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Though S.2943 passed yesterday, it is likely not the bill that will be passed by the House and presented to the President. /https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2943/all-actions H.R.4909 already passed the House on 18 May and was placed on the Senate calendar on 26 May. This bill does not have the BAH change. /https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4909/all-actions Now the two bills differences need to be resolved, and only one will proceed with amendments and repeat passage in the first chamber to then advance to the President. /https://www.congress.gov/legislative-process/resolving-differences The Senate passed its own version so that both bills may be discussed in a conference committee. Thus both chambers have their own bills and criteria to defend, which is particularly important as the Senate has a Democratic Majority and the House has a Republican Majority. /https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_conference_committee /http://uspolitics.about.com/od/thecongress/a/conference.htm H.R.4909 will very likely be the bill that is amended and eventually accepted, but whether the . In short, it is a concern, but this individual fight and the full NDAA at large are FAR from finished.

The only way that OHA is sustainable to the member overseas with the artificially high rent prices is with the separate utilities allowance. This new proposed BAH without a utilities allowance is a massive pay cut.

My decision to separate next year keeps getting easier.

On a similar note, can I refinance my mortgage so the monthly payment matches the max allotment? I mean I know I can, but in that way would one avoid giving any BAH back to the man.

More importantly, it gives you a glimpse into the minds of your elected leadership and where they stand when you hit the polls...

Hi all, first off I cant say thank you enough to all those that have posted in the past and helped me grasp what the process of off the street ANG pilot selection is like. I can now say first hand that with motivation and perseverance anything is possible. I have been in this process for a tad under 2 years and was just selected to fly the f-16. I took 3 interviews, 2 afoqts (both were not out of this world by anymeans)2 tbas tests and a few weekend trips to SQ, but it finally paid off. The 3 top points I can share are 1- Rush Units, Show up get to know the pilots, but more importantly let them get to know you. 2-Dont let anyone tell you NO! but understand that to get to where you want to be (Fighters, Heavy, Helo) you have to put in the work to get there. No one you meet who have succeeded in this were handed anything, they busted there butts to get where they are and continue to do so, you should do the same.(for me the real work is about to star AMS UPT etc. ) 3-Be Yourself, I cant stress this enough. anyway feel free to pm me for more info on any of my experiences id be happy to share what ive learned.

I'll echo that to deaddebate: Props, man. It's hard to get solid coverage of where a bill/proposal is in the MSM, at least in terms of progress and chances for successful passage, but you do a great job posting on here about such things.

Thanks for the Schoolhouse Rock version of how a bill becomes a law... Seriously, though you do a great job of breaking these things down and staying on top of the latest. I think most ppl here realize that this is not law yet, but still a concern and will continue to be for years to come. Hell, we won't have a budget until well past 1 Jan...and probably a CR when it does get passed and signed.

So, if I'm reading this correctly (starting on pg 249)...if your current BAH rate is $1700 but your mortgage/rent is $1000, you only get $1000. Someone please correct me if I'm misunderstanding the text. What a clusterf*ck http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/S2943%20-%20Committee-Passed%20NDAA.pdf Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Senate version passed earlier today with BAH reduction included. I'd advise to call your representatives and start voicing your opinion. There will be no grandfathering in this program. Any PCS after 1 Jan 18 and you'll have to work with the new system.

Plenty of Guard & Reserve folks out there who are also business owners; I had a few in my SQ at one time, and I'm friends with a fellow Boom who is making it work right now. Depending on the nature of the business, and how involved you are in the day-to-day workings of it, it can get difficult to manage time away to maintain currency/proficiency in the jet. Bear in mind that as Guard/Reserve, when you're on AD for school tour/seasoning, Big Blue expects your head to be in THEIR game, not yours. Especially as a new guy, getting wrapped up in your .civ business issues while on a school tour might be an acceptable excuse/reason for unacceptable AF performance once. More than that will not garner any sympathy, and will likely be met with negativity you really want to avoid.

I think this statement above confirms that Chang is pulling our chain. And job well done. And not only does it seem to be fun for folks to argue with him, but there seems to be something healthy about the airing of grievances, especially when so many others say the same thing. But read the couple of sentences I quoted. That isn't the kind of talk any GO would spew. "leadership will fall over themselves to give you the choice assignments you want"...come on. That kind of statement, including the next sentence, is 100% intended to rile up the masses. Again I say: Job well done. And I, along with others, will continue to argue with this troll for no reason other than my own self-healing.

I retired a year ago so my data is a year old. That said, and despite the incredible amount of queep that defines the modern Air Force, I would absolutely do it again. As a kid I dreamed of flying fighters and I was lucky enough to live that dream for a large portion of my career. I HATED the queep, begrudgingly went to school when asked, trudged through a year long remote, deployed several times, and even did a short staff gig, but for me, the squadron life, the bros, and the multiple flying assignments were well worth it. The RPA thing wasn't a UPT option when I went through but I'd tell you that it wouldn't have made a difference. I just would have used it as motivation to do as well as I possibly could in UPT. Admittedly, the fun factor declined as I got older because I was given more queep and less flying (as was everyone else), but when that started happening, it was about the same time I was given the options of moving over the ANG or AFRC. At the time, I chose to stay AD for various reasons but my point is, there were TONS of options to either stay flying exclusively (going Guard/Reserve) or keep pressing in the AD AF. Everyone's situation is different and some have had bad experiences but my recommendation is don't let that scare you. Very few will ever have the chance to fly an Air Force aircraft. Go for it.

No way Chang is anyone other than an O-3/4 trolling the shit out of this board. His statements are so outlandish there's no way it's legit inside info. He does a pretty good job of using targeted statements that he knows will get everyone way spun up. Ignore him, he's just having a good time watching everyone freak out.

