Affirmative Action in the skies over North Vietnam, 1972

To point out the madness and danger of minority racial preferences, people will sometimes take the issue to its logical extreme and rhetorically say things like: “Will we have affirmative action for brain surgeons and airline pilots?” But it appears that we already have had AA pilots, not just flying civilian airliners, but flying and leading combat missions, going all the way back to the Vietnam war.

John K. writes:

I just finished reading Palace Cobra by Ed Rasimus. This book is his second one on the Viet Nam Air War where he was a pilot flying combat missions, real combat missions. His first book, a marvelous read by a smart man, told his stories of 100 missions during 1966 flying a F-105 Thunder Chief over North Viet Nam and is titled When Thunder Rolled. The second book is about flying a F-4 Phantom on combat missions all over North Viet Nam, South Viet Nam and Cambodia during 1972. Both books are terrific reads to those of us who revel in seeing the working of the military with its heroes and cowards, bumbling and effective officers, and random luck and bad luck as well a seeing the stupidly of how a war is fought by the American Political-Military bureaucracy.

When I was reading near the end of Palace Cobra I encountered a section where Rasimus describes a combat sortie led by an affirmative action promoted black. It’s in the hardback version p. 199 through p. 205. In the paperback edition the selection is at the end of chapter 12.

It is all there. The under-the-surface rage of an affirmative action promoted black who deep down knows he doesn’t have the Right Stuff and has to cheat to succeed, who lacks character and knows it but will ride the affirmative action chariot willingly pulled by white liberal senior officers who are feeling good about the political correctness of what they are doing. That such action hollows out the Air Force is of course ignored.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 13, 2008 02:31 PM | Send