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I guess you're not old enough to remember Reagan!

In one of my M9 classes there was an airman from services that was deploying to Kuwait to hand out towels at the gym and needed M9 for some reason. She had never handled a weapon outside of basic and never handled a pistol at all. I had to help her load her magazines. At the end of the qual she had one of the best groupings in the class and shot expert. She just listened to what the CATM instructors were saying and had no preconceived notions on how to fire a pistol. Damndest thing I ever saw.

Weird because the nonners are always taking off work at 1430 to go “PT.”

You can definitely see it in the faces of the guys working the jets. I think it's a combination of not enough manning, not enough parts, and no real solutions to either. We tell our maintainers that they are so critically manned that they can't cross-train or PCS...but there's no SRB for maintenance. And we're solving that problem by shoving anyone with a high enough mechanical score into maintenance, regardless of the job they actually want. Add to that the increasingly ludicrous demands placed by the Air Force on things like CBTs, volunteering, awards, additional training, and additional duties...and then pile on leadership that has forgotten how to say "no"...and you've got a recipe for working 12s every time a line cancels or the WG/CC gets a good idea fairy.

Back in the Stone Age when I was at Dyess, it would really piss me off to see every summer AFROTC and Academy cadets get rides in the B-1 but most of our own maintainers never got a ride. Ought to be a rule that nobody else gets a flight until at least all the crew chiefs have flown.

A friend has been a deployed CEM for 2 months and has already had to send 3 airmen home for this. It seems some of these kids just can't handle life and/or any amount of tough love. In my enlisted maintainer days, a finger in the chest by a red-faced NCO was not an uncommon event. However, they'd be buying you beers at the bar that night, you learned, got the mission done and moved on. Now, that "transgression" will make some to lose their minds and cause them to "not be able to work with you anymore." It's fucking weird. Preach it brother! Back in my young enlisted maintainer days, leaderships view was that if you're old enough to put on a uniform, you're old enough to drink. End of trip parties were something that you didn't miss because they were so much fun. We worked hard and partied harder...the camaraderie was amazing. One particular TDY location accounts for a large portion of my most fond memories in the AF. If you've never been to a TDY party at the "River Club," you're missing out. If those walls could talk😳, but I digress... Contrast that with the fact that a few months ago, our MX leadership handed out paperwork (not the type that disappears at the end of the TDY) to a few maintainers for underage drinking. They never left the hotel and weren't even causing problems so I'm not sure why it was even elevated or even a big deal. Kids seem so scared of getting in trouble for bullshit stuff, that they don't even show up anymore, or they blast ASAP. It's work hard, work harder and if you party, you better not step out of line. Some trips are better than other, but it seems to be an increasing trend to the negative. Edit: A friend in a Guard Herk unit says their entire unit wasn't allowed to drink for the entire two weeks they were at the above mention CRTC! Supposedly an AMC IG rule (back when we did ORIs) or some ridiculous shit like that. Talk about a great way to piss off your people! This! It's actually one of the reasons for tension between OPS and other sections on base. They think we always just "get away" with stuff that would get them hammered. We can't help that their leadership just chooses to give paperwork out for minor bullshit, while our leadership is much more big picture about this type of stuff. Last week, I told my crew chief to hang out and watch my takeoff because I was planning an unrestricted climb right in front of the ramp. When I got back, my young crew chief plugs in and is still pumped up about the unrestricted climb. A bunch of the maintainers swing by as I'm walking off the ramp and gave me some high fives and thanked me for a morale boost....apparently the entire hanger knew lol. Something so small and it seriously cost me about the same amount of fuel as a normal takeoff/climb-out. These kids love seeing their hard work get the jets in the air, this is a small thing to occasionally reward them with something cool.

I do. Some of my good friends are Mx Os. MX is a tough career field, and they tend to eat their own. At Yokota, multiple suicides in the AMXS that got MAJCOM level attention. Here at Dyess, the MX morale can’t be better nor can the OPS/MX relationship, but that may be a product of having a Wing with only OPS and MX. I think part of the problem was separating MX from the flying squadrons into its own Group. When MX was part of the flying squadron, there was more of a sense of belonging and pride in the mission. Also, I can see a flying squadron commander applying the “debrief culture” to maintainers...ie, it’s okay to make mistakes. That is how we learn, instead of crushing a dude for a minor mistake which is a cultural issue in many MX groups. Anyways, I always try to converse with my maintainers on locals and loop them into the mission, and I treat my flying crew chiefs as part of the crew. Most of the maintainers I know love their jobs. They love turning wrenches and get great pleasure out of seeing the mission happen. Seeing the 33 ship (largest C-130J formation) takeoff out of Dyess last month put a smile on every maintainer’s face. Totally worth the weeks of planning we put into it.

