“I said be silent, Admiral,” Chin said angrily. “That is your final warning.”
Admiral Sun looked as if he was going to continue the argument— but a reassuring glance from the president himself, Jiang Zemin, caused him to relent. He bowed, folded his hands, kept his head lowered, and did not raise his eyes again for most of the rest of the meeting. He’d taken the chance to get his ideas presented in front of the Commission, and he’d failed, and he’d dishonored himself in doing so.
“We will begin preparations for the invasion of Quemoy immediately,” President Jiang announced. “The carrier battle group will be diverted north with its invasion force to blockade the island. Within thirty days, comrades, victory will be ours! ”
“Like most transitions, my friends,” Air Force Lieutenant General Terrill Samson, commander of Eighth Air Force, began in a deep, emotional voice, “today we are witnesses to both an end and a beginning. Although you might have a tough task believing this is a happy occasion, I believe it truly is.” Samson was standing before a crowd of about two hundred out on the flight line in front of Base Operations at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. It was still early in the morning, and the event was scheduled early to avoid the inevitable summer heat and humidity common this time of year.
Flanking Samson was the wing commander of Air Combat Command s Second Bomb Wing, Brigadier General George Vidriano, along with members of the staff of Eighth Air Force, the major Air Force operational command that for years had organized, trained, and equipped America’s bomber forces, and Colonel Joseph Maxwell, commander of the 917th Wing of the Air Force Reserves based at Barksdale. Standing at parade rest next to him was a detail of officers and NCOs, carrying small blue-and-gold squadron guidons, representing the various squadrons based at Barksdale. Behind Samson were three Air Force aircraft, washed, waxed, and polished as brilliantly as if they had just rolled off the assembly line: a T-38 Talon jet trainer used for copilot proficiency training, an A-10 Thunderbolt II close-air support attack jet, and a huge, light gray B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber, with cruise missiles hanging off its wing pylons.
“We are here today,” General Samson continued, “to stand down one of the world’s premier bomber units, the Second Bomb Wing, and to retire the last of this nation’s most successful aerial war machines, the B- 52 Stratofortress bomber. In the sixty-four year history of Barksdale Air Force Base, the men and women assigned here have stood at the forefront of our nation’s peace and security. They have proved this by an impressive string of awards and achievements: the Fairchild Trophy for the best bomber wing in bombing and navigation competition; twelve Air Force Outstanding Unit citations; and sixteen Eighth Air Force Outstanding Unit Awards.
“But what makes me proudest of this base’s legacy is its commitment to its community. The people of Bossier City and Shreveport, and the soldiers of Barksdale, have been tightly linked, supporting one another through good times and bad, through triumphs and tragedies. I was privileged to serve as a wing commander of the Second Bomb Wing during my career — the year we missed the Fairchild Trophy by missing one time-over-target by eleven seconds, I hasten to add — and so I know firsthand the link that has always existed between the uniformed and civilian members of the Bossier City and Shreveport community. It is a tradition that has set the standard for the rest of the United States’ armed services.
“I am pleased to tell you that the Air Force is giving back to this great community a great deal of the support that we have received over the decades. Barksdale Air Force Base will become Barksdale Jetport, with a variety of aviation and non-aviation businesses relocating here with state and federal assistance, including an aviation-career campus of Louisiana State University; the base hospital will become a joint Veterans Administration and community hospital; and the other buildings, housing units, and dormitories on base will be used for a variety of programs and industries, including job retraining and agricultural research.
“In addition, the men and women of the 9-17th Wing of the Air Force Reserves under Brigadier General selectee Maxwell will still be here with the A-10 Thunderbolt II, but will eventually transition from the B-52H to the B-1B Lancer bomber when all of the B-ls go to the Guard and Reserves; and the beautiful Eighth Air Force Museum will still be here, open to the public, mostly because of the generous support from our friends in western Louisiana and eastern Texas. The Air Force is committed to easing the impact of the loss of a one-hundred-and-sixty- million-dollar federal payroll to the citizens of the cities of Shreveport and Bossier City.”
Samson paused, fidgeted with his notes for a moment, then added solemnly, “I can also tell you that it has been announced by the Pentagon that Eighth Air Force will stand down, as of October first of this year.”
There was a plainly shocked expression from most of the audience and even from most of the staff — this was news to almost everybody. “For sixty years, Eighth Air Force has been synonymous with the heavy bomber,” Samson went on, sticking to his prepared remarks, even though he, like many in the audience, was obviously emotionally affected by the surprise announcement. “From northern Africa to Europe to Korea to Vietnam to the Kremlin to the Middle East, warplanes bearing the ‘Mighty Eighth’ seal have struck terror into the hearts of the enemy as they hunkered down against the relentless bombardment of our planes.
“Our planes were rarely pretty — the B-17, B-29, B-36, even the B- 52H behind me could hardly be called sexy except by a few romantic ex- crewdogs like myself. Our missions were certainly never very glamorous — Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Inchon Harbor, Linebacker Two, the Iraqi Second Corps and Republican Guards, and the nightmarish concept of MAD, or ‘mutually assured destruction.’ But the men, women, and machines of Eighth Air Force have always been victorious by the use of the world’s deadliest war machines, the heavy bomber. As the old saying goes, ‘fighters are fun, but bombers win wars,’ and that has been true ever since Lieutenant Eugene M. Barksdale of the Eighth Aero Group, Army Air Corps, the pioneer for whom this base was named, first carried a seven-pound mortar shell aloft in his Curtis- Wright Aero to test out the then-outlandish idea of dropping bombs from an airplane.”
Finally, the emotions welling to the surface could be contained no more. Ignoring the reporters and cameras — CNN was here, carrying this ceremony internationally, as were a number of local stations, but still the big three-star general ignored the warning lights flashing in his brain— Samson put aside his notes and affixed his audience with a deep, sincere stare, as he continued:
“As commander of Eighth Air Force, the major operational command in charge of Air Combat Command’s heavy and medium bomber forces, I can tell you that Em not in agreement with my superiors on their decision to drastically reduce the size of the bomber force by retiring all the B-52H and F-111F bombers and to turn all of the sixty operational B-1B Lancer bombers over to the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves, with the other thirty B-l bombers going into flyable storage. This decision will leave Air Combat Command with only twenty active-duty long-range bombers, the B-2A Spirit stealth bombers, by the year 2000— yes, twenty bombers, twenty planes.” The audience, which was made up of community leaders and military dependents, all very knowledgeable of the Air Force’s plans for the heavy bomber force and how their plans affected their lives, shook their heads in sympathetic amazement.