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VTguy

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Posts posted by VTguy

  1. What was the purpose of the media hyping this up in the first place? Its not like she was playing a critical role in the game. And at the end of the day...its a game...of teenagers and early 20-somethings playing one another. All this does is put extra pressure on a young kid who likely never asked for it.

    There are plenty of real world examples of female military members, first responders, scientists, etc. kicking ass and doing the job without fanfare. The average American will never know their names or be able to hold them up as examples. I like to use Peggy Whitson as an example...a scientist, ISS commander, NASA chief astronaut, etc. But she'll never be a household name as recognizable as a Kardashian girl.

  2. I'll go out on a limb and say I'm probably the only forum member who has been both an active duty AF aircrew member and a full time street cop/detective. Its interesting to see professional aircrew members here citing anecdotes based on seconds-long video clips, with minimal context, in order to make generalized conclusions regarding policing in America. You guys are taxpaying Americans and entitled to make any judgements you want. But oblige me for a moment...

    I was involved in a Class A mishap during my active duty AF time. I don't remember anyone taking partial/preliminary information or hearsay from that incident to diagnose the entire AF flying community as a bunch of f***-ups. I've always appreciated the way the aviation industry generally reserves judgement until an objective investigation has been completed. That investigation takes into account every possible environmental factor, human factor, the aircrew's training and experience, the unit culture and adherence to standards, etc, etc.

    A lot of guys in this thread are posting anecdotal videos without the full context to supposedly prove a point. Anyone can use Google to find a few videos/anecdotes to fit their narrative in this debate. But the issues surrounding US policing today are so much more complex than that. Is policing in America broken? Yes, in my opinion. Is it because cops are systemically racist? No, in my opinion. 

    I've read thread after thread on this site over the years...in which professional aircrew members warn of the cluster f*** that the AF flying community would become when all of the experience and talent decides to leave. Let's consider what the AF flying community would become if the starting pay was <$40K with shitty benefits, a few months of training before being put in harm's way, and a public perception that you were all a bunch of racist thugs.

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  3. I did RJs from 2013-2017 at Offutt (non-EWO). Omaha was a surprisingly great town to live in. The winters were cold and its a long drive to get away. But otherwise the wife and I enjoyed it. Cost of living wasn't bad. Nice downtown scene. The area around base was decent compared to a lot of bases.

    I felt like there was a lot of politics in the Wing, with the "front end" and "back end" crew members being split into different units. The RJ has three officer AFSCs on its crew, and there were elements in each "tribe" jockeying for relevance. But that seemed to go away during deployments. I really enjoyed the mission.

    From the EWOs I worked with, the theme was that guys who preferred a stable family life went RJ. The single dudes who loved travel and per diem went CB and CS. The more high speed EWOs were always being groomed for WIC. But if I remember right, they also had opportunities to do JOCCP, which is a much more rare and interesting track IMO.

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  4. On 8/17/2020 at 9:57 AM, SurelySerious said:

    What ing self respecting 14N doesn’t know the difference between an F-16 and a SU-27? Can we fire people? WTAF

    As a prior 14N once upon a time, my instinctive response is point out the poster's final words and say "Lts are best seen and not heard". But I'd be lying if I didn't say that career field, like most others in the AF, has placed the rockstar holiday party or morale day coordinator well above the dude/dudette who can actually do their damned job. I know I'm preaching to the choir. But I'd wager that Lt has spent more time calculating when he/she will be due for PME, 0-4 board, etc. than he/she has spent in the 3-1 or on JWICS reading products that have to do with their current job.

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  5. 9 minutes ago, Breckey said:

    Plate carriers and AR-15s are understandable. The issues is that they look and act like the military when then have a very different mission. Wearing black/blue/khaki would have a very different message when interacting with the populous.

    CBP and other federal agencies have the uniforms. Are these agents that aren't kitted up with the latest and greatest from Crye less effective in their duties?

    That's a fair point. I'd agree that multi-cam is a ridiculous look for cops and agents working a protest in Portland, Seattle or any other urban area. From my limited understanding, the guys we're seeing in the news are HSI SRT, USMS SOG and CBP BORTAC. These are dedicated tactical teams at the federal level and I'm guessing the multi-cam is simply what they have on hand. They aren't regular cops. They certainly wouldn't be my first choice for riot control duties. But their deployment is limited and anecdotal in the context of the greater debate about police militarization. They aren't representative of the 800k or so street cops around the US. 

