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Sorry to hear that, Brother. Wrap your brain around the concept that she will get half of everything you ever earned while you were together. If you're able to come out better, then it's all gravy. Do everything you can to remain civil and professional with her. Never let your kids hear you say anything bad about her. Ever. Not once. As strange as this sounds, moving forward your relationship with her, and it's failure are none of their business. No matter how badly she may behave, she's their Mom. If you can sit down at the kitchen table with her and put it all on a legal pad, you'll save yourself a lot of angst and attorney fees. If you can "give in" to certain things she wants in order to facilitate a quick agreement in return for certain things you want, it's worth every penny. People will give you advice like: "Roll in on that cunt and fight her tooth and nail!" Ask those people to compare what they think they "won" in court financially to what it cost to litigate it. It isn't worth it. Moving forward, your relationship with her is going to be jointly parenting your kids. That relationship will be healthier for the kids if the two of you can agree to act like adults ad settle as amicably and quickly as possible. Now; You. You're a pro. Compartmentalize like a MF and work your way through indoc and IOE. When you get a chance, take some time for yourself. Nonrev to Hawaii and put it all out of your mind for a few days. Exercise is your friend - the more the better. At some point in all of this process, you'll have come far enough and gotten past the anger enough to look at what happened a little more objectively. When that happens, the single most important thing you can do is forgive her and yourself for what happened. Let it fucking go. You're also about to re-learn who your real friends are. Lean on those folks. Bigtime. Don't medicate with booze or food. That's it. The day you have to tell your children is the worst day of your life. Everyday after that will be just a little bit better. Good luck, chum. Those of us who've been through this are rooting for you. Hell, you can at least call yourself a real airline pilot now!

Great... now I suddenly hate my wife. Thanks, asshole!

I'll add something a bit different here. The above advice is solid, especially not drinking. Remember that everyone you deal with other than your wife and kids has seen this a million times. When a judge/lawyer/mediator asks what you want, it's just a test. You're getting half. If that's what you ask for, they know which party is acting in good faith. "I want my children to have a great relationship with both of their parents going forward, and to split the assets we accumulated while married right down the middle." Don't date for now. You have kids, I didn't. But they won't understand I'm guessing, and it sounds like the soon-to-be-ex will tell them if she finds out. You're going to get so much ass it'll make your head spin, so be patient. Write down everything that was wrong in your relationship. You determine the detail, but it should include what she would do that you didn't like, why you didn't like it, and how it made you feel. For bonus points, also write down the things that she didn't like about you. Trust me on this. When you meet that flight attendant that turns your stomach into butterflies, if it ain't written down, you won't remember it. Make sure the woman you decide to make into your kids' second mom isn't a recycled script. Do not trust this to your memory alone. The smaller brain is always an optimist. Think about how many people you know. Then think about how many of them are good friends. Then think about how many of those are best friends. The friend you can go on a month long backpacking trip with and not get annoyed with or tired of once. Pretty rare, huh? Now add sexual compatibility to that. If you find your forever-mate after 3 months and a few tinder dates, you'd better be buying lottery tickets too...

Why don’t we start with not requiring military members to pay federal and state income tax? That’s an easy pay increase across the board with no perceptible reduction in tax revenue.

Please don’t rush to judgment on the Mueller report, people! We need to wait and hear the opinions of Alyssa Milano and Robert De Niro before we can draw a final conclusion! 😂

