Not Your Father's Air Force VIII

No snark or "get off my lawn" stuff with today's NYFAF... just me feelin' like I should break out with a couple o' choruses of Dylan's "The Times they Are A Changin'."  From today's AFA Daily Report:

Hello, Air Forces Cyber: Twenty-fourth Air Force, USAF's cyber operations arm at Lackland AFB, Tex., on Wednesday added "Air Forces Cyber" to its title. The organization is now: 24th Air Force (Air Forces Cyber). The addition is meant to reflect better the numbered air force's USAF mission and its role as the Air Force element supporting US Cyber Command at Fort, Meade, Md. (CYBERCOM is the lead organization for protecting the Defense Department's networks.) The change also conforms to the Air Force's naming practice that aligns its NAFs with the combatant commands that they support. Col. Mark Ware, 24th AF's director of cyberspace plans and operations, said the name change "will not impact the 24th Air Force's mission." According to Ware, Wednesday's move came five years to the day that the Air Force added "cyberspace," for the first time, to its mission statement. (Lackland report by TSgt. Scott McNabb)

And this...

Officers Graduate Cyberspace Course: The undergraduate cyberspace training course at Keesler AFB, Miss., on Wednesday graduated its first class of 15 officers. The students completed six months of rigorous training with the 333rd Training Squadron, learning the fundamentals of operations in the cyber domain. The course is part of the Air Force's vision for a "fully developed Air Force cyberspace operations workforce," according to Keesler's release. "You might not fully appreciate the magnitude of your military service in this mission area right now, but I promise you that if you maintain your commitment and stay in the armed forces, when you look back on your life one day, you [will] realize how unbelievable it was to have had this historic opportunity to be part of such a special, pioneering group," said Maj. Gen. Michael Basla, Air Force Space Command vice commander, at the dinner honoring the graduates. (See also Back to Cyberspace)

I'm sure you won't be surprised, Gentle Reader, when I mention I served back in the 75 baud teletype era, when our computers were massive mainframes housed in blockhouses and driven by big-ass tape drives or stacks of punch cards.  Cyberspace was unknown and the word "cyber" was something you found in a Heinlein novel, not in your vernacular or on your desk. All that said, I have the Air Force to thank for my brief 16-year IT career.  

Like nearly everything else in my life, my first encounter with computers happened strictly by accident.  I was selected to be my office's point man for the roll-out of Air Force Communications Command/Engineering-Installation Division's very first desk top computers.  This happened sometime in  1984, when the AF put spiffy new 5.25" dual-floppy Zenith Z-100 machines on everyone's desk at the EID.  Looking back, those were clunky lil machines with a laughable office automation software package that featured the Peachtext word processor and other nearly worthless applications (by today's standards).  But, Hey!  That was a start and that start got my foot in the IT world's door.  A year or so after that project was over I found myself up in Dee-troit, working for Electronic Data Systems in the beginning of what was to be an exciting and very rewarding career in IT.  Thanks, USAF!

So, to bring it back full circle, I agree with what General Basla told those young officers at their graduation dinner.  There most certainly WILL come a time when these newly minted cyber-warriors will look back on their careers with something like wonder.  I know I sure do.