Choke yourself you sanctimonious prick. For the record, you are not as smart as you think you are, you have simply become a mindless part of the collective, endlessly spewing the same old PA verbiage. Here is the thing, I know the game, I’ve done all the in-res schools….ACSC, ASG, War College in DC…and I’ve sat behind the glass doors on the E-Ring as an exec and watched the buffoonery. Playing the $ money card overlooks a GLARING error, we did it to ourselves. The lack of vision from people like Buzz and Zatar is what got us here, for all too long we have been stuck in the endless Do Loop of “we can only have a fifth gen force” and we are paying the price for it in spades. 10 years ago a LOT of very smart people tried to tell them the $ crunch was coming and we could not afford a force of only F-22’s and F-35’s. Despite the fact that on the second night of OIF A-10’s were fighting inside the “Super MEZ”, the seniors insisted we double-down on fifth gen and now we cry when we have no $ to buy anything else. What do you expect when we are flying Raptors that cost $44,000 a flying hour and F-35’s that cost $36,000 a flying hour instead of a mixed high-low fleet that could have economically fought the fight we have been in for the 15 YEARS! Then as we piled ever more coal into the 5th gen steam engine that we couldn’t afford, we decided to cut people to pay the bill, and we took those people from the admin heart of the Squadrons (CSS), where they were needed most…Now, after purposely cutting people we suddenly come to the conclusion that the Air Force is On Verge of Manpower Collapse…freaking brilliant! Sadly, we had multiple chances to off-ramp this road to perdition and the Navy tried to show us the way like in 2006 when they broke the “no more 4th gen fighters for any service pact.” I was there the day the boss found out the Navy was getting 24 extra Super Hornets and I was in close trail as he barged into the N-8 office screaming explicatives at the CNO and his XP staff. The Navy response “well the Super Hornet is not a 4th gen airplane, it is a 4.5 gen airplane and we probably can’t afford all the F-35’s anyway.” Congress has been more than willing to gift us extra Vipers and Eagles every year, but we foolishly keep saying no and doubled down to the point we had to start closing fighter squadrons to pay the bills. The last ten years have seen a steady retreat from the TacAir redline, No lower than 2,300 fighters!…Ok No lower than 2,100 fighters! There was a huge gasp at 2,000, but we sliced right past that number faster than some late night yaki mandu through your system after a Friday night in Aragon Alley. As we started closing fighter squadrons we suddenly had fewer to fill AEF taskings so the bros and sisters on the end of the whip have to run even faster to make up for the shortage…starting to see the picture now? When it comes to your "retention tools" again, you don’t get it…what you call having bigger fish to fry than keeping pilots on the right side of the happy meter and using STOP LOSS as a retention tool is the PROOF that the entire thing is a scam. How can senior leaders profess to care about the force, mission first…people always, and say things like “Morale is pretty darn good” almost in the same breath they admit the Air Force is on the verge of a manpower collapse? This CSAF has made countless impassioned speeches about caring for people and “every Airman has a story”, but in the end as you admit the people are just numbers and their happiness doesn’t really matter. I get it that you will never make everyone happy and there will always be sport bitching, but this is something very different. This is the heart of your ability to be an Air Force, your professional pilot force telling you with their feet…”THINGS ARE Fed UP!” Only 38% of the pilot force took the bonus last year and the numbers look worse for this year…so I would submit you better make time to fix the happy meter. It is not about hating the messenger, it is about hating the smug asshat that parades around the room showing glee in his pronouncements from on high. You represent much of what is wrong with the current system.

Very mature, Colonel. Now that you feel better about yourself, let's discuss facts. A1 misjudged the effects of the 9-yr bonus. I acknowledge that. From the personnel perspective, however, A1 has a specific playbook and specific rules to follow in these scenarios. The AF is desperately trying to get Congress to approve higher bonuses. If successful, this will help slightly with officers on-the-fence. Next, some stop-lossed officers may rebel, but most will do their duty and uphold the core values (all should...we are officers first, as you learned in your schools). We may have to eliminate some of the extraneous additional duties at flying squadrons or authorize more civilians to help. So be it. Finally, a 15- or 20-year ADSC for UPT will have limited effect on the morale of pilots currently in, and the AF will still not have difficulty finding people to sign-up to fly...the novelty of flying never diminishes amongst a population enamored with it. If AF recovers from the pilot shortage down-the-road, A1 can curtail ADSCs. That won't be anytime soon, however, as AF will need to send more current pilots permanently into RPAs for the foreseeable future to meet Army demand for orbits. Pilots- you can help create a positive environment in your squadrons as we move through these difficult times. Emphasize the positives...flying hour programs are healthy, and pilots moved into the RPA community have the opportunity to establish themselves as leaders in the "community of the future," which can be a huge opportunity to excel. Also, RPA operators are home more, per the spreadsheets. Please help your GO leadership, and we will get through this together. Stay positive. You will sleep better tonight.

Ok, a couple of you appear upset, but for the young guys on this forum, I'll state a similar message to my post on the SOS/ACSC board, then pull up my tent stakes on this issue. Our Air Force is honorable, lethal, and excellent. It is an organization that many in society would kill to be a part of. Some members of this forum have thrown that opportunity down the tubes during an emotional event. If you decide to leave, make sure you do it for the right personal reasons. The future opportunities in our AF will be incredible. You will be personally, monetarily, and professionally satisfied and rewarded. Get excited and be a part of it. It's your future.

The money for your increased pilot bonuses will have to come from somewhere. Keep this and the House's increased bonus number to $60K (plus the monthly $1K- wow!), and you have a sustainable program. Not sure why the pilots are complaining. I know, I know, it's what you do best.