There is a maxim that all students of history know by heart and it is one that observers of the military today would do well to keep in mind. "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it." Soldiers For The Truth founder, the late Colonel David H. Hackworth, U.S. Army (Ret) often talked about the "CRS" syndrome. In Hack's often colorful and descriptive way of speaking, the CRS acronym stood for, "can't remember s***." Given his propensity for reducing and eliminating euphemistic language to the barest minimum, Hack, like all students of the military art would probably not be surprised by what is happening in today's Air Force. Unfortunately, it seems that of late, the U.S. Air Force may have deliberately chosen to ignore the lessons that can be learned from studying the historical record.

As the nation's youngest service and one of two that vie for the title of most technical, the Air Force had, until quite recently done an outstanding job of recording for posterity its operational history on a service-wide level. As the only service with historians assigned permanently at the wing level (and its equivalents), the Air Force had, since 1940, meticulously recorded the accomplishments and achievements of its operational groups and wings.

After its separation from the Army, the Air Force continued to maintain its history program. While most of its early unit historians were warrant officers or civilians, the elimination of the warrant officer corps by the Air Force meant that group and wing level history duties fell to non-commissioned officers with better than average research and writing skills. After recognizing the need for formal training and that the career field should only be opened to experienced NCOs, the Air Force set up a schoolhouse to provide interested applicants with the requisite training to ensure compliance with the History program directives contained within AFI 84-101.

As one of the smallest Air Force Specialty Codes (AFSCs) Historians, for the most part, were people who showed a keen interest in military and aviation history. Additionally, at some point they had shown better than average writing skills had interviewed and provided a writing sample prior to selection for the four week course held at Maxwell AFB, Alabama. As the shortest AFSC generating school conducted by the Air Education and Training Command, the Air Force decided (quite correctly) that Historians at the minimum should all be NCOs and thus, did not allow non-prior service members to enter the career field directly from civilian life.

Now, as a result of transformation, more than 60 years of institutional experience with a service wide history program is about to be changed forever. And to hear those from the field talk, the changes will not result in a better program. Less than two years ago, then Secretary of the Air Force, James G. Roche, in his unquestioning implementation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's "transformation" plans, queried senior uniformed Air Force leadership as to why the service even had enlisted historians. He asked this question about an enlisted career field that at the time employed less than 300 people service wide. At the time of his inquiry, there were 110 slots for historians in the active Air Force, 88 in the Air National Guard and 85 in the Air Force Reserve Command. The question, which may have been rhetorical in nature, had what some viewed as the "unintended" effect of creating a demand for elimination or conversion and the days of enlisted historians then became numbered.

Using Rumsfeld's unending demands for conversion of "extraneous" uniformed positions to civil service or contractor positions, the Air Staff decided to convert all active duty historian positions at the wing and major command (MAJCOM) level by FY 2008. The school house for entry level training closed by the end of FY 2003 and the capstone course for fully qualified historians closed in FY 2005. The closures of these schools left many reserve component historians stranded in training limbo, while the active Air Force implemented plans to retrain its incumbent historians. In classic Air Force personnel management fashion, active duty historians were told they could return to their immediately prior AFSC or retrain. Those who were eligible to retire did so and those who weren't either retrained or separated.

Despite the fact that the elimination plans have moved forward, there are those in the Air Force who believe that the civilianization of the active duty Air Force history program will not work over the long term. The reason is simple: the service is hiring candidates with the requisite academic credentials who all too often, lack any military, let alone Air Force experience.

Contrasting this method, the United States Marine Corps hires for its history program only former Marine officers, many retired at the senior field grade level to serve as the custodians of the service's historical legacy.

The plight of enlisted historians was handled differently by each of the Air Force's two reserve components. The Air Force Reserve Command took the position that enlisted historians were an invaluable resource for local commanders as well as the reserve itself because they provided continuity of information, preservation of lineage and honors and served as the collective memory for the various organizations throughout AFRC. AFRC then approached the active Air Force with an exception to policy waiver and requested retention of the AFSC and the positions on wing manning documents. The Air Staff, perhaps fearful that the entire history program might wither and die approved the request.

The Air National Guard history program, headed up by Dr. Charles J. Gross took a completely different approach. Dr. Gross, a retired Air Force reserve Colonel with a Ph.D in Military History had long been known for his disdain of enlisted historians. He stated on several occasions that he did not believe enlisted members possessed the requisite Scholarship and writing skills to "adequately" document the activities of the ANG's 88 flying wings and their disparate missions. Additionally, his personal interests did not include managing a field history program; his preference was simple, he wanted the National Guard Bureau to provide him with a sinecure so that he could continue to write his monographs on aviation and Air Force history. He did not want to have to read, evaluate and "grade" the work of enlisted historians at the wing level.

Unfortunately for the ANG history program and the 88 historians who struggled valiantly to comply with Air Force and Air National Guard historical documentation regulations, support by ANG wing commanders was at best, mixed. This lack of support allowed Gross to pursue his own agenda, i.e. eliminating enlisted historians and the wing history programs completely. With the conversion of active duty historian slots into career civil service positions and the announcement that the Air Force Reserve would keep the AFSC as an exception to policy, Gross submitted his plan to Lt. General Daniel James, Jr., Director of the Air National Guard for approval. General James, the former Adjutant General of Texas under then Governor Bush and appointed by President Bush to head the ANG, signed the order eliminating historians from the manning...