Air Force commander fired over crew’s phallic drawings in bomber cockpits

An Air Force commander was reportedly relieved from duty this week after an investigation found phallic drawings displayed on a moving map software used in the cockpit of a bomber.

Lt. Col. Paul Goossen was the commander of the B-52 squadron located at the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. He was released from duty after the images were discovered, military news outlet Military.com reported.

An investigation by the Air Force found that during the 69th Bomb Squadron’s deployment in Qatar from August 2017 to April 2018, penis drawings were repeatedly discovered. Sources told Military.com that the images were compiled into a montage and shown at an end-of-deployment roll-call.{mosads}

The Air Force told the news outlet in a statement that Goossen was relieved of duty on Tuesday “due to a loss of trust and confidence from his failure to maintain a professional workplace environment.”

Goossen had reportedly told his squadron to stop drawing the images in August of 2017 when his crew was first deployed in Qatar.

Goossen said the images were appearing on base, including in restrooms, dorms, vehicles and on bombs put on the B-52’s.

The squadron then began drawing phallic images inside the bomber cockpit instead.

“Aircrews believed the drawings on the aircraft would be contained only to aircrews viewing while flying on the aircraft and was meant to be a morale boost and joke to break from the monotonous routines encountered during that rotation,” according to a redacted copy of the investigation obtained by Task and Purpose.

“[The] 69 EBS aircrew members confirmed, it was common practice for aircrews to create what was commonly referred to as ‘dick pics’ using the Microsoft Paint application in the B-52 [redacted] display,” the investigation said.

Between 10 and 25 members of the crew were responsible for the images, the investigation found, while faulting Goossen for not doing more to stop it.

“Any actions or behavior that do not embody our values and principles are not tolerated within the Air Force,” Air Force Global Strike spokesman Lt. Col. Uriah Orland told Military.com.