|
Description
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The third of the three-part "Living Legends series concluded at the Pentagon Conference Center on July 19, 2007. The the final session was Modern Warfare: Desert Storm, OIF and OEF." On the topic of training, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, pointed out differences between Desert Storm and current operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. He noted advancements in intelligence collection capabilities and technology, progress in joint service operations and improved air-to-ground coordination and communication. Maj. Gen. Charles Link, USAF (Ret.) focused on leadership. Prior to commissioning in 1963, General Link was an enlisted aircraft mechanic. He cited several enlisted members and officers he encountered.
GENERAL DEPTULA: Thanks, Lucky. I appreciate it and it's a real pleasure to be here. I was telling General Link and General Campbell that this is the only way to get me down to the POAC [Pentagon Officers' Athletic Club] to talk about history, the Air Force, and air power. I am probably going to stray a little bit further beyond the training aspects but they are significant and I do feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate as a planner for General "Chuck" Horner during Desert Storm and then again ten years later as the Director of the Air Operations Center (AOC) for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) because it gave me a unique opportunity to see the differences between then and now. I am going to go through some things here relatively quickly because there's a lot to cover.
I would like to talk about some of the significant differences and implications of modern warfare: what went right, what we need to do better, and what I consider some of the most important lessons from Desert Storm to today.
Back then, during Desert Storm, the command and control focus was on the Tactical Air Control Center (TACC). It was all a very tactical focus. The numbered air forces at that time were viewed as sleepy-hollows. Command and control was something that most real airmen did not really pay a whole lot of attention to, because it was all about "turning and burning," right?
The big difference really became evident during OEF. We took away a heck of a lot of proper lessons from our experience in Desert Storm and folks did focus on improving Command and Control and Air Operations Centers (AOCs) were developed as weapons systems. Gen. John Jumper was an ardent advocate and one of the prime reasons in making that happen. We changed our focus. We began to train planners to think at the operational level. We talked about strategy to task. We instituted SAAS (the School of Advanced Airpower Studies). We began to teach people about how to employ and think about planning at the operational level. The NAFs now had a new focus as war fighters. We started to talk about an effects based approach to planning. The other thing that I think helped a whole lot was that we evolved from a single weapons school focus to multiple disciplines. Well, to some of the old fighter pilots who were still around, that kind of stuck in their craw. It was a good thing for the Air Force however, because what it did was to bring the different disciplines to understand that "Wow, you know what? Space does have a contribution to make." And those Intel "toads," they had something that they could contribute too, and everyone got to understand each others' capabilities a little bit better and that allowed us to move forward. There was a huge difference in terms of goodness from my perspective than from when I sat in the Black Hole in 1991 and watched these enormous fights between the operators and the Intel folks. (I not only watched them but participated in them.) Let me tell you of an insightful event that occurred after the war had commenced. You need to understand that the planners were located in the basement of the Royal Saudi Air Force headquarters, and the CENTAF intelligence function was over in the "SCIF" in a soccer field behind the U.S. Military Training Mission, which was about 200 yards away. One day an Intel captain came into the office and said, "Sir, here are two boxes of imagery!" It was like manna from heaven. We were trying to find out the impact of the execution of the air campaign. He said, "I really feel bad about this but the Director of Targets said not to bring these over here because they were afraid that you guys might lose them."
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Well, I seriously considered bringing court martial charges against the Director of CENTAF Intelligence for sabotage. It was really, really bad. Anyway, it has much, much improved. I've... |
Looking for additional articles?
Click here
to search our database of over 3 million articles.
|
%20%20&position=1)