Forum: Air Power

Over the course of my career I found it curious how many of the thinkers we now honor for their vision, were in their day, vilified for disrupting the status quo. Men like Billy Mitchell and in more recent times Col John Boyd. In Boyd's case his career was tanked and his theory, the OODA Loop, ignorred. Boyd was written off as a crank--granted a fine stick-and-rudder man but one with no potential for a senior leadership role. Ironically, it was the Marine Corp, specifically Commandant, General Krulak that saw the wisdom in Boyd's method and made it the core of combat skills training for Marine officers. Now, of course, in official USAF publications Boyd is described as "far ahead of his time" blah blah blah.

So my question is who is/are today's military thinkers that we will one day glorify, instead of heeding their advise today(when its needed most?)

By the way this seems to be a uniquely American problem. Emilio Douhit's treatise on airpower, for instance, was embraced fairly quickly in turn-of-the-century Europe

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Me. And I'll prove it by the fact that everyone will ignore this post. Very Happy

Gen Tony McPeak (Ret). LMAO

(Sorry for the sarcasm - can't help it) Everyone who served during his reign will know what I mean.

That was a "Total Quality" reply there Fixer

seriously....can anyone think of someone? I didn't have a name in mind when I started this.

Boyd wasn't ignored. We have the Viper and Eagle and all that follow to prove it. However he, like Mitchell, went well over the top in pushing his views and didn't care who he pi$$ed off. No matter how smart somebody is, you can't reward that kind of behavior...until you're a general apparently Smile

Not today's but just recently....Major General Billy "G" McCoy (Retired USAF, ex 57th FWW / CC) is one of those men in my book, what a visionary and leader this guy was (still is in civilian life).

A bit further back is President Ronald Reagan (my opinion) was another great man (though many argue that), I think he did more good for the USA and the world then any President in my lifetime.

Currently.....Major General Dana Atkins and Lt General Wetekam (who is at the Pentagon now are my choices) both of these men are true leaders, not yes men but doer's!

This may sound egotistical, but almost all of the e-1s through e-4s. When I was a young e-3, I had one wonderful IDEA that could save the Air Force about $2.5M a year. I took it up to upper management, but was ignored, saying that "it doesn't matter, this career field is going civilian anyways." About 2 days later, an e-5 took the exact same IDEA and sent it up to upper management, who approved it and he got the 10Gs for it. Now that I have sewn on e-5, my opinion seems to matter now. I tell you something though, I am NOT one of those supervisors that ignores their airmans' opinion, and I give them full Kudos for it.

Creech? Gen Norwood?

Forum: Air Power

Who are today's ignored thinkers?