Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, the superintendent of the US Air Force Academy, explains how diversity makes the United States Air Force better:
Against ISIS, we are waging a war using the most sophisticated and interconnected combat power in history. But our real advantage is the intellect, innovation, creativity and courage of our troops. If any among us thinks these qualities are defined by race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or identity or any other factor of the human condition, then the Air Force Academy and our military is not the place for them.
The link between diversity and victory does not exist in the abstract. It is real and has been proven throughout history. From 1941 to 1946, in the small, segregated town of Tuskegee, Alabama, black Americans trained to become fighter pilots. They would form the 332nd Fighter Group and serve in the Europe, where they overcame the racism inherent in the WWII Army Air Corps to amass an impressive record.
Over their 15,000 sorties, the Tuskegee Airmen’s professionalism, valor and airmanship earned the respect of the B-17 crews they escorted. More importantly, the bomber formations they guarded suffered fewer losses than those escorted by other units, which meant more of their bombers made it to their targets in Germany and back home again. They made the 15th Air Force more lethal, and their contributions were pivotal in the outcome of World War II.
While the Tuskegee Airmen would influence the battle in Europe, the Native American Code Talkers would help the Allies prevail in the Pacific. Approximately 500 Native Americans would enlist in the United States Marine Corps during World War II and use their native languages to encrypt vital communications during combat.
Since the code was just an application of their native language it did not require special equipment and it improved the speed and accuracy of communication on the battlefield. Furthermore, this unique code, which utilized the diversity of America, was never cracked and allowed innumerable critical communications to take place among the Allies, free from the fear of information falling into the Axis powers’ hands.
The Allies eventually broke the code of the German Enigma machines, intercepting and exploiting vital information — a secure communications disparity that would prove crucial to Allied victory in the war. Leveraging our unique talents born from our diversity can offer advantages that even the greatest technologies cannot overcome.
Women would also play a key role during and after the war. More than 1,000 Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as WASPs, were stationed at 122 air bases across the United States. Though limited by the sexism of the time, and barred from front-line roles, they still flew more than 60 million miles in almost every type of aircraft flown by the US Army Air Forces. By testing and delivering aircraft, these women flew thousands of aircraft to the front lines, where they would be flown by their male counterparts in combat. WASPS fought for decades for recognition despite their courageous service; 38 WASPs lost their lives during the war.
After World War II, the military’s stark lack of diversity would hinder the nation’s efforts during the Cold War. The Soviet Union had leapt ahead in space exploration with the surprise launch of Sputnik and cemented their dominance when Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that the American space program supplanted the Soviets after female and African-American mathematicians and engineers were integrated into the workforce.
It’s probably a good thing that laser anti-aircraft are about to make the Air Force an irrelevant and outmoded branch of the U.S. military. Because if this guy is in charge of training future pilots, the USAF is about to crash and burn.
His examples of the importance of diversity to a military are simply laughable. The 15th Air Force accomplished nothing except murdering German civilians and didn’t even slow down German production, which increased throughout the massive strategic bombing campaign. The Navajo codetalkers wouldn’t have had a separate language to utilize if they had not been a nation apart. If WASPs had been permitted to fly in combat during WWII, a lot more than 38 of them would have died. And female and African-American mathematicians and engineers had virtually nothing to do with any of the Cold War-era space achievements.
If you cannot see that the US is an empire in steep decline, you simply are not paying any attention.