The Air Battle Manager Badge is a military badge of the United States Air Force which is issued to officers who have been trained and qualified for airborne command and control, air surveillance, electronic warfare, and airborne weapons capabilities. The badge was first proposed in 1990 and was first issued to Air Force officers in 1995 after Air Battle Manager became an Air Force aeronautical rating.
The Air Battle Manager Badge is considered a successor to the Officer Aircrew Badge. Historically, it was awarded to officers who had completed both Undergraduate Air Battle Manager Training (UABMT) and follow-on courses at one of two locations: Tinker AFB, Oklahoma (for those ABMs assigned to the E-3 AWACS) or Robins AFB, Georgia (for ABMs assigned to the E-8 JSTARS). Graduates of UABMT who were not assigned to flying duties were not awarded ABM wings. As of May 2010, however, the new ABM training syllabus allows for students to receive their wings immediately following the conclusion of their undergraduate training - in the same manner as the other two rated career fields, pilot and navigator.
Air Battle Managers' career progression generally follow one of three paths: AWACS, JSTARS, or CRCs (Control and Reporting Centers- often referred to as GTACS Ground Theater Air Control Systems). Air Battle Managers are most often assigned to Air Combat Command, but may be assigned to other MAJCOMS (primarily Air Education and Training Command/AETC) as the needs of the USAF dictate.
The Air Battle Manager Badge is issued in three degrees being that of basic, senior, and master. The level of degree is denoted by a star and wreath above the badge and is determined by the number of flight hours accumulated.
Famous quotes containing the words air, battle, manager and/or badge:
“Oh none too soon through the air white and dry
Will the clear announcer’s voice
Beat like a dove, and you and I
From the heart’s anarch and responsible town
Return by subway-mouth to life again,
Bearing the morning papers,”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known.... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house, but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“It would much conduce to the public benefit, if, instead of discouraging free-thinking, there was erected in the midst of this free country a dianoetic academy, or seminary for free-thinkers, provided with retired chambers, and galleries, and shady walks and groves, where, after seven years spent in silence and meditation, a man might commence a genuine free-thinker, and from that time forward, have license to think what he pleased, and a badge to distinguish him from counterfeits.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)