Your comment that was refuted was that Boyd & Co. and Stealth were two
concepts gleaned from Vietnam that were proven erroneous or invalid.

Boyd's work on energy maneuverability and three

imensional maneuver
is still the basis for 1-v-1 BFM and led to the development of
supporting element maneuver in multi-plane engagement. Without Boyd,
we'd still have Eagles, Vipers and Raptors running around in fighting
wing.

Everything you said is correct and explains why the ideas of Boyd&Co were
"fundamentally" wrong.
They developed tactics for a world without situational and global awaraness
tools and designed warplanes to excel under such circumstances.
Lets put that way, during Vietnam war US had only rudimentary situational
awareness tools no global awareness tool at all.
Boyd&Co identified wrong problem and tried to solve wrong problem with a step
in the wrong direction,the real reason for not so perfect performance of US
aircraft in Vietnam was not their inability to perform high energy maneuvers or
missing cannons,it was unavailability of situational and global awareness tools
that we have today.
So,it would be much better if Boyd and others should have asked a couple of
questions to themselves before developing their concepts:
a)How it would be if US had total situational awareness in Vietnam?
b)Whats if such tools brcome available in next 10-15 years?
Unfortunately they developed their concepts without answering such questions
and also without fully understanding the direction of technological
development,so we have now full situational and global awareness but also 100 M
$ fighters that are not only capable of destroying MIG17s in dogfights also
capable of doing jack knife type fighting with Red Barons Fokker.
But thanks to such wonderful capabilities that they never ever need under full
situational awareness conditions,their ranges will never meet the criterias.

Stealth, and the idea of denying the defenses accurate az/el/range
data through a variety of technologies is going to be a foundation for
aircraft (and defense) designs for a long time to come.

Thats even worse than Boyds ideas,"passive" stealth was already obsolete in
70s,(Might stay as a foundation for aircraft designs for a long time to come
though,specially if your adversaries are backward third world countries like
Panama,Iraq,Iran,NK,Somalia,Zambia etc)

As for what "combat vets should try to do", please acknowledge that
like all professions, military aviators are not one-dimensional
humans. We do a lot of things in a life time, and don't simply
disappear into the attic when the war is over.

I hope so,but Let me repeat the Battleship example,after Mitchell demonstration
it was obvious the the era of Battleships was over but Admirals all over the
world continued to order bigger better ,more capable and of course more
expensive Battleships (their showboats) till they learn the truth hard way
during WWII,
I am pretty sure,without WWII we,and probably everbody else, would still be
building bigger and better battleships.As for the relevance of the lessons of
Vietnam to F-16, F-22 or SU-37,
let me point you to Santyana---"those who will not learn the lessons
of history are condemned to repeat them."


Thats true but only if learn correct lessons.

Lots of science and technology, but it is directed by the experiences
gathered along the way.

You gotta problem wid dat?

Historically wars,unfortunately,were one of the driving forces behind the
scientific&technological development but calling Boyds ideas and passive
stealth a development would be strecth