Maj. Gen. Bond, USAF, a former Flying Tiger, dies – Washington Post

The Washington Post reports today that Major General Charles Bond, USAF Retired, died yesterday at the age of 94 of dementia.  He died in an assisted living community in Dallas, Texas. He is one of the last surviving Flying Tigers of World War II fame.  The Flying Tigers, a group of active duty pilots who left American air arms (Army, Navy, Marines) to fly with Gen. Claire Chenault in Chinese Nationalist uniforms, as Chinese Officers , in American P-40s against the much better Japanese Zeros were true heros.  They kept the supply lines open for the Chinese Army under General Chiang Kai Shek and his Koumintang so that they could fight the Japanese on the mainland.     

I find this not only interesting but intriguing.  You have to understand, they got $500 in American money for every Japanese plane that they shot down. Essentially they were mercenaries. But they were smart enough to serve in Chinese uniforms as Chinese officers with Chinese commissions.  That way, under the Geneva Convention, they could not be immediately executed upon capture by the Japanese (a mercenary has no rights under the rules of war.  He can be immediately executed since he has no protections).

The P-40 was a good and solid aerial weapons platform for that period early in the war but the Zero was a much better plane, it could turn on a dime due to superior Japanese engineering.  The Zero was without armor and could not take a hit since they did not have self sealing gas tanks until later in the war and they had essentially no protection around the cockpit, but they had substantial fire power and much, much closer turning radius than any allied plane.  Early in the war they were unrivalled which made them extremely dangerous for an Allied pilot to have to handle.  It took a lot of courage to fly against one in a P-40.  At that time, a P-40 was our top of the line fighter (pre-1942) in the Pacific and we were roundly outclassed.

But with solid flying skills and absolute discipline in the air, they took out almost 500 Japanese planes in the air and on the ground with minimal losses to themselves.  They did this with what might be referred to as "the one sweep" rule.  A P-40 could not fly against a Zero in a dogfight.  It was completely outclassed.  But, if it could catch the Zero unaware by flying directly at it from either below a Zero formation or above a Zero formation coming out of the sun, it could take one sweep at the Zero with its guns and then it would run.  The Flying Tigers would get one sweep and only one sweep, they had standing orders never to dogfight with a Japanese fighter.  They caused all this damage with a sweep and run fighting technique.  It was a superb idea and Chenault was a genius for coming up with it.

A lot of the WWII American aces of a few years later had served with the Flying Tigers, including the Marine Corps’ Gregory Boyington of Black Sheep Squadron fame.  These guys were "hot sticks" for their time and although they flew for money, and openly admitted that, they are considered heros today both in China and in the USA.

How times have changed.

Now lets look at Blackwater (or Xe as it is called now).  Would you say that they are in the same class as these guys?  Would they be considered heroes?  If so , why so?  If not, why not?

Today, American and English speaking mercenaries are all over the world engaged in various conflicts for money.  Now personally I have no problem with a mercenary making a buck. He has to eat like anybody else.  In fact, for all of my left wing Democratic Party politics, I must tell you a secret.  I have a son in law who is a professional mercenary with Xe.  He is a dedicated, Bible reading, hard working, usually deployed ultra right wing 29 year old who served one tour in Afghanistan as an Army Ranger and five or six tours in Iraq as a Blackwater mercenary.  We don’t talk politics.  I bet that you can guess why that is.  We avoid all talk of the Western Asian wars, President Obama, the Democratic Party or anything that is not directly related to family matters.

Mercenaries hate to be called mercenaries.  They like to be called contractors.  Now personally, from my point of view, a contractor is an old Italian guy that you hire from the neighborhood to come into your house and wallpaper your kitchen again.  Or, he is a young Latino that you hire to landscape your lawn or replace the drywall in the basement rec room.  Or maybe a contractor is a young woman that your wife hires to remodel the dining room. I just have a hard time calling somebody a "contractor" when his job is to take one of the most powerful hand held weapons known to man and carry it around in the face of some Muslim sheep herder in some unknown country where the sheepherder has never seen a light skinned human being before in his entire life before the "contractor" showed up with his Bible, his automatic weapon and his attitude.  It just does not settle in my mind.  It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth for the word "contractor".

Now my son in law is a decent guy.  He truly and honestly believes that what he is doing is the right thing to do.  He believes that he is defending Western values and he cannot be shaken from that belief.  He is a good father to my grandkids, they want for nothing, and he is a good husband to my daughter.  She gets whatever she whines for. And you know what?  Even a Left Winger like me allows for my son in law to believe whatever he wants to believe.  He is allowed to believe whatever fits into his personal cosmology.  He is an American.  I spent almost 25 years on active duty protecting his right to believe whatever he wants.  He takes full advantage of my openness on this issue.  You could not find two men who are more far apart in their personal belief systems.

But the Flying Tigers of pre-American involvement in World War II were a whole different group of American "contractors".  They gave a whole different definition to the concept of mercenary.  They are gone now.  New "contractors" have taken over the landscape.

How times have changed.

I think that I like the older concept of American "contractors" better.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)