On the 24th of this month The Huffington Post published an interview with Air Force (AF) General Michael Moseley, the AF Chief of Staff. In this interview General Moseley bemoans the fact that the AF has had to supply some 20,000 AF personnel to serve with the Army in duties outside of their specialities. Some of these specialities are: convoy drivers; provide protection for these convoys; and prison guards. I happen to know a thing or two about this situation.

General Moseley stated that the Air Force supporting the Army in roles that are traditionaly non-Air Force was taxing the Air Force monetarily. I happened to have been in a position with the Air Force at the time when it became known that this type of training was needed to supply AF personnel to support the Army in convoy protection duty. I did some research and found that at the time we had already trained approximately 2,000 airmen to provide this kind of support. All of this training was done on the QT and was done by the Army. The AF powers to be decided that they wanted to put the so called AF stamp of approval on this training and invested untold amounts of money to establish a school that was run by the AF. I objected strongly to this and pointed out that the AF was not trained for this kind of duty and that the Army was the DoD mandated point of contact for infantry type duties. In addition they already had established schools to teach convoy protection duties. I was told to "shut-up and color". If the AF is now strapped for cash it is because they are too parochial, and only beleive in the concept of "joint training" when it serves their need.