An observation in passing

I am mowing hay a neighbors right now. He is retired Army, a Colonel if I'm not mistaken. Interesting guy, when I go down there to mow, he'll ride his little Ford tractor down to the field I'm in and we will sit in the shade and talk for a hour or so about books, guns, current events and local politics, all time sitting on our tractors...

I know several guys who are or have been serving officers, but he is the only West P'inter of the lot.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a discussion at Chaos Manor about Infantry and the role of airpower in modern warfare and how the Air Force is still of a WWII/Cold War strategic bombing mindset. Since I am not in the service and never have been, I cannot speak from personal experience, but Ray (my neighbor) did say something earlier this Summer which stuck with me, although at the time I will confess I didn't think much about it.

We were talking about the current military situation and the march to Bagdad in '03 when something was said (I have no recollection of what started it) about close air support for Infantry actions. I was reminded of our conversation when the topic came up at Chaos Manor.

Ray commanded a rifle company and later on was a battalion commander in Vietnam. He doesn't talk a lot about his experiences there, but when he does talk about it I listen. The thing he said that struck me was that he never liked to call (his words) the God-D-d Air Force flyboys for close air support. He said they would never come down close enough to see what the hell they were dropping bombs on. He went on to say he always preferred to call in helicopter gun-ships or (get this) the South Vietnamese Air Force, (his words again)because they would get down on the deck and do the job right.

I have no idea if this is still the case, or even if that was the way the Air Force operated during that era, but I am curious as to whether the Marines, having their own built-in Air Support, had/have the same problems?