How to distinguish characters as USAF - now gen questions

You could mention: Flightline (although that's not AF-specific), the ranks that include "Airman", Air Force-specific aircraft like the Nighthawk F-117. You could read "Air Force Times" or "Sergeants" magazine (Air Force Sergeants Association magazine) for more ideas. A "tribal practice" of the Dining In (although the Army uses this term too) may help narrow the field of services.

Since the services have become more alike since the 80s, perhaps you should consider being more obvious about which branch of service they're in and not relying on subtle clues that a reader who's unfamiliar with the military will miss.

Good luck with your novel!

MariaL said:

Fortunately, not far off with just a few easily corrected issues.

However, I'm stumped by this one: "The military personnel are a bit generic — no particular attitudes, skills, tribal practices, etc. that mark them as USAF."

Any general advice?

With thanks!

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I've been out of service for a long time, but one thing I would say will never likely change much is a basic difference in attitude -- particularly in reference to flightline protocols between aircrews and maintenance personnel. I was a crew chief '88-'91 , and AF pilots have, from the earliest days of the AF, held their crew chiefs and other maintenance specialists in high regard. Not to say other services don't, but AF pilots generally SHOW it ... to crew chiefs in particular. I worked with Navy pilots being trained by the AF, and their attitude toward mechanics was very much of the "officer-enlisted" norm: clear distinctions between the two, often to the point of coldness, if not actual rudeness.

An AF flightline is a unique place. If your supporting characters are elsewhere or serving in other roles/specialties, then distinctions will be harder to draw in terms of characterization, and you may need to rely on uniform specs, AF-specific awards/citations, etc. If you can tie one or more of your supporting characters into backgrounds that include flightline time, you can build on that. If these characters interact with each other, then you can build from one to the others based on AF service camaraderie.

One other distinction is that Security Specialists and Security Police are (or where, anyway) trained by the US Army, which means/meant they had a different attitude; this tended to result in low-grade personality conflicts between crew chiefs and flightline cops -- keep in mind, SS & SP on most AF bases are often the only dudes/dudettes with guns. Changes their basic outlook on things: do what I say, 'cause I've got guns & you don't." A lot of chiefs and specialists, recognizing their key roles, will tend to blow off cops if they overstep or do something stupid. I could give specific examples if your interested.

Wait, the USAF is part of the military?

(<= Former Army )

Seriously, part of the difference is the difference in attitudes between services. The Air Force tends to pride itself on having higher standards and smarter enlistees, in general, and it devotes more of its budget toward quarters, recreation facilities, etc. Thus, AF personnel generally live a bit better than personnel in other services. Also, it's rare for any AF personnel outside of combat pilots and their crew (air and ground) to actually be exposed to combat. (Yes, the AF has its own Special Forces equivalent as well, but it's very small.) Thus, my joke aside, they tend to be perceived by other services as the most "civilian" branch of the US military.

AF basic training is less physically demanding than Army, Navy, or Marine basic. Most AF personnel fire a rifle once, during basic training, and may not ever handle one again in their career. But they do have higher academic and proficiency standards; traditionally, anyone who can sign their name is allowed to enlist in the Army, while the AF has usually required at least a high school diploma, and higher ASVAB scores to get any of the highly desired jobs.

The tradeoff for AF personnel is that (at least for enlistees) they are notoriously slow to be promoted. An Army or Navy person will often be a rank or two higher than someone in the Air Force with a similar record and equal time in service.

So when Army and AF guys sit around complaining, the Army guys gripe about how much their barracks and their food sucks and the AF guys gripe about how it takes forever to make E-5.

One of the biggest mistakes I usually see in people writing about military personnel who have no military experience is confusing enlisted personnel and officers, or having them mingle freely. It's not like M*A*S*H; officers and enlisted personnel, in most situations, practically live in different worlds.

MariaL said:

If you have specific examples I could get my head round that would be very helpful.

Thanks for the advice!

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Couple stories from my own experience -- but I'll post them separately. (first one needs a little back-story):

During an Alert exercise, we often had 'full movers' -- klaxon would blow and all planes on alert would do a mock-launch: full crew on board, taxi to runway, throttle up ready for takeoff, then taxi back to the Alert pad. Since crew chiefs on alert went with the planes, guys working on the flightline would ave to go to the Alert pad to marshal the planes, do all the initial ground recovery work.

The Security Police had a habit of turning pressure-response perimeter systems ON for spots where NO PLANE was parked ... and they'd 'jack up' mechanics who drove over the PRPs on EMPTY spots.

My expediter was an old war-horse from the Viet Nam era, and one day when I was on the 'line we had to go recover the Alert birds. He parked the maintenance truck right on the edge of an empty spot, setting off the PRPs alarm. Cops surrounded us, and a young airman toting his M16 strutted over to our truck. "Everybody out of the vehicle!"

My boss was in the middle of telling some war story while we waited for the planes to taxi back. He looked out his open window, stared at the kid, and said, "No."