I expected responsible long term decisions that were made on the basis of maintaining the United States' ability to defend itself and its allies. The decision to end F-22 production (by Sec Gates) and the direction to get 60 ISR CAPs remain two extremely short sighted decisions that have had a significant negative impact, and have placed the Air Force and the United States in the strategically "high risk" position we are in today. I agree with what di1630 stated above. Even at 350 F-22s (instead of ~700 planned or the 180 we ended up with) you would have twice the number of F-22s squadrons (two more wings), and probably twice the F-22 B-Course production capability. It's debatable, but I think you would have been able to retire the F-15C (~2020), we avoid the whole "retire the A-10" debacle, and you would have developed a much more robust 5th Gen fighter and maintenance force. You reduce your pilot and maintainer absorption problem, and have a positive impact on the retention problem. (diversified assignment options, Eagle guys don't just ping between overseas England and Japan, increased F-16 and F-15E opportunities in the F-22, and you have a lot more F-22 pilots to go straight to the F-35). Overall you have a more capable force, and hedged a lot of the risk in the F-35. Do I want guys to fly a new F-15X vs a 40 year old F-15C, hell yeah, but it blows my mind that we're going to buy 12 of them in 2020 to try and address a capacity issue. OSD did it to us. Bold leadership means standing up for what you believe in. Hell, maybe they (OSD) made what they thought was the best decision at the time, but right now it sure as hell looks like it was a poor decision. It has taken us a DECADE (2009-2019) to "grow, stabilize, and mature the RPA enterprise." The insatiable demand for 60 CAPs? All that did was create programs like TAMI 21, and crush the will of 11F/11Ms in the 2004-2010 timeframe, and create the false notion that leadership can watch the war through a soda straw and hold decision authority at the highest level. This has directly impacted the current retention crisis we are in with 11Fs. We learned that again in 2013 when we could have ended OIR before it started had we gone on the offensive, but instead we held back, played whack a mole and 5 years later we're "closing up shop" even though were aren't going anywhere. It will go on. Add the Budget Control Act of 2011 on top of those poor decisions and it's no wonder the Air Force (and really the Army and the Navy but for different reasons) have the force structure, retention, and unbalanced strategic skills challenges facing them today. Now a lot would have happened between then and now, but love or hate Buzz he actually had the foresight to think ahead. Gates and OSD put us on this path, and Congress and the Executive branch kept us there. Again, easy to look back in hindsight, but Buzz was right. I'm on the fence about Light Attack. There is no way OSD would have purchased enough light attack back in 2008 in the quantities needed to reduce the Ops Tempo for other fighter squadrons to dial back. BCA made sure of that. Do you think Light Attack would have changed our behavior in any of the AORs? I don't think so. Now it's too little, too late for our National Security Strategy and it doesn't rank high enough on the priority list in its current form.

After they faked the moon landing I wouldn’t put anything past them.

Wonder why she didn’t end up at Eastern New Mexico University? She always spoke so highly of the area.

The MiG may have survived if he would have used the Defensive Egg

Now that you are running a side business, do you you conduct business on the phone while walking in uniform, Lieutenant?

You’re 100% spot on. I spoke with Chief Wright recently and was underwhelmed. He genuinely believes that quote. Results don’t matter, only attitude. It’s based on the theory that a proper attitude will eventually produce results, but he can’t articulate that and within a bureaucracy lacking accountability the quote is correct on its surface. Gents, the USAF will not improve the way it treats people. It doesn’t care about you. They hear your comments, and don’t care enough to pay you better or change their policies. People on these forums are generally aircrew with a culture of caring about results. The Air Force does not care about your results and they don’t care that you care about results. They just want you to act happy and smile and have a thin waist, they do not care if you lose wars. The sooner you grasp the nature of our service culture the sooner you can be at peace with your decisions within it, or your decision to leave it.

Well this post didn't age well...

what fucking experiments do we need to do? grow a fucking pair and make a decision (put your name/reputation by it...looking at you senior leaders)...and go fucking execute. god damn it. smells like a saving of face for the AF IRT screwing over the contractors

Guys, just leave, get out, run, run fast. The AF is managed by imbiciles and fools. DAL put $40k into my 401k last year. Each and every one of you has millions of dollars worth of training. The $35k retention bonus is an insult. Imbiciles. Fools.

Spin it to let her keep some equity in return to help fund the refinance. Do not stay financially tied to that chick at any cost. Get the f-ck away from anything that ties her spending to something that affects you or gives her leverage. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Felt real nice to click to click “confirm” to opt out of consideration. Great system. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Yea, fuck those guys.

