Flying, Fighting, and Winning!
No feces, there I was... 2005-2006 spent 11 months (and 29 days, because at 12 months our benefits doubled, can't have that) in lovely "Mortar-ritaville", LSA Anaconda, formerly Balad Air Base, Iraq, with the US Army. Our unit had run F-cable and CAT-5 network cable to each of our rooms for AFN (Armed Forces Network) on the former, and satellite internet we pitched in and paid for as a unit, make it feel like as much of home as you could get halfway around the world. Of course, each of the DFACs (dining facilities) on post also had AFN playing on wall-mounted TVs. A couple of months into my "vacation", EUCOM Air Force got a new commanding General and he made sure we all knew he was here and he meant business, so he put a commercial on AFN that played like once an hour for months.
I can't remember the General's name or even the rest of these commercials, but the ending is burned into my brain. 119
Picture if you will, a group of Air Force officers and enlisted standing there chanting this new General's slogan (Flying, Fighting, and Winning!) along with the General. But the General himself isn't just saying this, he is into it! FLYING, FIGHTING, AND WINNING!!! You could hear the excitement, the utter belief in his voice he is the ultimate Air Force badass. The rest of his staff? Not so much, no, they were more "flyingfightingandwinning" (please, save us! we have been kidnapped by this madman!), very understated, just the bare minimum participation to check the box and make the boss happy.
Now, Anaconda was big enough that we had multiple DFACs scattered about post, and I generally ate at the biggest one because it was closest to my office and hooch. It was mainly Army personnel who ate at this DFAC, so other than joking about it when the commercial came on over the wall-mounted TVs, we really didn't pay much attention to General "Flying, Fighting, and Winning!" However, the large DFAC on the other side of post where most of the Air Force personnel ate at, well, I heard that some of my Army brothers and sisters (looking at all the Apache and Black Hawk pilots and crew, because that was the majority of Army personnel on that side of Anaconda) went a little above and beyond in making fun of this commercial. To the point where they would stop whatever they were doing when this commercial came on in the DFAC and yell the slogan as loud as possible along with the General and his staff, usually aimed at any Air Force personnel that happened to be nearby. I don't think any fights broke out because of it (no alcohol allowed in Iraq), but I'm sure many invectives were exchanged between the Air Force and Army personnel.
What about the rest of you? Any fun AFN stories to share? Anyone else remember "Flying, Fighting, and Winning!", or have to serve under him? 119