  6. On 7/25/2020 at 8:44 PM, Alpharatz said:

    Police Chiefs to wear business casual attire with a concealed pistol.  Ditch the four star collar rank unless you happen to be a retired general..Detectives as usual..business casual with concealed pistols...LT's....ditch the military rank for the word Lieutenant..Sgt's can keep chevrons..Patrol staff to ditch the battle rattle motif except for body armour under the shirt.  Sergeants may patrol with rifles.  All other patrol personnel patrol with shotguns..Pistols limited to 10 round magazines....Expending a 10 round magazine to be carefully evaluated...

    Back when I was active duty I used to have a similar perspective about police being overly-militarized. But then I went to the Guard, became a cop/detective, and the perspective changed. Its easy to look at social media and think police are out of control. Sure, every department has one or two tackleberries who love gear and guns. But everything our patrol guys carry on their person or in their vehicles has a distinct purpose. Police tools and tactics are inherently reactive to trends in greater society and the criminal element.

    AR-15s and similar high powered, semi-auto rifles have become more commonplace in American homes. Naturally, they have become more prevalent in barricaded gunman incidents, domestic violence incidents, active shooters, etc. A 5.56 round will go through a patrol car and a soft kevlar vest like a knife through butter. Last year one of my buddies was shot and killed by an armed fugitive despite wearing a kevlar vest. Just a few weeks ago a rookie in my area was shot and killed through a door on a domestic violence incident. I'm sorry if people get butt hurt seeing us wearing plate carriers while we respond to armed subjects...but I'd rather not go to any more funerals.

    I think there is alot of room for police in the US to be reformed. There are some legitimately good ideas floating around out there. But they aren't getting real traction because of the hyperbole and political agendas that benefit from casting all cops as wannabe soldiers or racist thugs.

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  7. Have people fessed up to smoking marijuana once and still gotten a slot?

    The majority of people I commissioned with through ROTC had "fessed up" about experimenting with weed. The first key here is that it was experimentation and not habitual. The second key is that they were honest and up front about it.

    Another important point...make sure you are consistent in your answers to these questions. You will be doing security paperwork over and over again throughout your career, assuming you will hold a TS/SCI clearance. You will be asked the same questions over and over again for years. If you're asked the same question a few years from now right before you're due to commission, and the answer doesn't exactly match what you originally said in your ROTC application...you will probably have some problems.

  8. Comm support should be "outsourced" to organizations that are better equipped to handle bulk IT infrastructure. Offensive and defensive Cyber operations should be treated as an MWS and organized like any other ops unit.

    Agreed. I'm not a cyber or space guy. But its hard to take legitimate offensive/defensive warfighting cyber capabilities seriously when they're lumped in the same category as your local comm focal point that works 0900-1500 Monday-Thursday w/ Friday closed for training. That's just my limited perspective, though.

  9. Exactly this. I think there's one career Cyber 2-star and a few 1-stars. That's just.. baffling to me given the "IT Innovations" and push in the Cyber realm we've had for over 6 years now. Yes.. there are some awful O5/6's in Cyber. Some that don't get it, some that think tech for tech is a good thing, some that think Cyber is the mission in flying wings, and some overly focused on metrics or building that after-the-AF consulting gig.

    But there's some that get it. Yet we're still stuck here.. waiting for them to percolate through the system, through the boxes, and "grooming." Meanwhile.. there's a legit fight, (I hate classifying it as a war), taking place in Cyber.

    Note - I'll never be one of these guys. The AF has made it plainly clear I'm too old (35, 16 yrs TAFMS). Pretty much any prior-E for Cyber isn't going to be in the pipe for the leadership track give the <9 years service & Capt pinned-on requirement for our WIC and NSA partner programs. Additionally, we're still stuck in the "must have a STEM degree for Cyber" nonsense.

    Which is just.. frustrating. All I want to do is build this corps and culture and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be locked out of that.

    But - timing, luck and lack of justice prevail as always. I'm proud of how far we've come given the massive hurdles we put in our own way.

    Have a good 4th you Glorious bastards.

