Document created: 24 August 04
Air University Review, May-June 1970

The Air Force as a National Resource

Dr. Curtis W. Tarr

An Officer of the Air Force today has reason to recall his oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic. The latter part of that promise assumes new meaning in this, an age of change.

For nearly two centuries the American people have looked to the officers and men of the military services to protect United States property and interests from nations (or in our earlier the brigands of the Mediterranean). Throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. American’s geographic isolation provided a barrier to attack, but as our business and social horizons extended, our interests abroad became more heavily involved. While World War II did not destroy the lingering hope among some Americans for a retreat into a “Fortress America,” it did confirm the virtual impossibility of doing so.

Since 1945 we have looked to our armed forces to maintain a state of readiness that would encourage peaceful settlement of difficulties as an alternative to the awesome futility of applying military force. On the threshold of a new decade, it becomes evident increasingly that members of our armed forces must be as creative in developing the means by which nations safely can defuse the potential of terror as they are in guaranteeing that vital national interests will not be lost in the bargaining process.

Possibly President Nixon had this role in mind when he responded in his press conference on 6 February 1969 to a question about establishing a Department of Peace. He replied that to create such an Executive Agency would derogate from the role of the Department of State and the Department of Defense. It is evident that the President then considered the armed forces as something more than a resource for making war.

However, the emphasis in the oath upon domestic enemies largely escapes consideration in the enumeration of the duties of our military men. It is true, of course, that the National Guard and less frequently the Army have been called upon to quell civil disturbances. Yet, except for the tragedy of the fratricidal Civil War, the dangers to our established government have come usually from without. Our enemies were foreign. But now, although our problems with foreign enemies continue or grow, we are threatened also by massive internal strife.

an expanded role for the armed forces

Aside from the reasons that precipitate rebellion among our poor, our minority groups, and our youth, it is evident that progress under the Constitution can hardly continue without a substantial national effort to correct some of this country’s difficulties. One senses a national alarm demanding emergency action rather than a commitment of our resources in an orderly way.

In this milieu, the armed forces must find their new role. It is not sufficient to be content with work done well against the conventional dangers to which the nation was exposed throughout its history. We must respond, as other organizations have done and are doing, to the new revolutionary threats of the seventies. Fortunately the transition to this expanded challenge is made easier by the long familiarity of the armed forces with the amelioration of our country’s problems and a contribution to her success.

The United States Army sent two young Infantry captains, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to explore the western fringes of the continent during President Jefferson’s administration, a trip that transformed the American concept of nationhood. The Navy dispatched Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 to pry open the doors of Japan to admit Western commerce. Five times Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd journeyed to the Antarctic to make claims of territory and collect valuable evidence for scientists. In this same quest for knowledge, both the Navy and the Air Force support the efforts of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to explore space.

Nor have the armed forces confined their peaceful efforts merely to exploration. The United States Army Corps of Engineers has a long record of concern for public projects related to flood control and navigation. Dr. Walter Reed and several other Army doctors learned the secret for controlling yellow fever when they found the mosquito to be the carrier. Advances in the ability of men to communicate have depended often upon military needs prior to the time when commercial usage could bear the costs of development. The present effectiveness of air transportation, whether measured by the efficiency of airframes, communications equipment, or air traffic control, derives in a large part from the contributions of military aviation.

Thus the realization that the armed forces constitute a national resource is not new to the thinking of our nation’s leaders. But the concept now has a new dimension for two reasons. First, the problems the nation faces have a scale that demands the greatest contribution possible from every source of support. Second, we have reached the day when some of our military hardware, systems, and installations have become so costly that we must employ them whenever their use will be of significant assistance to society. It is in this new frame that I wish to explore the utilization of American military resources, particularly those of the Air Force. These promise to be helpful in opportunities for both direct and indirect assistance to the American people.

direct assistance

Although we have not organized our communications to report the efforts fully, the officers and men of the Air Force, and their wives and families as well, give continuing direct support to the causes that improve the communities in which we live. As I visit bases I receive comments frequently about the part that a sergeant has played in the organization of a Boy Scout troop, the leadership a young lieutenant has given to his church, the support of a captain and his wife to the Parent-Teacher Association, the workpower contributed by all ranks to the civic service clubs, chambers of commerce, lodges, and associations that undertake the wide array of projects seeking to provide a better existence for us all, particularly the less fortunate. These efforts have been and continue to be the foundation of social action in America, and it is impossible to measure the substantial contribution of Air Force men and women to the success of the efforts.

