Leaderboard

Point of order, this picture should be in the “What’s Right With the AF” thread. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Each stick figure represents 10 kills, otherwise the entire plane would be covered. No comment on the Wedding Party, except to say Prox (airbursting), 105MM's are great for cleaning off a ZU-23/2. This reflects one rotation for this aircraft (probably 5-6 months), in the Mid 2000's.

It is such a fine line to walk as a Commander, you just never know. We had a guy get arrested for Child Porn. Everyone liked him and it seemed very out of character. He professed his innocence and a lot of people publicly defended him. When it was over he set the all time DoD record quantity for Child Porn being found on a computer...Gigabytes...including stuff with toddlers. As a Squadron/CC I got a call from the 57th Wing/CC around 0200 one Friday night..."why did one of your troops abandon his pregnant wife on the side of I-10 in Florida?...she just called the command post!" The troop in question was a bit odd, he had a few minor slip-ups but nothing major. That being said everyone thought he was guilty. Fast-forward a restraining order and a long investigation, it turns out the lunatic wife was three days from being his ex-wife when the event occured. After having been separated for over a year (bad on him for waiting so long), she was finally served papers which led her to act out. She was NOT pregnant, in fact she had a hysterectomy three years prior. She was living in Jacksonville with her drug dealer boyfriend (who actually dumped her on I-10). As soon as my troop was cleared he went on a quick TDY and when he came back the still almost ex-wife (the courts put the process on hold while he was investigated), had moved into his house...along with her drug dealer boyfriend! I had to move him on base for three months while the courts finished the divorce and she was evicted. Turns out, thanks to my first shirt, the troop had done EVERYTHING by the book, including paying spousal support based on the Florida support calculator. You just never know.

72, I have a little combat time on it. This is the plane that did the semi split S in Desert Storm. Then pegged the g meter. Parked at Cannon now.

If I was in command, there would be huey gunships, P-38s and A-26s. We wouldn’t last 5 minutes in a war but we'd have some fun training. And your commander would be an Air Force O-3E.

I've got to disagree with you on this one. Look, my leadership was dog shit when I was court martialed, they basically trusted one misquoted OSI statement and assumed I was guilty for 6 months. But one thing they did well was keep silent publicly. And I wouldn't have expected any sort of public vocalization of support. They had no idea if I was innocent or guilty. You don't back a potential criminal; you quietly provide support to an innocent-until-proven-guilty person until the process is played out. But when you have a video that shows, at a bare minimum, a very uncertain situation that probably didn't go the way you would hope it would, then you should not be making any statements that imply your subordinate did the right thing. Because how can we trust in the process when one of the people who is a literal avatar for the process, the police chief, is not acting in accordance with the concept of blind Justice? I don't think a police chief should be fired because one of his guys fucked up, unless and until the process shows a leadership failure. But part of the police chief's job is public relations, and reflexively supporting an officer who, to my eyes, looks to have murdered an innocent man, is a failure of his position. The tragedy in all of this is that policing very much does need an overhaul in the US, which is an argument from the left. Unfortunately the left has only bad and completely misdiagnosed solutions, whereas the right, I believe as a result of the left's unfair crusade, is reflexively supporting the police to the detriment of potential reforms.

As I stated I don't defend flyusaf83's statement, indeed a wrong assessment. This is where we differ, I would expect a police chief to defend the law. As a Squadron/CC, Group/CC and Wing/CC I had troops accused of VERY serious crimes. I never defaulted to guilty or innocent, instead I made certain they had every protection provided by due process and the appropriate support mechanisms that all troops are entitled to have. I never made a public statement defending their actions before conducting an investigation. Body cams have changed the game in many ways and they are often viewed in exclusion without context. If one used just the body cam in this case it would certainly appear the shooting was not justified, in fact it was murder. There are certainly other factors in this case that must be investigated, at the top of the list is the female who guided the offer to the apartment and from her call and description to the officer painted a picture of ongoing domestic violence when in fact Roger was int he apartment alone.

If only we had this a few years ago, then we wouldn’t have failed in Afghanistan.

He was a really good dude who was loved by all and the AFSOC community is justifiably upset. Being a cop is not easy, daily life or death decisions, and as in this case you will be judged for the rest of your life by the choices you make. That being said, training and leadership set the tone and this department is floundering at best. As mentioned above this is the same department that mag dumped a police cruiser with a handcuffed person in the back because a freaking Acorn fell and hit the roof. This community has crime but nothing like other areas of the country. In the history of Okaloosa County the department has lost five officers to gunfire, four of those were domestic violence situations, the last one happened 2.5 years ago. Everything about this call is odd and to some degree the officer was led down a very bad path. HE certainly had poor training and I beleive in most other areas of the country domestic calls get two officers. They won't say who called, but the lady who meets the cop MUST be investigated. She guides the officer to Fortson's apartment then says she heard "something that sounded like domestic violence TWO WEEKS AGO." That is NOT exigent circumstances, there is no warrant, there is only hearsay, no probable cause, but the cop starts pounding away and ordering the door to be opened...a complete fail. Roger has zero duty to open that door and to be clear the courts have ruled that repeated official commands to open a door without a warrant probable cause invoke the 4th amendment. As far as punishment, Roger did not deserve to die, but he was one of the few that stepped forward and swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, I would hope all of us would honor his service and allow for the officer to enjoy the protections offered by that document. He deserves due process and if he is found guilty he should be held accountable, but should not be purposely thrown into the general population for "extra" justice. Rest easy Roger and thank you for your service.

Hopefully, he thrown into Gen Pop in a Florida prison where his life expectancy as a former cop is very slim.

Friend of mine is an AC-130 IP. He posted this picture with Fortson with this caption. “Your true friends will correct the narratives in rooms you’re not present in. He was a good kid that served HONORABLY.”