The SP kinda blinks, pauses for a couple seconds then yells, "I said, everybody out. Now!"

My expediter turns back to him. "And I said, No." Then he rolls up his window and locks his door.

I was in the back of the truck where I could see the SP, and it was hilarious. This poor kid is at a total loss. he kinda looks down t the ground, then back at the Bronco his Sergeant is sitting in, then he steps up to our truck and timidly knocks on the driver's window. The Expediter rolls it down a couple inches and, in a very perturbed tone, says, "What_now?"

The SP raises his finger, kin of wags it at my boss and says, "Don't go anywhere! I'll be right back!" He walks back to his vehicle and his Sergeant is just sitting there, shaking his head.

Amadan said:

Wait, the USAF is part of the military?

(<= Former Army )

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It just never ends, does it?

Amadan said:

Wait, the USAF is part of the military?

(<= Former Army )

Seriously, part of the difference is the difference in attitudes between services. The Air Force tends to pride itself on having higher standards and smarter enlistees, in general, and it devotes more of its budget toward quarters, recreation facilities, etc. Thus, AF personnel generally live a bit better than personnel in other services. Also, it's rare for any AF personnel outside of combat pilots and their crew (air and ground) to actually be exposed to combat. (Yes, the AF has its own Special Forces equivalent as well, but it's very small.) Thus, my joke aside, they tend to be perceived by other services as the most "civilian" branch of the US military.

AF basic training is less physically demanding than Army, Navy, or Marine basic. Most AF personnel fire a rifle once, during basic training, and may not ever handle one again in their career. But they do have higher academic and proficiency standards; traditionally, anyone who can sign their name is allowed to enlist in the Army, while the AF has usually required at least a high school diploma, and higher ASVAB scores to get any of the highly desired jobs.

The tradeoff for AF personnel is that (at least for enlistees) they are notoriously slow to be promoted. An Army or Navy person will often be a rank or two higher than someone in the Air Force with a similar record and equal time in service.

So when Army and AF guys sit around complaining, the Army guys gripe about how much their barracks and their food sucks and the AF guys gripe about how it takes forever to make E-5.

One of the biggest mistakes I usually see in people writing about military personnel who have no military experience is confusing enlisted personnel and officers, or having them mingle freely. It's not like M*A*S*H; officers and enlisted personnel, in most situations, practically live in different worlds.

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Amadan nailed it in terms of living standards and raw intelligence. I had initially commented on those details, but deleted them because I thought it might come off as rude. AF enlistees have more, and better, manners.

MariaL said:

OMG. Not sure how I've got away with the military stuff in my novel! But I can imagine that airman's face! Off to look up pressure-response perimeter systems! And 'jack up'! Will check my posts. Thank you!

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One joke we used to tell (more than a little truth to it)

"Every other service puts up chain link and cocertina wire to keep people out. The Air Force paints a red line on the ground and says, cross it and you'll get shot."

A little over-simplified, but true: red lines painted on the ground, warning signs. Often times, that's it.

One thing that will add a layer of authenticity and nuance to your book goes to what I mentioned earlier about AF pilots' attitudes. it pretty much applies to most who've been on flight crews -- pilots & copilots, navigators; for heavy bombers, also to weapons officers: if they've been an a career track, they often move to other jobs commanding squadrons, etc. It is important to note that the way an AF officer deals with/relates to enlisted personnel and other subordinates is VERY different if they have flight-crew experience. Those without it usually have a more 'traditional' officer-enlisted attitude. Officers with crew time are far more likely to joke around, hang out, chat (be HUMAN). This stems from the simple fact that in AF tradition, flight crews KNOW the mechanics have their lives in their hands -- an experienced and trusted crew chief can (politely) tell a full-bird colonel he's full of shit (the polite version), and get away with it ... IF he's right. And he better be.

MariaL said:

I'm going to demote a First Lieutenant to a Senior Airman. He's an Intelligence Operations Analyst and as a Senior Airman can do that role at E-4 grade I can show some of the above. Thanks!

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Uh... that doesn't really happen. If an officer gets stripped of his commission, he's probably going to Leavenworth for a felony.

Amadan said:

Uh... that doesn't really happen. If an officer gets stripped of his commission, he's probably going to Leavenworth for a felony.

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And, if it were, somehow, to happen, the first thing to go would be any security clearance needed for intel, with little chance of getting it. Folks with good reason for a beef aren't going to be trusted with critical intel, aren't likely going to make the cut even for a basic "secret" clearance, which are a dime a dozen in the AF (can't speak to how it is in other branches).

A Senior Airman is a fairly low-ranking enlisted man, not even an NCO. And lieutenant is a very junior officer. So it depends on the details. Is your character supposed to have any authority at all? A Senior Airman usually isn't in charge of much of anything except maybe a piece of equipment.