An enumeration of collective efforts by Air Force people is illustrative of another type of work being done. At Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, Air Force wives determined that many Mexican-American children were not ready for a public school experience, so they organized the Los Amigos Kindergarten to instruct preschool tots in English. The men of the Department of Weather Training at Chanute AFB, Illinois, adopted deprived boys at a nearby home so that each resident could have an Air Force family for a sponsor. At Williams AFB, Arizona, men used their military training to develop a civic disaster plan in the event of an accident at a newly constructed ammonia plant in the community. Veterinarians in Alaska have helped curb rabies through inspections of animal populations and inoculations.

base projects

At many Air Force bases, effort have been focused into one particular project. Men from Robins AFB, Georgia, joined thounsands of other citizens to participate in a massive one-day campaign to clean, restore, and paint parts of neglected Macon on the other side of the tracks. More than a thousand disadvantaged young people found employment in the summer of 1969 at Kelly AFB, Texas, where each temporary position was divided so that twice as many youths could work a 20-week. Similarly, Indian youths have found new hope through work and on-the-job training in western mountain states and Alaska.

Some imaginative work has bee: at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, where special attention has been given to the handicapped, particularly the mentally retarded. Too often these people reap the neglect of society and find themselves excluded from any cha meaningful work. But at Tinker, jobs that do not require a high order of mental alertness are reserved for the mentally retarded. Thus far those given a chance have repaid the Air Force with their willingness to work and sense of responsibility. Furthermore, official learned that performance by the n retarded often is superior on dull or re work, and thus the Air Force benefits as those employed.

The REC program at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, already is well known. REG has three elements: Recreation, Employment, and Counseling. Each year Mr. Pat Nelson, Director of Civilian Personnel, has developed more ambitious goals to help alleviate the distress Omaha ghetto. During 1969 about 200 people came to the base in buses for a week of athletics, good food, and orientation. Many of these also received counseling from Air Force people as well as hired counselors, most of whom come from disadvantaged circumstances. These counselors usually have the option to continue working at Offutt for the remainder of the year on jobs where they can learn new skills; many of them also continue their formal education at the same time.

Hurricane Camille

Quite a different form of direct assistance results from the necessity for the rapid mobilization of resources during a natural disaster. In a calamity, the military services have the advantages of readiness and discipline. Too often emergency rescue operations falter because workers, while in abundance, do not know how to establish a workable command arrangement. My own experience in a California flood taught me that lesson under discouraging circumstances.

The nation called upon the Air Force and the Army during the earthquake disaster at Anchorage, Alaska, in 1964, and again during the Fairbanks flood in 1967. Often a similar call alerts some element of the force to assist during a forest fire, an earthquake, or a tornado. One such call came in August 1969, when it became evident that a hurricane, bearing the innocent name Camille, soon would strike the Biloxi-Gulfport area with an intensity seldom equaled. Keesler AFB, Mississippi, in the path of the storm, became the focal point of Air Force support operations.

Quickly officers and civil authorities drafted a support agreement. While hurried efforts were made to prepare the base to face the onslaught, about 4000 shelter spaces were offered to persons in the area. Because of these precautions, only those who refused to go into shelters lost their lives.

But after the storm passed, a massive effort was required to restore order to wrecked communities on the Gulf. Nearly 10,000 Air Force personnel assisted in the disaster operation, providing food, water, and clothing, furnishing communications, restoring utility and power services, cleaning up debris, rescuing casualties, furnishing medical and health assistance, and evacuating victims to hospitals where care could be given.

