An F/A 18 dispatched by the United States Navy recorded the U.S. Military’s first air to air kill since 1999 after shooting down a Syrian fighter poised to strike American forces near Tanf. The Naval fighter was dispatched after the Syrian plane released a bomb near Syrian Democratic Forces on the ground. While no one was killed, the Department of Defense was curious how the Syrians were able to get close enough to endanger American lives. The results were released in a press conference early Monday morning. According to senior Air Force officials, the alert fighters that were supposed to be covering the SDF and American forces were grounded for the Air Force wide Transgender Stand Down Day.
Wing Commander Colonel Chris Yeager told reporters that he was informed of the threat but chose to keep the pilots grounded anyway. “Look as a commander you have to balance threats. Sure the threat of getting blown up is bad, but if we don’t get our mandatory training done on time and show up amber on an excel sheet, there’s going to be hell to pay. I get paid to make the hard decisions, and I owe it to our gender non conforming Airpersons to make sure everyone feels special. I really hope the Syrians don’t try anything in the last half of this week. We’ve got SHARP and EO to get through. No way we can provide cover during that time.”
American ground forces were concerned about the delay however. One sergeant who was on the ground with the SDF remarked “I can’t believe this. How have they not learned how to forge an online training certificate by now? Even the Marines get it and all theirs are in crayon. Plus if the Navy is blowing people out of the sky what the hell do we need the Air Force for? It’s seriously becoming just a place to store all the hot chicks in the entire military.”
“Honestly I’m relieved” said Captain Bill Mitchell, one of the Air Force pilots stuck in the training. “I joined the Air Force thinking I’d just fly a bomber around Alaska to pay for college. I didn’t think I’d ever see any actual combat because I mean come on it’s the Air Force. Thank God they didn’t attack during the daily beach volleyball game otherwise not even the Navy would have made it up there.”
Others were less enthused about the mix up. “The Navy has been poaching other peoples’ missions since the Bin Laden raid,” said salty Delta Force operator Hugh McGruff. “Everyone knows that ground combat belongs to the Army and air combat belongs to the Air Force, I mean it’s right there in their name, “Air” Force. So what they hell is the Navy doing in the skies above Syria, or on the ground in Pakistan, anyway? Maybe they should concentrate on not getting their people captured by Iranian sailors or something,” he grumbled before shuffling off to a black helicopter and departing on his fifth raid of the day.
Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldslager made a public statement praising Colonel Yeager but cautioning that the Air Force needs to be ready at all times. “The commander on the ground had a tough call to make and he’s going to get a Bronze Star for it, no question. But this might not have happened had we been a little more ready. I’m afraid I’ve got no choice but to stand the Wing down for a week for mandatory training on the importance of combat readiness.”
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Article 107 News is a satire publication, and you shouldn’t think anything we publish is real. You should, however, mercilessly mock anyone who does. If you want real news, and you should, check out our sister site The Havok Journal.
The real reason the Navy jet did the shoot was because it was there. Mandatory training, to include EO/SHARP/transgender is important for the military, the fact that such training is necessary and regularly conducted is not the point of this article. The point of this article is twofold: 1) there is too much mandatory training in the military, to the point where officers are faced with the dilemma of either “finger drilling” requirements (or falsely reporting their status) or they have to choose the often career-damaging option of telling the truth and looking bad in front of their superiors. 2) we’ve reached the point in our military where professional malfeasance is not only forgiven, but often completely overlooked, but political missteps or ethical lapses are professional death sentences. “A private faces more consequences for losing a rifle than a general does for losing a war.” That should concern all of us.
