Post by taxed on Oct 11, 2005 1:06:55 GMT -6
I guess the Air Force will have recruiting problems next year. Isn't it good to know that all is going well in Iraq? They will have elections in December and we will begin our troop pullouts. The Iraqis will be responsible for their own security and we will just sit back and siphon all of their oil. That's what Bush keeps telling us. Stories like this tend to throw hot oil all over his arguments, but what the hey. We're America, we can throw money at any problem and eventually fix it. The world will not be safe until everyone believes in us and has a form of government just like ours.
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WASHINGTON -- Straining to find ground troops to maintain its force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has begun deploying thousands of Air Force personnel to combat zones in new jobs as interrogators, prison sentries and gunners on supply trucks.
The Air Force years ago banked its future on state-of-the-art fighter jets and billion-dollar satellites. Yet the service that long has avoided being pulled into ground operations is finding that its people -- rather than its weapons -- are what the Pentagon needs most as it wages a prolonged war a against a low-tech insurgent enemy.
Individual branches have spent decades carving out their unique roles within the U.S. military, and Air Force officials insist that the redeployment of its airmen is temporary. Nonetheless, the reassignment of Air Force personnel comes as another sign that the Pentagon is struggling to meet the demands of what military officials have begun calling "the long war."
As part of the effort, more than 3,000 Air Force troops are being assigned new roles. And airmen are being dispatched to combat zones for longer tours of duty -- as many as 12 months rather than four.
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WASHINGTON -- Straining to find ground troops to maintain its force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has begun deploying thousands of Air Force personnel to combat zones in new jobs as interrogators, prison sentries and gunners on supply trucks.
The Air Force years ago banked its future on state-of-the-art fighter jets and billion-dollar satellites. Yet the service that long has avoided being pulled into ground operations is finding that its people -- rather than its weapons -- are what the Pentagon needs most as it wages a prolonged war a against a low-tech insurgent enemy.
Individual branches have spent decades carving out their unique roles within the U.S. military, and Air Force officials insist that the redeployment of its airmen is temporary. Nonetheless, the reassignment of Air Force personnel comes as another sign that the Pentagon is struggling to meet the demands of what military officials have begun calling "the long war."
As part of the effort, more than 3,000 Air Force troops are being assigned new roles. And airmen are being dispatched to combat zones for longer tours of duty -- as many as 12 months rather than four.