Brawnie sounds a lot like a guy I knew...liberal SJW who railed on racist filled America even though as a growing up middle class minority, he was provided a free academy education, paid to fly jets, promoted to top ranks and even after all that, was a victim of white Americans and selfish conservatives. Victimhood mentality sucks. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I'll give you the wild spending point. Shameless and so Weimar Republic like. As to most of your other points about, paraphrasing, "if the president does it, why can't I?" So can I surveil my political enemies using instruments of national power? Can I execute a US citizen based just upon my say-so? I assure you that many, many people felt as you do now but about the previous president who was very, very divisive. But were called a racist if they disagreed. Neat trick, that. I look at criminal justice reforms under the previous administration and to this one and note who actually did something. I look at foreign relations as conducted under the several previous administrations and this one and pick the America first bent of this one. I look at violence spiking and the perpertrators of it and note which "side" supports and which doesn't. No doubt I'll get a "typical," or "racist," or "Ok, boomer," since I disagree with your view point. Trump vs. Biden/whoever will actually be President. Based on past performances, I know who has actually accomplished "things." Agree or not with those things, one of those two (plus) candidates has a track record of accomplishments and is a billionaire. The other has been a Washington politician for 40 years and is a multi-multi-millionaire.

I suspect that's exactly HOW they get empowered. Tell the Bobs everything is sunshine and rainbows while grinding the folks who rarely, if ever, talk to the Bobs into the ground. My last job was in an IG office. Place the blame however you want...maybe it's the O's fault for not being in touch with their people, maybe the SNCOs fault for abusing their people...but the majority of complaints were young airmen/NCOs against SNCOs, and when we referred it to the unit commander, they rarely had any idea that it was even going on.

No. That was a good call and I give President Obama full credit for the decision. Of note, of course, was that Biden is on the record as having been against the decision.

We're you referring to the Obama~Bin Laden operation?

I was told to check back in about a week (8/17) for Hawaii. Has anybody gotten an update from Jacksonville or DC?

I'm not a Trump lover or hater. When he started his campaign every "Career politician" hated him, GOP and Dems. That's when I sat up and took notice. There must have been a reason for that and I believe it's coming to light. He rolled into DC, kicked over their ant farm and started shaking the tree, and a lot of nuts are falling off that tree.

I tried reading your post with an open mind... but you lost me at “all racists are Trump supporters.” Most ignorant and naive comment for the month goes to you. (Albeit it was your “friend” who said it but you clearly support such a notion.) Congratulations. As a brown/south Asian guy, I went to HS post 9/11. I faced my fair share of racism. I don’t hate them, they were ignorant teenagers. But when I look back at many of them, they turned out to be some of the most staunch/vocal SJW democrats. So I know your “all racists are Trump supporters” is utter BS. Trump is a polarizing figure, but it is dudes like you that create more Trump supporters. I didn’t like the guy at the beginning of his campaign but it is pompous folks like you that actually drew me too him. So keep it up!!

Don't interrupt him, he's on a roll...

Super cool. I did not know that. The OPCON sounds murky though. Like they have their own OPCON but lend themselves to UN, EU or NATO. Going to have to ask around about this.

Great. A legal opinion. One with which other lawyers disagree. EDITED TO ADD: read page 1194 "Justifying the Extrajudicial Killing of an American Citizen." Not a lawyer, but pretty much against any President ordering the execution, no matter how deserved, of an American citizen without due process. Even a trial in absentia at least ensures a legal defense. And the SOB who got smoked deserved it. Did his 16 yr old kid who also got shredded deserve it? Maybe, maybe not. But an American was executed via a Presidential order without a trial. No matter how the legal "proceedings" are described, no judge and/or jury decided the defendant's fate. Take up arms on the battlefield against America and get killed fighting and I shed no tears and say "well done" to the good guys. Cursor an American and have him catch a Hellfire and I get uneasy about the executive branch becoming all-inclusive. Pretty sure if Trump did it, folks would be upset. And if any president can do it, as has been done, what prohibits such a strike on some lonely stretch of New Mexico highway one day? After all, it's a judgement call.