In the air, support was impressive. Air Force active and reserve crews and those of the Air National Guard flew 342 missions to airlift 3820 passengers and 3232 tons of cargo. They transported patients to hospitals in nearby states and brought medical teams from other parts of the country to assist in the emergency. Air Force crews also performed aerial spray operations to prevent the outbreak of disease.

Perhaps it is not reasonable to ask what would have been done without the Air Force during and after Hurricane Camille. But it is evident that Air Force resources saved many lives and alleviated much human suffering through rapid response and careful organization.

Further descriptions of the direct forms of assistance would serve only to make more varied and impressive the continuing effort. Much has been done, and more can be attempted. Doing so is the purpose of the domestic action program of the Air Force. 

Now let us look at the forms of indirect assistance to society.

the Air Force as a synergist

For many years the work of the Air Force has produced unexpected dividends for the American people. This has been true particularly in research, education, and training. What we have learned often has value elsewhere if we work imaginatively and cooperatively to make it so. A few examples may illustrate the range of possibilities.

First, let us consider housing. Congress recently called for the construction of 26,000,000 homes within the next decade. It seems evident that we will not produce them with our present construction methods. It is odd that in America, where mass-production techniques received their start, we continue to be a backward nation in the construction of homes. Only in the mobile home have we utilized the technique we know so well.

Yet if one travels around the world, he finds numerous examples of Air Force modular construction; the Wakkanai Air Force Station on the northernmost tip of Japan provides a good example. The Air Force builds schools and hospitals this way, erecting them on site in record time. The modules utilize standard parts and furnishings that can be purchased and installed with a minimum of relatively unskilled labor.

Perhaps an equally promising development is that at George AFB, California, where a portable-factory experiment has been conducted. This duplicates the efforts of certain European construction men to provide durable, inexpensive concrete housing. Officials of the Air Force have worked closely with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to expedite the transfer of knowledge to civilian practice.

We talk a great deal today about the deterioration of our environment. It seems evident to most Americans that no longer can we continue to expend natural resources without endangering the quality of life as well. Here again, the Air Force has done interesting work.

One might expect us to be involved in noise abatement. Actually we have undertaken a pioneering effort to protect the human ear from noise damage. Also Air Force people have worked to determine how best to locate airports so that noise from traffic would have a minimal impact on populated are have studied the effect of sonic booms populace. I suspect that the Air Force will be the leader to determine how to exceed the speed of sound with minimal production of offensive sound waves.

A great deal has been done on combustor smoke elimination. A few years ago, conditions in Vietnam required engines that we produce smoke easily detected by the Experimentation produced fuel additives to reduce the smoke level and new combustor configurations incorporating advanced fuel atomization techniques, both of which been effective. New generations of engines now utilize these improvements, reducing current air pollution in the vicinity of terminals and demonstrating the appearance of air that will help to restore public co and interest in a better environment.

The Air Force Avionics Laboratory has begun a series of tests in its target signatures program, leasing to the University of Michigan a C-47 aircraft that has been instrumented by NASA for signature measurements. This equipment provides scientific information for such projects as wildlife surveys, data collection on waterway oil slicks, and shoreline studies. Ultimately the techniques developed from this effort may be useful for the analysis of water pollution problems and forest management, just as they will be for the detection of military targets.

Obviously in a research effort as extensive as that of the Air Force there will be many kinds of knowledge revealed that can help to transform our society. Some will be the direct result of our efforts to improve the Air Force. Many will be the by-product of a search for desiderata relevant to the improvement of our equipment, systems, or installations. In both cases we must learn better techniques for passing this knowledge directly to those who can use it for social improvements. 

education and training

Possibly all else undertaken by the Air Force that directly or indirectly assists society pales when compared to our education and training programs. In these, we assist America in two ways: we train many young people who later take important jobs outside the Air Force; in doing so we learn something about the process of teaching that can assist in overcoming the problems facing educators.