Just want to say no one deserves that and I am terribly sorry for that situation. You will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Maybe we should use doctors to identify health risks. Roll the body comp into the pha and use medical solutions for medical problems. If you absolutely must use nonmedical fitness testers for a ‘health’ assessment, mitigate with an inbody scanner for visceral fat level, not a meaningless tape measure. If I we’re king for a day, I’d make it simple, functional, and occupationally relevant. 4 part test, no gender bias. No universal. ‘passing score.’ Minimums are based on AFSC with potential different standards for accession and for retention. Retention decisions are completely commander’s business. 1. Squat - 75% body weight - max reps in 5 minutes - 25 reps max - 1 point per rep 2. Overhead press - 33% body weight - max reps in 5 minutes - 25 reps max - 1 point per rep 3. Deadlift - body weight - max reps in 5 minutes - 25 reps max - 1 point per rep 4. 20m shuttle run - max 20m lengths in 5 minutes - 25 reps max - 1 point per length

Funny you say that. I advocated once that the entire fitness center, hawc, fac, should me moved under and managed by the medical group, not the FSS. I also think the only thing that should be tested is body fat composition. The dude in the video sounds like a douche canoe. And he is using 40 year old science. The vast majority of literature today concludes a strength based workout is more important than heavy cardio to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Take detailed notes.

#fakenews She claims to be the first female fighter pilot, but she flew A-10's.... I'll leave that grenade here as I slowly walk away.

There's a big difference here: CB Ford was trying to ruin someone (Kavanaugh). McSally doesn't seem to be going the vindictive route. She simply states "Yes, it happened to me, and I get it.". She's not starting a Congressional inquiry to ruin an innocent man. If I'm missing something about her intent, let me know. I really know very little about the woman. The few things I do see since she retired from the USAF, I applaud.

That sucks. Im in the middle of a very bad one myself. My STBX just tried to sell our house without me knowing (im TDY right now). She has filed a motion to sell it and sent it to my lawyer. I now have to go to court to stop her (Ill win just another 1G down the drain). She is all over the place. Here is what you need to do: Don't move out its your house. I made this mistake. Stop Drinking until its over. Do not yell at her or touch her. She could try to get an EPO which if you lose in court gets you a DVO. You don't want to take the risk if she wants to be heard infront of the judge Lawyer up and don't be afraid to fire your lawyer mid stream Know that you are not your lawyer's priority they are balancing their practice as well; just find the best one you can that is smart. Get a Tempory Motion (or whatever they call it in Florida) immediatly for: Custudy - NEVER grant her sole custudy, get joint legal & physical Visitiation schedule and time sharing -- I travel extensivley for work I did not get one and the STBX fights me every time I want to take the kids on a trip/have them overnight. I know your lifestyle; for visitation/ timesharing get it written in that you will decide on a schedule by a certian day for the next month. Child support A staus quo agreement -- meaning no depriciation of join assests and additional joint debt. Seperate all joint accounts Cancel all joint CCs Get organized Every email/text phone call goes infront of a judge Get a phone recording app that records every call automatically Fight paying her any maintenance -- research jobs she is capable of getting to demonstrate she can make more than minimum wage. Duck I could go on and on Im 1.5yrs into this because she is unreasonable. Most important Love your kids.

She claims she didn't say anything at the time because she “didn’t trust the system at the time.” GMAFB She sued the SecDef and went on 60 minutes. She wasn't afraid to speak up when she thought she'd been wronged. This is all about her. Just like everything she's ever done is all about her.

Hey Sewer Rat...aw, fuck it.

I didn’t see the part where he said he is a Nav but in a Gunship the Nav/CSO/WSO is doing one hell of a lot more than going along for the ride.

“Easiest thing to fly” .... do you mean ride around in?

