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Champions of Equestria

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safe2164910 artist:sensko242 diamond dog4083 earth pony442223 pegasus492591 pony1592791 unicorn533749 equestria at war (sensko)11 armor31020 arrow2952 comic134912 fantasy class1929 hoplite28 ice cream6630 knight1339 meme93572 mouth hold23619 navy219 ponified meme2258 rain7818 shield2724 shovel1307 spear3209 warrior1587 weapon41020 wonderbolts4421

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Background Pony #248F
Given that ponies are herbivores, what is the Equestrian equivalent of being a snake eater? Tree nibbler? Shrub muncher? Root chewer?
Ferrotter
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@SilentObserver01  
Yes, that’s why pegasi aren’t traditionally very bookish. Being on the ground is boring, whereas pegasi have the option of interesting things to do. They never traditionally had much reason to invent interesting books.
SilentObserver01
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Wallet After Summer Sale -

@Ferrotter  
Jeez. Wall of text I actually glossed through. Whelp. I guess that makes sense, but I also came up with ANOTHER conclusion. When your time on the ground is pretty much passing time, BOREDOM is your worst enemy.
Ferrotter
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@SilentObserver01  
tl;dr version: US Army Aviation Branch flies only helicopters; US Air Force flies anything.
 
In the US, we have one US Air Force, one US Army, and one US Navy. Plus the US Marine Corps, but that’s actually part of the Navy, basically a small seagoing army that can launch attacks from ships faster than the land-based Army can deploy to far-away places, and hold what they conquered until the regular Army gets there. There are also smaller armed forces like US Coast Guard and US Public Health Service, but Army/Navy/Air Force are the big three. And all the services have part-time National Guard and/or Reserve branches.
 
Back before airplanes were common enough for an Air Force to exist, land-based US warplanes were flown by the US Army Air Corps, just like the US Navy had ship-based planes. After WWII, when early nuclear weapons dropped by B-29 bombers made the rather small US Army Air Corps technically more powerful than the entire rest of the Army put together, the three services were broken up into their present form, and there was an agreement put into the law that all three services would have similar budgets. That way the Army couldn’t be bled dry of actual troops in order to make more nuclear weapons and heavy bombers, and the Air Force wouldn’t be strangled by an Army that needed large numbers of troops to hopefully keep the war from going nuclear. Part of that agreement was that Army isn’t allowed to have airplanes. They are however allowed to have helicopters, so the Aviation Branch is the Army’s own helicopter service. The US Air Force can have everything that flies, including helicopters, fighters, bombers, tankers, transports, etc.. (Navy can have some of everything, but what planes they have are mostly smaller or lower performance than their Air Force equivalents. Navy planes generally have to be small enough and heavily-built enough to operate from aircraft carriers. Their anti-submarine planes are a major exception; they’re airliner-sized and operate from coastal bases. And of course a lot of their money goes into ships, so they don’t have as many planes as the Air Force, nor does their Marine Corps have as many troops, tanks, or helicopters as the Army. And what the Marines have is also usually compromised the same way as the planes, by needing to operate off ships.)
 
The agreement benefits both services (as well as the Navy), because the Army can’t be asked to support airplanes out of their own budget, even when the airplanes basically exist to help the Army, like the A-10 tankbuster, or CV-22 Osprey Pararescue tilt-rotors. (Or for that matter the Air Force Pararescue units themselves. They’re very under-appreciated, but they’re the most highly-trained Special Forces troops in the world. SEALS or SAS are deadlier, but Pararescue commandos are expected to be able to go into areas that even stopped the SEALS, and get them back out. Plus they’re all medical doctors or registered nurses before they can even become Pararescue commandos.) It benefits the Air Force because even if it’s the Army that needs more planes, it’s the Air Force that gets more money for the planes/pilots/mechanics/etc. And it benefits the Navy because then the Navy can set a proper budget for carriers and ballistic missile submarines, without worrying that the money will be used to buy Air Force planes and land-based ICBMs instead. And the citizens benefit because the three branches of service don’t directly compete with and sabotage each others’ plans in a quest for the budgets they need. However, and the point of this comic, there is a friendly rivalry between them as to which service is “better.” There’s more than a little truth that US Air Force has the cushiest lives on-base. But they also take enormous risks. Ground troops may have to suffer in freezing muck in a foxhole, but they aren’t personally stalked daily by guided missiles while they’re hundreds of miles into enemy territory and just as far away from the nearest friendly troops. They take different risks but they all risk a lot. And of course there’s a similar Army/Navy(and Marines) rivalry and an Air Force/Navy rivalry too.