TACPs Tangle with Brass to Keep the A-10s

(Image by Daryl Cagle)

Congress and some US Air Force generals have discovered how much of an unruly lot my fellow TACPs can be. 

In our collective professional opinion there's one aircraft that can perform Close Air Support (CAS) missions better than any airframe ever made: 

The A-10 Thunderbolt_II.

Which, now that I think of it, I've only heard civilians refer to the aircraft as the "Thunderbolt."  To us former and current CAS Specialists it's more affectionately known as the "Warthog," or simply "Hog."

Now the Air Force, once again, wants to send what remaining A-10s we have to the boneyard.

But my TACP brethren aren't saluting smartly and saying "yes sir!"  Instead, they bypassed the brass and took the battle to Congress.

At least two generals considered active-duty members who support retaining our passel of Hogs to be insubordinate, and lacking a "sense of good order and discipline."

Disrupting good order and discipline is what my fellow TACPs love to do to our enemies on the battlefield.

We're more than happy to disrupt the shenanigans inside the Hallowed Halls of Political Power.