We (AFRC 135’s) are going to 120’s in country, 5 months total orders. NAF confirmation, Wing, OG, etc. This is a huge issue to those of us that have fought for decades to keep the reserves as good as they can be. The OP started the thread IMNSHO to get the word out as anyone considering what used to be a good gig in the early 00’s is now maybe not such a good deal. But seriously- who the eff are you to tell people to ‘GTFO’ a forum because we are bringing attention to an idiotic policy that will be catastrophic to squadrons that we love? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Another perspective from the dark world of cargo (777 aircraft): My March trip leaves 19 Mar for 13 days including my commute home. So, I leave on a Tuesday morning and I'll be back home Sunday midday just shy of two weeks later. I get it - not everyone would want that. There are plenty of shorter trips available if someone wanted say, two 6-day trips with a week off in between or even more trips (four 3-day trips). I prefer to minimize my commutes. As a result, I'm off 15 days in a row before the trip from 3 Mar-18 Mar. If I had worked the first two weeks of Feb, I could have had 4 weeks off in a row without using vacation. I'm working as an FO (as opposed to bidding a Relief FO trip), so I will fly a mix of long and short flights. I usually try to bid for an international deadhead to start the trip (and maybe one at the end of the trip if I get lucky) and one revenue flight each day I fly during the trip. If I wanted all long-haul flights on the trip, I would need to bid an RFO trip. Those trips typically have a deadhead (always on pax carriers, never our own aircraft) every other leg. The RFO works as part of a 3 or 4 pilot crew, has a layover and then deadheads to another city to meet up with another crew in need of additional pilots and so on. An added bonus of bidding the FO trips (if you know who the LCAs are i.e. Instructors) is you can also get bumped if they need that trip for training new pilots. You purposely bid a trip with them knowing they're going to get a student. So, your two-week trip gets "bought" and you get paid to stay home for the month. If you still want to work that month, you can pick up an extra trip or trips (maybe over the same days you planned to work originally) and double dip (even more, if your extra trip is being paid as draft - 150%). Day One I deadhead on AA in business class to Paris - I leave from my home airport to fly to France without having to commute to my domicile to start the trip and have some extra money left over for a private car to take me to the airport. Arrive Paris, 24 hours off 4-pilot crew Paris to Guangzhou, China (12:01 block hours)- 29 hours off 2-pilot to Osaka, Japan (3:17 block) - 50 hours off 2-pilot to Seoul, Korea (1:51 block) 33 hours off 2-pilot to Guangzhou (4:03 block) 27 hours off 4-pilot to Cologne, Germany (12:54 block) 62 hours off 3-pilot to Memphis (10:15 block) I get in to MEM around 0500, so I'll grab a nap in one of our hub sleep rooms (private, single bed, private showers available) and then use more extra travel money to fly home on AA with a real ticket (they'll upgrade me to first class) and another private car to take me home. Should walk through the door at home around 1400. We do our rest periods on the 3-pilot crew the same as TreeA10. 3 equal periods. With the 4-pilot crews, we do 4 breaks (two each) as he said, but the two breaks may not always be equal. Some guys like one short break and one longer (short, long, long, short). So, a typical 13-hour flight would start with the two RFOs taking a 2 hour break while the flying crew works. Then the flying crews rests for 4-hours, RFOs rest for 4-hours and the flying crew gets another short 2-hours right before top of descent. Longer flights closer to 14-15 hours usually just mean the shorter breaks get longer. Not too many pilots I work with have much luck sleeping longer than 4-hours at one time during the flights. That trip pays 86:21 in credit hours. Actual blocked flight hours 44:21. So, it works out to just over 6.6 pay hours per day on the trip, which at my pay rate is $1513 per day. Really efficient RFO trips can average up 8-9 pay hours per day and as a result tend to go very senior. One other thing - We're allowed to check in to our hotel up to two days early with a deadhead on the front of a trip if we wanted. So, I could take my wife, get her a business class ticket with my frequent flyer miles on my Paris deadhead flight. Leave two days early and we get to Paris two days before my scheduled layover starts (so, really 3-days before I have to work). The day I go to work from Paris, she starts making her way home on another FF mile ticket. Since I have extra travel money (cheaper ticket from my home airport than the one FedEx planned to buy from Memphis), I can also expense the two extra days of hotel against my travel bank. End result is a 3-day mini-Paris vacation that only cost me some frequent flyer miles and the expense of ground transport to get her back to DeGaulle and to my house after her flight home.

This seems to be the AF’s official position on the pilot shortage. I have never understood it. Guardian nailed it with “best way to fill a bucket with holes is to pour more water in.” Looking at this from a money standpoint, I don’t see how the AF gets away with it. They’re going to spend millions over 2-3 years to make a single rookie pilot, but they can’t spend more than 35K a year to retain an experienced one. If I was in the CSAF’s shoes, I would march straight to the hill and demand a revision to the law to let me pay my people more. “I’m going to dial down production, and use the extra resources to retain. This is a money allocation problem, not an ‘I need more money problem.’ It makes no sense to spend 50 times the money to make a product than you could spend to retain one with 10 times as much experience.” If that could be realized, a six figure bonus would be reasonable. Make that an option, I bet you’ll see a lot more folks consider staying in. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Why would that matter? An F-22 Pilot is more valuable (money invested already/percentage of the force) in terms of retention than an Army pilot. Tactically, the Apache guy is worth his weight in gold in his role but the Raptor guy is a much rarer commodity and represents a much bigger loss when he isn’t retained.

