The "Chair" Force new training

Houston Chronicle:

When a group of U.S. Air Force commanders visited Iraq two years ago, they made some disturbing observations as they watched enlisted airmen working in the war zone.

Many lacked basic combat skills and instincts. Some didn't know how to handle and load their weapons. A few even had their guns taken away as a safety precaution.

Within months, the high command mandated an overhaul of Air Force basic military training, which has been conducted here since 1942. Officials now say they've imposed the most dramatic changes in 60 years in the training's tone and curriculum.

Chief among them is a new, time-consuming emphasis on "warrior ethos," making every airmen capable of self defense in a service with a reputation for being removed from the front lines. The 38,000 trainees per year now spend less time learning to fold T-shirts so they can spend more time learning to wage war.

With 46 deaths recorded among airmen in Iraq — many of them in ground combat roles — trainees are embracing the new approach as a way of improving their survival chances in their almost-certain deployments to the war zone.

Trainee Primo Fiore, 19, of Modesto, Calif., is pleased to be among the first to get more combat training, a regimen started in November. After three weeks, she's proficient enough with her M-16A2 training rifle to demonstrate to reporters how it is quickly disassembled and reassembled. Before arriving, her experience with weapons was quite limited, she said.

"A BB gun when I was little. That's about it," Fiore said recently.

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There is much more. Turning these airmen into soldiers will save their lives and make them better people too. Air Force leaders should be applauded for taking this reasonable step.