The magnitude of the education and training effort is impressive. For instance, 694,290 young men and women of the Air Force completed some program of education or training during 1969. The programs varied in length from a few days to more than a year, and in cost from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars per person. If one multiplies the average length of each course by the number of participants, he finds that we provided about six million man-weeks of instruction in that year. This is the equivalent of having 14% of our force enrolled constantly in some organized program of instruction, and, of course, I have not included the practical training that every man receives at his work as he gains increased proficiency on the assignment. Over 90% of the young men and women in the Air Force learn a skill that has some direct civilian utility. The economic effect of Air Force training was demonstrated recently when the commander of one of our technical schools received a letter from a businessman asking that an adjustment be made in the curriculum of a certain course so that the young men who take it might be better prepared for the work they do so well for his firm!

For many years, owing to a variety of circumstances, civilian educators have neglected vocational education in America, the means by which most of our people prepare for the important jobs that await them. The military services have had to assume the responsibility for technical training, since recruits seldom have the skills they will need on their assigned jobs. Probably Congress would not support such training as a civilian effort, but the economy benefits when graduates are released from service to become members of a sophisticated workforce exploiting advanced technology.

The training establishment, preparing people to operate and repair equipment that changes frequently and using inexperienced instructors, has developed educational systems that attain results despite these limitations. Fortunately, humility is the advantage of military instructors; no vested interests or cherished lesson-plans inhibit progress.

Those who visit Air Force Technical Training Centers may be amazed at the effort in programmed instruction. Experiments to permit each person to advance at his own pace have proven their worth many times over. Recently the Air Force evaluated 46 of these prototype efforts. In them, the average gain in achievement over a test group taught by normal instruction methods was eleven percent. More important, programmed instruction reduced training time by a third. Imagine the consequences to America if we could transfer even a portion of this achievement to our educational programs everywhere.

In some measure vocational education falters when school systems fail to teach appropriate subjects or, if it teaches them, does so with material that is not relevant to the work for which the student is preparing. Recently officers of the Aerospace Education Foundation, an organization within the Air Force Association, decided to adapt Air Force materials and presentation techniques for public vocational systems. The climate seemed right for experimentation in the state of Utah. Careful preparation for the introduction of the material helped to guarantee acceptance by teachers and administrators. The first experimental groups already have completed testing, and thus far the program has produced encouraging results. In each case students in the experimental test group have mastered and retained the material better than those in the control group using traditional materials. Instructors have preferred the Air Force materials; students generally have shown a similar preference. This may be the start of a substantial effort to utilize some of the teaching materials and techniques of the services to assist in the improvement of vocational education in the United States.

Computer-assisted instruction offers promise to both service and public schools if software can be perfected. I believe we are on the verge of substantial achievement in this endeavor. The preconditions exist for experimentation with computers in the Air Force: we have the numbers of students needing instruction to justify the rather high initial costs of the hardware and software. Much of our training is concentrated geographically so that experimentation is possible. We can extend easily our programmed instruction techniques to computer-assistance. This means of instruction permits flexibility in changing teaching materials. But most of all, it provides assistance to the individual at the time of difficulty: it is a way of showing, through machines, the personal interest that a classroom instructor usually is not available to provide. Ordinarily, the computer will not eliminate the need for instructors, but it will extend individual attention to men stationed in places where we cannot afford to send instructors. Thus we have high hopes for computer-assisted instruction. The dividend to society from our success will be substantial.

Project 100,000

It may be fitting to conclude these remarks about education with a description of Project 100,000. In October 1966 the Department of Defense embarked upon an experimental program to bring into the services young men who could not otherwise qualify, either because of some physical difficulty that could be corrected or because of an inability to achieve a score of thirty or more on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. For the first year, the department planned to accept 40,000; thereafter it set a quota of 100,000 for each year—hence the project name.

