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Actually funding the war and overseas contingencies by raising taxes, whether individual, corporate, or both. This avoids the problems with mandatory service or a draft, while making everyone have some ownership of what our country is doing overseas (through their pocketbook). Don't like paying more taxes? Well, better start writing your congressman or senator and let them know that you don't believe what we are doing is worth the cost. What if the president exercises his power to do short term engagements? Well, he'd better start talking to congress to fund the long term sustainment of the fight. Added benefit, if OCO funding wasn't bottomless, maybe we won't have stupid deployments updating PowerPoints and making coffee.

Normally I charge extra for that and get my money up front. Off the top of my head: 90+ pilot/90+ pcsm/ 3.5+ GPA/ 250 flight hours

To the original sentiment of this thread: The American public is FAR to disconnected from their military and the foreign policy that results in its (over) use. Some sort of mandatory national service would go a long way toward rectifying that situation for all of the reasons discussed in previous posts. Personally, I think it’s a good idea but the implementation is potentially fraught with problems. Anyone have a better idea for re-acquainting the average American with the costs and consequences of the wars his country is currently waging? Love to hear it. To the Libertarians here, I ask you this: Do you use the interstate? Hospitals? Accept police protection? Enjoy relatively affordable gasoline? Send your kids to public schools (or at least accept the fact that universal literacy is probably a good thing)? I could go on but you get the point. There is a cost to living in a civilized society. Most of us recognize that fact even if we may disagree vehemently on how much/little that cost should be or on whom the costs should fall. Mandatory national service falls somewhere on that spectrum of argument. It seems though, that there are a few “true believers” here taking the black & white argument. I have a question for you. Do you really think our society would be a better place if you were literally asked to pay nothing for your inalienable rights?

this guy needs to be drafted.

You're not out of the fight yet. Wait until Friday.

Was this self-inflicted based on your aircraft selection? If you bid the 787 at the earliest opportunity, I don't have a lot of sympathy for your plight. "For your information, you stuck it in your own ass!"

100% agree...that training date aligned me well for some other stuff.

you have several hundred pounds of dip, jerky, hot sauce, and nudie mags?

Maybe they can do an ORE on how to be on the same tower frequency as the rest of the base first

Excellent points. My list for sustainability aligns pretty closely, but with some amplifying points, in priority order... 1. Dwell. And it needs to be implemented yesterday. If there were 1000 F-16 pilots and 1000 F-16s, the AF would balk at a COCOM request for 1000 tails. The same should be true for maxing CAPs. Dwell doesn't need to be 2:1 or even 1:1. Make it 1:2 (programmed) like everyone else. Dwell needs to be by squadron. An entire squadron should spend four months preparing to fight a specific 5-6 CAPs for two months, and then hand the fight over to another squadron to prepare again. That's three squadrons sharing each CAP, three 6-CAP squadrons for every 6 CAPs, etc. There are not enough squadrons today to do that, so we should cut CAPs today. If we really need 60+ to survive/win our various wars, build enough squadrons to support that. "Because we're used to that many" isn't sufficient justification. 2. One daddy rabbit. MQ-9s shouldn't be split between two different MAJCOMs with two different priority sets. Having a bit of experience in both, my opinion is that the better strategic alignment for the MQ-9 is the MAJCOM that has the preponderance of other M-designated aircraft. If AFSOC does take over, yes that means Creech should be the third AFSOC base, and it should have all the BOS a normal base gets. Regardless, no major base should be the tenant of a host wing that's over an hour away. 3. Stop managing the manpower, policy, and systems as "RPAs". It's literally the only aircraft that's categorized according to its cockpit design. The only similarity between the MQ-9 and the RQ-4 is that the fly-by-wire goes through a satellite datalink. They are no more similar than a C-17 and F-15 that both have glass cockpits. 4. Companion (alpha) trainers are a great idea, but only during dwell, not combat. We need to be building airmanship for our 18x pilots beyond the 39 hours they get during IFS. I like the Cirrus SR22s the academy uses due to the minimal life support requirement.

Around the 8 year mark.

