally since I used to be one of these Air Force guys (note the younger, thinner, more-haired me above at Bullis). I was in one of the last classes to be trained in Air Base Ground Defense (ABGD) at Camp Bullis, Texas (an Army base) back in 1987; they moved the school to Fort Dix about six classes after mine.
There were no tears shed (at least not by us trainees) at the thought of Bullis closing; it was off the beaten path near San Antonio, many of the instructors were a bunch of egotistical jerks, and it was just one of the most un-fun schools an Air Force geek could go through.
But now Bullis is back in business. Bad guys beware! The U.S. military will do what it takes to take you out!
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