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<\/center>Litany of Failure is the subheading of a portion of this Air Force Times article<\/a> that caught my eye.<\/p>\n“Inspectors watched as a security forces airman played video games on his cell phone while standing guard at a “restricted area perimeter,” the DTRA report said. Meanwhile, another airman nearby was \u201cunaware of her duties and responsibilities” during the exercise.”<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n * An internal security response team didn\u2019t respond to its \u201cpre-designated defensive fighting position\u201d during an attack on the weapon storage area, leaving an entire side of the maintenance facility vulnerable to enemy fire.<\/p>\n * Security forces didn\u2019t clear a building upon entering it, which allowed inspectors to \u201ckill\u201d three of those four airmen.<\/p>\n * Security forces failed to use the correct entry codes, issued that week, to allow certain personnel into restricted areas.<\/p>\n * Security forces airmen failed to properly check an emergency vehicle for unauthorized personnel when it arrived at a weapons storage area, or search it correctly once it left.<\/p>\n * While wing airmen simulated loading an aircraft with nuclear weapons, security forces airmen failed to investigate vulnerabilities on the route from the storage area to the flight line, and didn\u2019t arm three SF airmen posted at traffic control points along that route.<\/p>\n * While on the aircraft, one flight of security forces airmen didn\u2019t understand key nuclear surety terminology, including the \u201ctwo-person concept\u201d \u2014 the security mechanism that requires two people to arm a nuclear weapon in case the codes fall into the hands of an airman gone bad.<\/em><\/p>\n How could things get this bad? I don’t know. It’s going to take a long time for the Minot AFB personnel to build a decent reputation again. But the Air Force is going to set about doing just that, apparently, with the addition of another B-52 squadron<\/a> to the base. At first glance, a cynic might think it’s typical of government to reward failure, but I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. According to the article I linked above, they’re going to use the extra active-duty resources to allow for more training. Hopefully that’s the case.<\/p>\n It really does seem as though MAFB’s problems were a top-down issue. The first article I referenced described leadership that was detached from the servicemen. It’s hard to make changes at the top in any government organization, civilian or military, but hopefully the recent shakeup at the top of the Air Force command structure<\/a> will ripple downward. Oh, and someone please<\/strong> teach these kids how to leave their cell phones behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Litany of Failure is the subheading of a portion of this Air Force Times article that caught my eye. “Inspectors watched as a security forces airman played video games on his cell phone while standing guard at a “restricted area … Continue reading