Well, it would probably be best to plan on giving your new employer a year before going on long term orders. That's just my opinion, and I have several friends who went on long term mil leave before finishing probation so it does happen a lot. I do think they're kind of rolling the dice though by doing it that way. I've heard rumors that the airlines have petitioned to get changes made to USERRA because of all of the abuses. When you return from mil leave your orders and timeline are also going to face a lot of scrutiny whether you actually see that or not. It will happen, and if you've messed something up you're screwed, plus you'll still be on probation. If you don't want to miss out and get that seniority number because the airlines are the career you want to take you to retirement why would you gamble with that? Will it really be that hard to fly mil part time for your first year to ensure you get off probation? To each their own but that's my 2 cents.

yup, so-called D course at PIT. It's not just for non-T38 priors, TPS heavy bound guys and initial qual only topoffs (RPA support T38 drivers at Edwards) also get an spin up. It sucks a lot for the never 38 at UPT, unless that dude happened to have some A model time in some CTP program, at which point it's a distinction without difference. Cold turkey D-course to IFF? The struggle bus rate is high on that one. These days I consider that squarely in the personal favor/legacy case, for a unit to spend the money to send you to T-38 topoff and IFF to wingman as a senior Capt/junior Major. AFRC has deeper pockets so presumably it wouldn't be as noticeable on the money fund (school tours are central funded by the MAJCOM), though it would still fall in the PFA bucket. A guard unit would stand more to lose financially, considering the high washout rate of such a stunt. I will say though, today is probably the best time to pull that, as IFF is pretty hamburger helper these days with this whole pilot shortage canard. Back in 04- 07? Crush city.

What’s that word that management always uses as an excuse to decrease morale? Like when my squadron was told not to go TDY to fun places because it looks bad for us to have a good time on the road? Oh yeah. Optics. It goes both ways AF. I’m the midst of a pilot retention crisis, not paying everything that Congress authorizes you too? Bad optics.

Sorry dude, but I'll never support conscription. If not enough able bodies are not voluntarily willing to stand up and fight for a country then the country's is not simply worth fighting for...

Well, anything else the airlines can do for you? Maybe instant upgrade to captain when you get back from mil leave too? Geez dude, I hope you don't come to my airline. This type of thinking is what has caused tons of problems for the rest of us. I'm currently on probation at my #1 choice airline and am glad I did things the way I did. I was offered an AGR flying job and the unit told me they'd work with me on the timing so I could get my seniority number first etc. I just didn't feel right about it so I took a much less desirable TR job and am so happy I did. While airline flying is much easier than mil flying, in my opinion, there is still a lot of new stuff to learn. During training I actually worked pretty hard and saw a couple of other mil dudes stumble pretty hard because they took it for granted. I've learned a ton on the line too. I don't think it's wise to leave right after training to come back to the airline environment years later that you probably aren't used to in order to face more jeopardy again. They're not going to cut you any slack either. I was tempted to take that AGR job and was tempted to go on orders recently too but I was advised by multiple bros to focus on the new job and get through probation first. I'm not a cool aid drinker for my airline but they deserve my focus and effort during probation. To get hired with the plan to go on orders a month or two later just because "you're not ready to stop flying full time in the military" is b.s. If that's how you feel then you're not ready to go to the airlines. Like others have said, your plan might be legal, but it's straight up dishonest. I can't tell you how many times it's already been emphasized to me by my airline that mil leave needs to be on the up and up because of the massive abuses they've seen. It really sucks to be the new guy and to know you're under the microscope for anything you do when it comes to mil leave due to the people ahead of you who have messed it up. Don't be THAT guy!

i dont give a shift

Not in favor of the draft....right now...in times of national emergency is another discussion. What I do find interesting is that we as a country continue to discriminate based on race by requiring only young men to register for Selective Service.

If I was a Sq/Grp/Wg CC here’s what I would do: Once outdated regs or processes are identified in my organization, I would draft a policy letter identifying that additional duty or process that my people will no longer execute and give the CSAF guidance as justification. If Congress or someone else wanted to then investigate why we weren’t executing some program that was mandated, I think the CSAF is pretty good top cover. But who the hell knows, they’d probably try to throw me in jail anyway for not having a unit voting assistance monitor. That’s why I’ll never be a CC in this organization.

So how heavy are we talking here... buck-fity?