    Edit: Wanted to add the power of Cyber made this possible at our last Wing CC Call - the best question (also on Reddit)

    lY7RCQa.jpg

    I was at that CC call as well. I know some people thought the whole anonymous survey thing was more gimmick than anything else. But I actually liked it...especially the question about whether or not we have enough time in the work day to actually accomplish our daily workload. Hopefully the willingness to put that out there is an indication that the new boss "get's it". I guess we'll see.

  10. My Amn got called in over the weekend to update the GAL rank for a recently promoted O7.

    Granted I've only spent a minimal amount of time around the recently promoted O-7 in question, but I have a very hard time believing he would have demanded a comm dude come in on the weekend for that. My guess is that was the good work of middle management.

  11. I'm on my first deployment with the RJ (on the non-rated aircrew side).

    What I can tell from the guys in our front end squadrons (pilots, navs, ravens)...married folks seem to really like the RJ more than others. Deployments are relatively short and predictable. And Omaha is a great town for a family.

    Younger guys without families seem to prefer the other RC-135 variants. Less predictable, and you get to do some pretty fun TDYs.

  12. Its a means to an end, nothing more. Just play the game and go home. But, if it means getting a shot at being a pilot than its worth it to me.

    Touche. Just don't take it too seriosuly. Try to have fun and get to know the other dudes in your flight. You'll probably see some of them again at some point in your career.

    Keep it all in perspective. 10 years from now when you look back at your last 1-2 years of college, I guarantee you won't be saying "Wow I'm so f***ing glad I rocked FT". Just try to enjoy college while you still can. Good luck.

  13. While this might be true for the other commissioning programs, I would argue that FT doesn't necessarily serve that purpose in ROTC. Cadets who show up on TD-0 have already fought hard for 1-3 years to be there and generally know that this is what they want. We already know beforehand what to expect and have been previously exposed to the high-stress environment through FTP. FT isn't a place for cadets to go and learn whether or not they can hack it, thats what the GMC program is for. If local detachments aren't adequately preparing cadets for FT thats the dets fault, not the FTU staff's. In other words, if you get to Maxwell and find that "this isn't for you" you never should've applied to begin with.

    And besides Det CCs don't want cadets going to FT unless they're confident that they will succeed due to the extremely limited number of slots available.

    Granted its been a few years since I graduated ROTC...but I wouldn't characterize my first 1-3 years as "fighting hard". Especially when compared to life on active duty.

    I agree with you, though, that if it takes someone 1-3 years to realize "its not for them"...then something is wrong. That's a lot of wasted time/effort/money on the AF's part.

  14. Read the Asthma entry in the AIrcrew Waiver Guide linked in my signature. Waiver is almost a certainty, however how you get to that point might be short or long. Essentially, you probably don't need additional exams, however the specifics/severity of your own history, the opinion of your Flight Surgeon, the opinion of the approval authority might make you do additional exams. Childhood/adolescent asthma puts you at a higher chance of recurrence in your 30's. You'll probably need another Pulm consult to document a PFT w/ and w/o methacholine challenge, but maybe not. That's all my own speculation. Be proactive and you'll be fine.

    That's exactly what I needed to know. Thank you.

  15. I'm currently on active duty and started the process for my initial FC3 a couple months ago before PCSing to my new job (a non-rated flying position). Passed all the tests/labs/etc but it looks like I'll need a waiver for history of asthma.

    This isn't the first time the issue has come up. I dealt with it for my DODMERB like six years ago when I was starting ROTC. They initially DQ'd me for the same thing. So I did the methacholine test and gave them records of all prescriptions filled at my local pharmacy between ages 6-18. After that, they were satisfied that I have normal lung function and wasn't on asthma meds after age 12, so DODMERB overturned the DQ and said I was good to go.

    Now, years later, when flight med screened my old records they saw the original DODMERB paperwork where I disclosed a history of asthma. I'm hoping that I can just give the waiver authorities those same records/test results that convinced DODMERB I didn't have asthma after 12. Is that likely to satisfy the requirements for a waiver? Or are they not going to care what DODMERB said, and make me do everything from scratch and get records from my childhood doctors and a new methacholine test? I still have copies of all the stuff I gave to DODMERB, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I should start getting ahold of in order to help in the waiver process.

    I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks!

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