The Fifth Installment of Not Your Father's Air Force (I Counted)

From today's AFA Daily Report:

Into the Wild Blue Yonder: The Air Force leadership intends to announce USAF's new motto at the conclusion of the next Corona senior leadership summit in late September. The process of identifying a new motto began in February with airmen given the opportunity to voice their suggestions. Service officials are now close to having a list of 10 candidate mottos that airmen will get the chance to rack and stack in a survey. The top three selections will then be carried into the Corona in Colorado Springs, Colo. The leadership will then decide upon the winner. "The intent is to create a phrase that captures the spirit of the Air Force, is inspirational, and serves as an enduring rallying cry for airmen, from airmen," said Gen. Howie Chandler, USAF Vice Chief of Staff. (SAF/PA report by TSgt. Amaani Lyle)

Facepalm.  

That whirring sound you hear is Billy Mitchell, Jimmy Doolittle, Curt LeMay, and MANY others spinning in their graves.  Can you IMAGINE Gen. LeMay uttering the words "The intent is to create a phrase that captures the spirit of the Air Force, is inspirational, and serves as an enduring rallying cry for airmen, from airmen..."?  Me neither.  I had a soft spot in my heart for LeMay's "We'll bomb the bastards back into the Stone Age."

Update:  Speaking of LeMay (in an offhand way), today marks the 65th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.  A short blurb from a piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

This week marks 65 years since the United States dropped the atomic bomb. On Aug. 6, 1945, President Harry Truman delivered a "rain of ruin" upon Hiroshima, Japan, with Nagasaki hit three days later, killing 100,000 to 200,000 people.

Truman's objective was to compel surrender from an intransigent enemy that refused to halt its naked aggression. The barbarous mentality of 1940s Japan was beyond belief. An entire nation had lost its mind, consumed by a ferocious militarism and hellbent on suicide. Facing such fanaticism, Truman felt no alternative but to use the bomb. As George C. Marshall put it, the Allies needed something extraordinary "to shock [the Japanese] into action." Nothing else was working. Japan was committed to a downward death spiral, with no end in sight.

This is more about Harry Truman than Gen. LeMay, granted.  But Gen. LeMay commanded 20th Air Force, the guys who dropped the bomb.  Read the whole thing.