Your critiques on his part policy seem to fall in line to a media agenda to paint them as irrational and misguided. Your an officer dude, you have to be able to read between the lines on some of this stuff and realise POTUS doesn't make those decisions in a vacuum and media has no way of knowing what the environment around those decisions are. People bring him researched options and he makes choices. Usually the people that bring him choices are informed and briefed by career employees and not appointees. There is a circle in Washington that has been discussing the same shit for years. It's a mix of federal employees, academics and senior uniformed members. I can name a dozen reasons why all of your policy critiques were GREAT ideas although I don't personally agree with 100% of them. So before you discount the country for anti-intellectualism I'd suggest you review your own geopolitical playbook and figure out why some of these things could have been a good step for the country because you automatically assume the items you listed were "bad things". I think the current POTUS has the best geo-political strategy we've seen since Bush #1 up to the point he ended the Cold War. Leagues better than Clinton, Bush #2 and Obama. Why? Because Trump recognizes there are capacity limits for our foreign influence and being the only world super power, especially one bogged down for 20 years by a counter terrorism quagmire, doesn't give you carte blanche to effect the world any way you want. I got other news for you too man, foreign policy is America first. That is the basis of Western sovereignty and is nearly universally agreed upon by ethicist and academics who discuss the role and purpose of a state. Every country's government acts in their own interest. If you think Germany, the Kurds, South Korea or any of these other partnerships we broke glass on think we are "friends" you are full of it. They are going to stab us in the back the moment our interest misalign. Trump's vision is quite simple. America's best bet at influencing foreign politics is by being a stalwart example of domestic statecraft for other countries to model. Focus on ourselves first, and our virtue and prosperity will become attractive enough for other countries to model. But if you want to go adventuring all over the third world to build partnerships, my question is, who's going to pay for it? You complain about rising deficit but then half your post levies complaints that we aren't spending enough. Speaking of economic ironies, you bemoan the fact that jobs are stagnant and trending to a service economy but also bemoan withdrawal from environmental protection agreements and a trade war with China. Can you not see that these things are interconnected? A business only does one of two things. It either provides goods, or it provides a service. If we aren't providing goods, we have to provide a service. The US is trending to a service economy because it is too expensive to setup industrial manufacturing here, hence no goods. One reason that it is expensive is because of strict EPA laws that mandate companies have to front cost for compliance and how their waste is handled. For a while we were able to float on certain tech sectors because China didn't have the technological know how to upstart this on their own. But since we decided to allow 20 years of industrial espionage in an effort to preserve "a good relationship" we have now lost that edge as well. Bro, the world isn't sunshine and roses. You can have your EPA laws and warm fuzzies with China, but don't wake up pissed you are working at Starbucks at 35 then. You made a choice. But I think what annoys me about your post most of all is your use of the term progress. Because you don't recognize when you say that you mean progress by YOUR standard. What you don't realise man, is this all comes down to values, and in general Americans have the same values but they tend to order them differently. So when you say "progress" you have belittled every single person who doesn't order values the same as you do. You don't think conservatives love the environment? Bro have you been to a Cabellas? However, a some conservatives are making the concious decision that people having means to put food on the plate is a higher value than protecting a climate that we honestly have little understanding of how it's change will impact global sustainability. Some people are making a concious choice that economic prosperity is the most important thing to get control of first and then interest can be taken in foreign influence, the environment, etc....

I quit reading after this quote. Such an asinine statement. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

FFS. Any functioning adult...just one, please run for President! Dan Crenshaw? Colin Powell? Mike Rowe? Keanu Reeves? Anyone? Please?

Based on that logic, 1/4 of our military should be in the desert and that's where we typically have fought our wars in the past several decades. But this isn't a military decision, it's a presidential one based on politics. I agree that we don't need such a large force in Europe, but the same elsewhere. I don't think it's as much of a deterrent as we are led to believe. If Kim Jong-un gets the harebrained idea to cross the DMZ, no number of conventional troops in the south are going to stop that. That bloodbath will occur despite our presence. Our current presence in Europe is not about WWII, it's about a commitment to NATO which was never about preventing the rise of another Nazi Germany. It was about the Soviet threat and while the name may have changed, that threat is still real and even stronger. Countering it conventionally during the Cold War was actually easy as it could be done simply through numbers, but we still haven't figured out how to deal with new informational today and it's hurting our ability to shape and influence that part of the world badly. Plus, none of this is about the overall mission of NATO and EUCOM, it's about Trump putting the screws to Merkel. Not that she doesn't deserve it, but his claim that this is all due to Germany not putting enough of its GDP for defense is ridiculous when the countries that will benefit from this move spend even less. Germany does have a stronger economy, but that is not the point. This is an emotional move by Trump and one that makes no sense. And your point about a "33% manning boost" is moot. You act like the forces in Europe are not doing anything, whereas in fact they train as much if not more than those CONUS. That robbing Peter to pay Paul comparison doesn't increase our investment or capabilities. It may reduce the cost of having forces (it's cheaper to station people in some of the shitty assignments Stateside versus Europe), but it doesn't make us more effective operationally. In fact, I would argue the latter is the case. Russia is kicking our ass informationally the same as China is kicking it economically. COVID has put a bit of a damper on it, but they'll adjust and survive; but I believe much of the chaos in this country is due to the amount of misinformation being pumped into it from abroad. To quote Agent K, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." Society in general is gullible and will believe whatever the media (social or otherwise) tell them, and will respond accordingly as they don't know any better. Ever wonder how one dog can control and corral hundreds of sheep? Same analogy. But anyone who thinks this move will somehow improve our influence worldwide is sadly mistaken. It's politics pure and simple, and costly ones at that. I've spent time at SHAPE and Patch, it will cost billions of dollars to accomplish and in the end nothing will change. And I didn't add a 'STS' to that as literally we the taxpayers will be taking it up the ass for this decision...

