Backtalk: Avenge not

Avenge not
By Robert F. Dorr

If you’re in the Air Force, the answer must be yes.

When Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley released the new “Airman’s Creed” last April, that poetic statement of purpose used many words to characterize today’s airman — warrior, sentry and wingman, among others.

One of those words was avenger.

It troubled me that America’s airmen were being told their job was to avenge. Last June, I mentioned it in an e-mail message I sent to Moseley: “It was common to talk of revenge after Pearl Harbor, and many Americans talked that way after September 11,” I wrote, “but official U.S. foreign policy holds that our armed forces do not avenge.”

This month, without knowing of my reaction, a colonel serving overseas contacted me to say he objects to the term “avenger,” has tried to persuade his bosses that the term should not be used, and that his superiors disagree.


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