Air Force officials ousted over nuclear gaffes - CNN.com

The top military and civilian leaders of the U.S. Air Force were forced out Thursday over the handling of nuclear weapons, the Defense Department secretary said.

Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael W. Wynne resigned over the department's concern over two incidents, including the August flight of a B-52 bomber that flew across the country with nuclear weapons.

"Focus of the Air Force leadership has drifted" in terms of handling nuclear weapons and equipment, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

In August, a B-52 bomber flew from North Dakota to Louisiana with the crew unaware that six nuclear-tipped missiles were on board. Four officers were relieved of duty afterward, including three colonels.

Gates also cited this year's discovery that components designed to arm and fuse nuclear warheads were accidentally shipped to Taiwan in 2006.

[From Air Force officials ousted over nuclear gaffes - CNN.com]

And here I was worried about airmen and pilots pounding the ground with the Army and the Marines.

What we have here is an exercise of politics as usual. Fire the top guy(s) as a way to tell the people that actually run the show to get their act together and fix whatever needs to be fixed.

The bigger question here is why, after all those very public fuckups, did the USAF "drifted" in their focus? There was a tradition of hardcore paranoia (in all services) when it came to nuclear accountability. Now we are flying nukes without knowing, we are shipping restricted components to an enemy country and there are security guards playing video games in their cell phones instead of paying attention to their god damn jobs.

How come we never hear of a Marine pulling that kind of stunt during guard duty? Training. I have no clue how the Navy and the Air Force do it, but both the Marines and the Army burn into your head guard duty as one of the more basic soldiering skills.