The Greens are preoccupied with putting bombs on target. The Blues are preoccupied with trivia like stopping people from whizzing in the woods outside the Officer’s Club after Happy Hour and making sure your ribbons are in the right order on your official photo. The Greens are shooters, the Blues shoe clerks. The Greens take wing in chariots of fire like sky gods. The Blues do essential tasks like stock the warehouses, maintain the motor pool, and push piles of paperwork around base. The Blue Air Force wears the blue uniform to work while the Green Air Force wears fatigues and flight suits. The Air Force is culturally divided into two camps: The Blue Air Force and The Green Air Force. It reminds me of that bland, horrible impressionist art that hangs in the hallways of some corporations, carefully chosen to be pretty and offend nobody. My impression was that the Air Force was about fighting, about flying behind enemy lines to deliver bombs to deserving targets while dodging ground defenses and dogfighting enemy fighters to get through. The Thunderbirds are also a fine group but the core mission of the Air Force is not to entertain the general public with flying circuses. The whole design of the Air Force Memorial is inspired by the bomb burst aerial stunt performed by the Thunderbirds, the Air Force demonstration squadron that flies at air shows. I’m sure the guys in the honor guard are fine fellows but the Air Force isn’t about honor guards. It's about Marines whupping ass.Ĭompare those colossal heroic Marines perched on Suribachi to this bronze of an Air Force honor guard at the bottom of the Air Force Memorial and you wonder what weenie bureaucrat signed off on that. Now THAT’s a memorial! It’s the Gold Standard for military memorials, realistically portraying real humans in real battle. The Marine Memorial over in Rosslyn features the Marines heroically planting Old Glory on top of Mount Suribachi.
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