The Air Force, from October 1966 to the end of June 1969, accepted 45,472 under this program, somewhat over the goal set by the Department of Defense. Of this number, 18,660 were “New Standards Men,” those with a score of 10 to 20 on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Quite obviously progress in such a difficult undertaking cannot be easy: failures are expected. But these have not been an intolerable burden; by October 1969, 91% of the Project 100,000 men successfully completed basic training, compared to 97% of all others. And 11.3% of those enrolled in technical training were eliminated for academic or nonacademic reasons compared to 5% for all other entrants. Out of the New Standards group, 7.5% received promotions to E-4 or higher, compared to 9.0% in a control group; 34.8% of the New Standards men qualified at a five-skill level while 41.4% in the control group did so.

But the point is that many men succeeded who prior to 1966 had no chance even to try. Of those who failed, most could be sent to another, less demanding course; Project 100,000 men thus far have gone to 70 technical training courses. Many have criticized the recruitment of men, some of whom cannot read and must be taught by expensive methods. But two arguments may be submitted in rebuttal. These men, in our society, already had been destined to fail-with all the consequent social and economic costs. If the services are successful in rehabilitating these men, then the services may have a valuable training proficiency that the nation cannot afford to overlook. In addition, of course, we may be moving to all-volunteer forces, or more nearly so than we are now, and in that competitive environment for manpower we will need the techniques we have already perfected for Project 100,000.

As my readers have undoubtedly sensed, this is a plea to support a simple proposition: that the Air Force represents a national resource of considerable domestic value, in addition to its indispensable worth in protecting the nation from foreign attack.

We in the Air Force never can neglect our primary mission. Yet we live in a day when our national security depends upon both protection against interference from without a preservation of stability within our boundaries. This is a lesson that we cannot forget.

Our view of the more complicated role given to us has great consequence to other in America who now may be looking at our budgets critically. Before further deep cuts are made into our capabilities, the public deserves to know the extent to which it is reliant upon the Air Force as a resource. For instance, heavy manpower cuts in one y could force us to close much of our train establishment; rebuilding it to some acceptable level of quality would require several years, to the substantial detriment of our military performance; dismantling the train establishment also would rob the United States of one year’s graduates from technical schools in the military services, and no other sources for that training exist.

Furthermore, our attitude towards new tasks influences the way we view ourselves. We are professional people in highest sense, and the increasing complexity of our duties merely enhances our professional stature. It provides an avenue for the expression of social concern that many of particularly the young men of the Air Force, earnestly seek. For me, the orientation posed by the times provides a welcome, exciting challenge.

Not long ago in Dayton, Ohio, I shared some of these ideas with officers assemble to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Air Force Institute of Technology. Following the program, a young officer came to express his thanks in a unique way. He was a scientist, I learned later, with deep feelings of uneasiness about America’s domestic problems. “If more men would talk as you have about the possibilities for service in the Air Force,” he said, “more young officers like me would consider making a career commitment.” As I looked at the young man, I formed certainty that the Air Force—probably much as anywhere else in the nation—needs him and others with his ability and devotion to a life of service.

Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force

Contributor

Dr. Curtis W. Tarr was Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) from June 1969 to March 1970, when he was appointed Director of Selective Service. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he earned the B.A. degree in economics from Stanford University in 1948. At Harvard Business School he received a master’s degree and was a research assistant and instructor until 1952. He was Vice President, Sierra Tractor & Equipment Company, 1952-58, and a staff member of the Second Hoover Commission, 1954-55. At Stanford University 1961-63, he earned the Ph.D. in American history and served as director of the summer session; assistant dean, School of Humanities and Sciences; and lecturer, School of Business. While President of Lawrence University, 1963-69, he was a trustee, Institute of Paper Chemistry, and Chairman, Task Force on Local Government Finance and Organization, State of Wisconsin. Ripon College and Grinnell College have awarded him the honorary doctorate of humane letters.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.