If only there were a 600 year old, well developed, universally respected [sans the military] field of study that could neutralize emotion and very accurately spit out a number (that would look a lot like the RAND study number) to change behavior in a group. Economics in the military: “yeah, yeah... but the value of quality of service is up to you. If it isn’t valuable enough to change your mind, you’re not patriotic enough.” Economic behavior is a natural force. Keep trying to defy gravity, big blue. Your experience will watch the show from our new boats.

This is actually more what I would have imagined. The experience I had with O-6s was that they were resentful of the younger crowd for wanting better retention measures. That's not to say they were malicious about it (some were), but even the "great dudes" would push back some in a conversation about why the AF isn't doing enough to keep talent. I suspect that sentiment goes all the way to the top. Think about it, these are the guys who made it through the air force that was firing people every three years. There was never anybody higher ranking than them who asked what it would take to keep them in. In fact, if they left, it was in line with the Air Force's future manning projections. They basically lived through the hunger games to make it to the top. Now all of a sudden, when they're finally in the position of power they worked oh so hard for, they're told they need to come up with ways to keep a bunch of millennial captains and majors happy, when not a damn person cared about their happiness. I get why they aren't thrilled with the idea. But that doesn't change the necessity of it.

Reading this thread surprises me that this many people want/care to attend school.....

I’d describe mine as more of a “sexual tyrannosaurus” mustache.

Half the original guys were top dudes and the other half were booger flicks. Those booger flicks caused some problems that are still being dealt with today. And honestly, they weren’t that good. The community now is so far beyond where they started it’s pretty unbelievable. The part that has always cracked me up about the original dudes is that they always talk about being all about the mission. However, they had such an insular, “Cowboy”, and flat out dickish culture that they stifled true mission hacking IOT stoke their own egos. Not true in all cases of course, but a lot of the original guys were their own worst enemies.

And then we want pictures.

I was so pissed by the time that movie ended I wanted to dig Johnson and Mcnamara back up and kick their ass just for good measure. As many of them pointed out, that was a complete shit-show from the beginning. Respect for the men who fought with their hands tied behind their backs! I became an AF pilot because of those men who fought in Viet Nam. In 1973 as a 10 year old I got to sit in an F-4 (18th TFW deployed) at CCK Air Base in Taiwan and speak with one of the pilots and it was game on from there.

Looks like the revolt (and numerous retirement papers and 1288) has raised some eyebrows. Word is that Reserve KC135’s will continue with 60 day deployments (for now). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Curious what you mean by “full on stupid.” Yes, by 2013 we had successfully crushed the culture of the cowboy, plane crashing early days. That was on purpose. By 2013 we were better at the mission and more lethal. Quantifiably. Nowadays they’re better than we were in 13, and isn’t that the objective of leaving something better than you found it? We should all want the new guys to be better than us, and we’ve failed if it isn’t so. What they did in 06-early 08 worked for the reason you described (small teams, selected by name) but that mission environment was unique and those guys mostly weren’t good at building it bigger when that was required. Things had to change. Free whisky on me if we cross paths. Good stuff too, I won’t go cheap on you!

With your new airline career ahead, you will soon put this all behind you. My first day at a major was just as exciting as my first day at UPT. Like someone said, don't get involved, enjoy single life. I div before going to the airlines and unless you are flying boxes, it is a very target rich environment. Stayed single for 28 years then married a wonderful lady going into retirement. The day of my div was one of the happiest days of my life, a huge weight off my shoulders. Best of luck.

I liked this one on Prime:

A good squadron buddy of mine went through this last year... if I could give you one piece of advice from the observer POV..even if you think you can do everything amicably, still get a lawyer.. his started out with her being reasonable and agreeing to things but devolved into some awful shit and ended up involving lawyers

“Integrity first, servi.....never mind”

IAW 36-2903 6.3.3.2 all of those people were executing official notifications or experiencing an emergency (like lunch). Show some respect for these professionals.

FYSA...LuLaRoe doesn't count as "opening a business"