Commentary: Wingmen needed – will you rise to the challenge?

  • Published
  • By Maj. Chris Penningroth
  • 612th Combat Plans Division
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  There has been anecdotal evidence throughout history that not everyone who engages in combat "fires for effect" (think of the movie The Patriot where several actors wielding muskets literally turn their heads away from the enemy before firing). Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall offered a study of combat veterans in his book Men Against Fire. He found that only 25 percent or fewer soldiers would fire aimed shots at the enemy. He also went on to define the concept of battlefield morale and the way it influences fighting men. General Marshall's theorems offer some insight into the way we make decisions as a small group and the way wingmen can positively influence the outcome of "tactical" decision-making.

General Marshall described the modern battlefield as a cold, empty place where nothing stirs and the infantryman feels like he is completely isolated, completely alone in the greatest mortal danger he has ever experienced. There are similarities with the aerial battlefield, where an individual occupies a single seat with no one else within a mile. Several of my instructors at the F-16 basic qualification course at Luke Air Force Base had recently returned from Operation ALLIED FORCE. While they stressed to us students the importance of reviewing mission materials one last time as we were being armed at the end of the runway, a couple of them said that paramount in their minds was "will my wingman be there for me?" The words of these veterans of ALLIED FORCE tend to validate General Marshall's theory.

Across the entire Air Force, we always require our wingmen to help us do our jobs. In all flight line operations, our co-pilots, loadmasters, boom operators, navigators, crew chiefs, maintenance personnel and support staff are all vital to ensuring we arrive on time with our cargo intact or our fuel offloaded. In missile operations our wingmen are the deputy crew commanders, without whom a launch is impossible. In firefighting, our wingmen are our fellow firemen, ready to pull us out of a conflagration. In security forces, our wingmen are our patrol partners, our automatic backup. In tactical air control parties, our Radio Operator Maintainer and Drivers (ROMAD) ensure the radios in the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles work so Controllers can successfully talk bombs from jets to targets. No one in the Air Force "goes it alone" on the battlefield.

We Airmen sign our names on the dotted line out of patriotism or out of hope for a better future that we trust America can provide. But patriotism doesn't pull the trigger in combat. A sense of self-preservation of you and your comrades-in-arms is the cerebral genesis of the "Pull!" message that goes to the trigger finger.

Wingmen are critical everywhere, both in peacetime and in combat, whether the correct call is "FOX THREE" or "555-TAXI." As General Marshall observed, the peer leader, the one who "fires for effect" would not do his job -the "right thing" -without the moral support of those around him. I challenge you to be that moral support, not only during your tenure in the Air Force, but for life--yours and your wingman's.