If I stay in it’s inevitable I will end up back at Cannon, I’ve highly considered doing the LBB commute. I don’t want my kids going to school in that shit hole, and I suspect my wife would Be happier. With the new use or loose leave extension and deployments I think I could take a 3 or 4 day weekend almost every week. Someone doesn’t like it they can deny my leave every week when I put it in and I’ll take a week a month off. I don’t think I can live in that wretched place again, but current outside job prospects + my resume don’t leave a lot of options to maintain my current income.

We had a couple of commuters that lived in Lubbock when I was at Cannon. They hated life, but for different reasons than most people.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/world/middleeast/qassem-soleimani-iraq-iran-attack.html Sometimes removing a couple of malignant tumors require the right scalpel. Our military is ultimately here for two things. 1)Deter war if possible 2) Win the war if necessary. Good Luck OP

He’s got a good point OP. Your SA is about as high as the vipers blowing through the entire stack claiming they have radar SA, even though they almost hit everyone, including their own wingman and still don’t see the guy in front of them. You just don’t have the experience yet with that sort of flying. Most people start UPT wanting to be fighter pilots, many finish with no desire to ever go over 60 degrees of back again. The guard is still the way to go in my opinion. Once you’re in your in. If fighters don’t end up working out a heavy unit will almost definitely take you if you’re not just a total hazard, and even then I’ve seen some scary 135 guard.

I'm just going to say you need to do a bit more research. I can understand your frustration with the guard/reserve side but if fighters/CAS is your dream then probably your best shot. For example a UPT class has about 20 or so active duty people. Each class gets about 2-5 T-38s on average. We are talking about a 10-25% chance you even make it to phase 3 on the right track. Then you have to simply not suck to get a fighter now a days and that may sound easy but it may not be. All I'm trying to say you really need to look at yourself in the mirror like so many others and decide if you went heavies would it make it all worth it. If not then honestly the Air Force might not be the best place for you because you will get screwed almost every step of your career. Other people with more experience please keep chiming in because I think our buddy is about to make a rash decision he may not be happy with in the end

RPAs are unlikely from UPT. I ended up getting RPA from UPT back in the day, there was 1 year surge for RPAs so it opened up to UPT. I was released from my RPA job after 3 years back to real airplanes. Make lemons out of lemonade. My RPA experience set me up real good for my manned aircraft. I honestly don’t think I would have done to well in my manned airplane qualification course without my RPA experience. Helos do some badass things. Assignments out of UPT are about 2 things. Performance and timing. Only one you can control. If you have to have a certain mission set to be happy I would stick with video games. This forum is full of people who ended up in places they didn’t want/know about on day one and are thankful it turned out that way, myself included.

RPAs aren't an option at the moment out of UPT but that is never a garuntee. Also if you turn down a rated position on AD you become permanently inelligible for rated in the future. My basic opinion is this, if the thin possibility of getting a helicopter or drone deters you from trying to get a fighter, this probably isn't the career for you.

How do toxic senior E's get empowered? Who gives them a Senior Rater Endorsement? It's not from a old MSgt who just got told that all you do is your job and you deploy too much, I have never seen you at the Xmas party or a top 3 meeting. Most E-1 to E-6 MX troops never talk to their officers, only officers they actually talk to are ADC's or Op's guys. If a MX guy is talking to his CC it is in his blues signing for a Article 15 for missing a dental appt because he got stuck on the line producing a sortie, yes that happens.