Air/Naval Forces exist artificially in their mediums suspended by their platforms; if they fail they can DIE TODAY, not next week or next year. The threat of IMMEDIATE death/maiming in the Air/Sea mediums somewhat keeps the Air Force/Navy centered on functional realities. The Army and marines however, living in buildings are not under immediate threat of death/maiming since the land beneath them sustains them and subsidizes all kinds of absurd, petty and narcissistic behaviors. The garrison "From Here to Eternity" mentality explained:

Now compare the ground force playtime mentality to the deadly serious aircraft mentality post-WW2 from the June 1951 issue of U.S. Naval Aviation News:

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1. This is an outstanding article showing great understanding of how man has gone from fighting the earth at most a horse or ship at 45 mph to killing himself in cars and in airplanes.

2. What is outstanding is the AAR process of WITHOUT DESTROYING THE PILOTS INVOLVED having them spill the beans of everything they know happened WITHOUT THREAT OF LATER ON FUCKING HIM OVER to GET AT THE TRUTH TO PREVENT FUTURE ACCIDENTS.

Is this true today?

From what I see we constantly try to pin blame and destroy the individual in today's military and NEVER look for any systemic failure caused by the organization.

I like the "Granpaw Pettibone" accident section where no one's name is defecated on forever and some humanity and humility is employed when describing "LT. X" who could be any one of us.

3. Are we really smarter with computers today?

I think not.

Notice how they COLOR CODED accidents then and grabbed the bull by the horns and made QUALITATIVE VALUE DECISIONS TO GET AT THE ESSENCE OF PROBLEMS WITH INTUITION. This is EXACTLY what I did with my Iraq casualty analysis 3 years ago which quickly revealed landmines were the 50% cause of our Soldier deaths there: www.geocities.com/militaryincompetence/americaniraqwarcasualties.htm. Notice this kind of truth-seeking doesn't happen in the egomaniac Army/marines otherwise our troops wouldn't be still in BS wheeled trucks driving along un-picketed roads in Iraq/Afghanistan.

Reading these accident reports, its become clear to me that the Corsair is too difficult a plane to fly by the average pilot...among other conclusions factored in now into our on-going LARA 2 proposal.

The remark that in fighter planes you either walk away or be carried away is very profound and troubling and I want to change this.

The early 1950s naval aviation community also puts us to shame today; THEY ACTUALLY LISTEN AND ACT ON THE ADVICE OF SUBORDINATES. Below the magazine asks readers to write in and reveal what they did to avoid accidents without giving up their names lest they be destroyed by the bureaucracy. The Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) doesn't print anything unless its been filtered for BS political or patriotic correctness and lemming allegiance to the HQDA party line.