February 27, 2008: The recent U.S. Navy
"kill" of a spy satellite, using one of its SM-3 anti-aircraft missiles
(modified to knock down ballistic missiles) gave the sailors something to be
proud of. In the past, destroying something usually resulted in some kind of
symbol being painted on the ship superstructure, or the aircraft. But of late,
there have been few events that justified painting little ship or aircraft
silhouettes near the bridge or on the sides of warplanes. In fact, the
impressive knock down of a space satellite (the first for a navy ship) put the
spotlight on the recent practice of putting symbols on the ship representing
administrative achievements. These can often be seen painted on the bridge
wings (those long "porches" that extend from the windowed top deck of the
superstructure, or the "bridge"). These
different colored "E"'s representing superior combat readiness, engineering
readiness, supply readiness, deck crew readiness, whatever. Some ships have put
up symbols for shooting down target drones with their missiles.
We tend to forget that's been a long
time since the U.S. Navy or Air Force has killed much in the air or on sea.
It's the down side of being top dog. No one wants to mess with you in a big
way. So sailors are reduced to keeping track of how many ships they have
boarded (searching for terrorists or contraband), or target drones they have
shot down, or "readiness" awards they have received. It's worse for the
aviators. No aces on active service, and few living ones left. No new aces
since Vietnam. The navy has sunk a few warships in the Persian Gulf in the past
two decades, but nothing that would pass for any kind of "naval
battle." It's all sort of a, "the best of times, the worst of
times."
