I don't think anyone here is belittling anyone else's job.
I had the opportunity to discuss with an Army major his job, while he was stationed at Camp Victory, Baghdad International Airport, Iraq. His primary duty was as a Blackhawk pilot; however, his job on Camp Victory was to oversee the "beds and beans." In his words, he never expected to find himself in a position where his main responsibility was to ensure a proper count of how many people were eating in the dining facility.
YET, the one thing he didn't mention, was the primary difference between the infantryman on Camp Victory and the 8-12 support personnel who didn't go outside the wire. You see, an infantryman has a unique advantage over the support personnel: by going outside the wire, they actually get to engage and capture, or if necessary, kill, the enemy. The 8-12 support personnel for each infantryman are at a disadvantage: when the mortars and rockets come flying in, they each have the same chance of being killed as the infantryman ... but they have no opportunity to shoot back. They have to sit and wait for death to find them, feeling impotent because of how much they want to fight back, but have no target.
There was an Air Force major who was killed back in April. He was on a treadmill at the time. Ten days before he was supposed to go home, he had gone to the gym. Mortar came in, hit the roof, and he was killed. Back during the early days of IRAQI FREEDOM, there was a mortar strike on a dining facility; a couple dozen servicemen and women were killed or injured. Not all of them were ones who went outside the wire.
We Air Force guys like to joke about how we're the smartest service because we're the only service that sends its officers to the front lines; but we have the same complaints about how the pilots view themselves as more important than anyone else in our service, when the truth is: Without that E-3 maintenance guy making sure the plane can fly, or the E-2 security guy making sure the enemy isn't sabotaging the plane, the pilot ain't going nowhere.
Each of you who had/have a support role, remember that you're not "impotent," and unable to shoot back; you're the ones aiming and firing the few who do get to go outside the wire. It's a team effort.
