Today’s Air Force puts people first

Maj. Gen. Howard Thompson / NORAD and USNORTHCOM Chief of Staff

September 16 marks the 64th birthday of our great Air Force. Sixty-four years ago, then President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 which, among other things, created the United States Air Force under our first Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington, grandfather of our U.S. political adviser, Ambassador William Symington. We’ve come a long way in those 64 years ... further when you count the early dark years — yes, the years we spent as part of the Army.

All kidding aside, when we started, flying was still a novelty and the military was still looking for the best way to use air power as an arm of military power ... One thing we do know is we’ve never failed to take and rule the air when our country needed us to.

We were forged in the fire of a world war, first in France under Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell, and later, led by Spaatz, Eaker, and Doolittle, we bombed Nazi Germany in broad daylight, knowing that many of our Airmen would not return.

When the Soviet Union blocked the roads into Berlin and blocked supplies into the city, we sent nearly two-and-half million tons of supplies over the course of 15 months until the Soviets had enough and lifted the blockade.

We’ve participated in hundreds of humanitarian and disaster relief operations around the globe, starting only a few weeks after the creation of our service with a mission to fly vaccines to Egypt to fight a cholera epidemic.

We’ve built a global strike capability unprecedented in human history, able to put people, cargo or ordnance anywhere in the world within the space of hours. We started with balloons manned by men with telescopes and patted ourselves on the back for holding the high ground. Today that high ground is the earth’s orbit, and yes, we still hold it.

Today, our Airmen are a part of missions that men like Vandenberg, Arnold, and LeMay would never have dreamed of: Remotely piloting aircraft from thousands of miles away, running convoys outside the wire in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ... at NORAD and USNORTHCOM, protecting our homelands 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But the Air Force is about much more than its missions, more than its technology. It’s always been about its people, its Airmen.

Every enlisted Airman who’s ever tested for rank knows the story of Staff Sgt. Henry Erwin. In April of 1945, Erwin, a radio operator aboard a B-29, grabbed a burning flare that had gone off prematurely, and though badly wounded by it, carried it to the front of the aircraft and hurled it out the co-pilot’s window. Horribly burned, he wasn’t expected to survive. A week later, Curtis LeMay awarded him the Medal of Honor.

Now, that’s where the story in the Professional Development Guide ends, but for anyone who might find it odd that this Airman received the military’s highest honor a week after the event when it takes that long just to get your laundry back, there’s more to the story.

Miraculously, Erwin did survive, but at the time no one thought he would. It was thought he wouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks, and Gen. LeMay was adamant that he would not receive a Medal of Honor posthumously. He wasn’t going to tolerate it. So, he sent one of his B-29 crews to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with orders that they were not to return without a Medal of Honor.

After searching the bases at Pearl Harbor, the B-29 crew found the only Medal of Honor on the island in a display case ... which they then proceeded to “liberate” for the war effort.

LeMay gave Erwin his Medal of Honor, and a few months later, the paperwork came back approved. Now, I’m not about to go on record as condoning stealing from displays, but it’s telling what Lemay and these Airmen were willing to do for one of their own. It’s telling what Erwin was willing to do for his crewmates.

Our Air Force is not the greatest in the world because of its advanced weapons, or its satellites or its aircraft. It’s the best because it’s full of men and women who hold true to one another. Sixty-four years later, we still do. Happy Birthday Air Force.

Remarks from a speech at the NORAD and USNORTHCOM Air Force Birthday celebration Sept. 16. Thompson is the ranking Air Force officer in the two commands.