What do you mean by "watching"? A lieutenant wouldn't be in charge of an entire operation or facility, but he might be in charge of a squad. They wouldn't usually assign a Special Forces officer to a babysitting detail.

Amadan said:

A Senior Airman is a fairly low-ranking enlisted man, not even an NCO. And lieutenant is a very junior officer. So it depends on the details. Is your character supposed to have any authority at all? A Senior Airman usually isn't in charge of much of anything except maybe a piece of equipment.

What do you mean by "watching"? A lieutenant wouldn't be in charge of an entire operation or facility, but he might be in charge of a squad. They wouldn't usually assign a Special Forces officer to a babysitting detail.

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That really depends a lot on specialty -- many SrAs are 'in charge of equipment' called 'airplanes' worth many millions of dollars ... mine was a cheap old plane valued around 50 million. Because SrA are one step below NCO -- same pay grade as a 'buck sergeant' -- the authority they are given largely depends upon how good they are at their job, how trustworthy they are. In a crunch, many SrAs are called on for jobs that might normally be filled by E-4 NCOs or higher. It takes three years (or it did when I was in) to make SrA, which in most fields means quite a lot of practical experience, as well as on-the-job and formal training.

MariaL said:

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforceenlistedjobs/a/afjob1n0x1.htm

sums up the job and ranks at skill level 5 would include someone on E-4 grade,
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforcebase/l/blafassign1n0x1.htm

hence I'm thinking a lieutenant would be overqualified? But a SrA would fit the bill and allow me to show AF respect for enlisted.

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Sorry -- tried to add this at the end of the former post, but it got lost somewhere:

As to the Lt watching someone, Amadan has it pretty much right -- Lts in the cop squadrons would likely be in charge of several details along with his NCOs, each detail having its own squad leader, typically another Staff Sergeant or lower, sometimes even a SrA.

MariaL said:

Sci-fi: My protagonist hasn't done anything wrong (yet) but has developed abilities that are alarming and is under orders not to use them without presidential authorization. In effect he's a potential security risk, but powerful people are pulling strings. So rather than sedate and lock him up, he's been assigned a security detail 24/7, basically to make sure he doesn't use his abilities. If he looked like he was going to, they'd probably shoot him and he knows it. My question is what sort of rank would be his security detail? Hope that helps explain the situation a little better!

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Most of his security detail would be enlisted led by a senior NCO, but they might have a lieutenant tagging along pretending to be in charge. (Small NCO joke there. ) Seriously, though, if this is something that has the attention of the President, then there would be a higher-ranking officer keeping a close eye on things. He probably wouldn't be part of the security detail following this guy around ('cause that's boring and therefore what enlisted personnel are for), but undoubtedly whoever is in charge would have orders to call him immediately if any kind of a situation develops.

MariaL said:

The characters are out of the flightline, but I might be able to tie some background in. The protagonist is quite respectful anyway to airman etc. I do have a lot of Special Forces involved providing round the clock security, but as it's preventative they are quite polite and I've called them airman. If you have specific examples I could get my head round that would be very helpful.

Thanks for the advice!

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Special Forces are Army, also known as the Green Berets. They're overseen by USASOC, which is the Army's Special Operations Command.

The zoomies have AFSOC--Air Force Special Operations Command, based out of Hurlburt, if I recall correctly. You're probably talking about AF Security Response Team guys (who also have a counterpart by the same name in the Army) who guard installations, airbases, etc. They're not normally part of AFSOC as far as I recall, but they're actually quite good at what they do. As an aside, AFSOC has a Tier 1 (i.e., "extremely special") special operations group, the 24th STS. They're held in the same regard as the US ARmy's SFOD-D (now known as the Combat Applications Group) and the former SEAL Team 6, more recently known as DEVGRU, now redesignated as something else. They are all collected under Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which in turn is overseen by U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the command element for all U.S. special operations forces.

I'm not AF, I wore a green suit, but did work quite a bit with AF Special Operations Wings during joint operations. The biggest difference between the AF and Army guys in the special operations regime is that the AF focused more on technology--they had lots of pizza racks in the back of their helicopters for navigation, automated aircraft survivability equipment, etc., etc.--whereas the Army guys had maps, clocks, airspeed indicators, and compasses. And the Army guys had the reputation of being on time and on target within 30 seconds, while the AF guys were still updating their electronics.

(That's not really a joke.)

Enlisted promotions in the AF do seem to be much slower than in the Army. On average, AF enlisteds get much more specialized training more regularly than the guys in the Army, but the Army NCOs tend to develop leadership skills earlier. I think that's a direct result of being closer to the doo on a more constant basis.

I don't know if this helps you or not, but it's been a while since I've expounded on this stuff, and I just had to get it out of my system.

AFSOC Homepage for your convenience, should you find it helpful.

How USAF Combat Control bubbas get made. 24STS is full of these guys. They're called Air Commandos.

By the way, SRTs are almost all enlisted, overseen by 0-1/0-2s in the field, though their master sergeants have the greatest direct authority.