-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
AF Academy evacuated.
- Thread starter 707guy
- Start date
Bummer. Going to make an interesting summer for their plebes (or whatever the Zoomies call them...'freshmen', probably).
I just couldn't resist this one: In 1864, during the War Between the States (AKA the American Civil War) 257 cadets from VMI (Lexington, Va.) went out and fought in the Battle of New Market (Va.) w/ their confederate counterparts (10 of them dying in the Confederate victory). This week, the USAFA evacuates the academy when a (serious) forest fire threatens their area of Colorado Springs. Different times for sure, but also different mind sets by a light year. I guess cadets make lousy fire-fighters.
No (acknowledge your TIC post), but cadets are trainable supposedly, and I would think they could help out civilian fire-fighters involved in trying to control part or all of this fire. The real point here may be the idea that every ambulance-chaser in America would offer to sue the AFA if any cadets were to be killed in fighting this fire.
magnetfreezer
Well-Known Member
I was in Ft. Carson three days ago, this fire is no joke.
When I saw the story on CNN this morning that was the first thing I thought also. You've got a couple thousand able bodied, highly trainable individuals being told to run away. I wonder if the thought even crossed anyone's mind in the AFA leadership to use their student body to defend their installation, like, oh, I don't know, a military force.
As easy as it is to rag on the AF, from what I understand the fire isn't contained- and a few thousand cadets aimlessly attempting to dig trenches etc in a attempt to save their property while the surrounding area is engulfed in flames probably isn't going to work out very well. No one shits on Chesty Puller for retreating in Korea when it was the most prudent thing to do- why are we shitting on the AF for evacuating personnel when there's a large fire raging uncontrollablly at the doorstep of USAFA? What it the fire was at the doorstep of your base burning out of control... Would you rather leave and get your family to safety or die trying to save a building that can be replaced anyways?
A forest fire really isn't on the level of a 'foreign' invader threatening your country and your way of life.
Professional fire fighters have unfortunately died fighting forest fires in recent years even with the best equipment and training, I see no point in putting untrained and almost certainly unequipped USAFA cadets on the fire line where they probably more of an impediment than a help.
Professional fire fighters have unfortunately died fighting forest fires in recent years even with the best equipment and training, I see no point in putting untrained and almost certainly unequipped USAFA cadets on the fire line where they probably more of an impediment than a help.
A bunch of untrained folks would just get in the way and training them would be a burden; the actual firefighters needed to train are better utilized at the wet end of the hose, so to speak. Beyond the issue of training is the issue of equipping and sustaining them.
With fire fighters already apparently stretched to their limits how are they going to find the folks to supervise them? And if we use the cadets why stop there? Why not use the thousands of active duty soldiers at Ft Carson or the guys out of NORTHCOM? You are talking upwards of 20-30,000 active duty folks in the Colorado Springs area. I am not a firefighter but I would question if the professionals would want a bunch of amateurs out in the field that they would have to worry about in addition to the actual fires, and not only from a safety but a logistics standpoint as well. Why risk it in the first place?
