Leaderboard

Stop the witch hunts. Prosecute the perpetrators of legitimate sexual assaults to the maximum extent possible within the UCMJ. Make an example out of the assholes that are doing it. Hold the guilty accountable, and any leadership that allowed it to happen. Don't treat the 99% of military members like they are in high school. You'll be surprised at the results.

Fuck your perspectives Liquid. Eat Fuck Kill. Warriors should work hard at their craft of killing. If the by-product of such work and blood lust offends those who aren't a part of it, I don't give a shit. I expect my brotherhood to dominate the battlespace through their efforts and awesomeness. The enemy of my clan should sleep poorly, knowing great Americans are working their assess off to sharpen their sword, and those of their teammates. Our existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! Careerism, and focusing on the wrong (non-tactical) things weakens our ability to kill and survive. We may beat our chests like animals, and play games we're in middle school, and that's ok in my mind. I like tits and ass. I like to talk about it. Bright, shiny objects get my attention. My plan is to destroy the target, bring the package home in one piece, and procreate like a rock star so my sons can grow, get strong, and prepare for their enemy. Peace is for pussies and hippies. Left to their own devices, a fighter squadron will fucking dominate. I want that, and so should you. We should have a few shiny pennies, who make some rank, and play on the the strategic, political field. I don't need that stifling shit in the squadron, or at the merge.

Great, we DO NOT do that. You say don't "give me that in front of bros shit," but actually it's true. Sure things have slipped out (sts) at an ops desk or two, but you and others on this bullshit bandwagon have this grandiose horrible viewpoint of our culture when in fact your view is ludicrously far from reality. We're very respectful to the 1COs, AFE troops, etc. Stop acting like at every step brief we throw down with our favorite S&M Man verse, right after telling the 1CO she should wear less clothes. This shit does not happen. You want the playboy pinups taken out of the bathroom, out from behind some guy's desk, fine I get it. But to be quite frank, that's about the only thing I've seen that can in any logical way be considered harassment to others. The number 69 is just a number, so to speak is a common phrase, etc. What we sing in our bar with the door closed (no shit) is none of your business and I fully mean this when I say, you are NOT allowed to be offended of something you've neither seen nor heard or will ever be "forced" to hear, but only have an inflated and incorrect opinion of based off of bullshit premises. Now, before you blow your lid, I think a dude should get crushed for REAL harassment at work. If some guy's making passes at the A1C in life support, telling her "nice tits, you should take your shirt off," then fuck yeah, that guys an asshole and should get what's coming to him. As you're well aware, there are shitbags in EVERY AFSC, base, etc. I don't think it's much to ask to leave the 99% of us alone that do not do this shit and actually put effort towards doing something about the 1% who actually "do the things" the anti-fighter pilot community erroneously thinks runs rampant in our community. Going after 69, songs and callsigns is the weak dick response of spineless leadership who are too afraid/unable to tackle the real problem, so instead they go after what's easy and visible.

I'm eager to see how that "rationale" plays out in the next CDI, or FEB, or Article 32 hearing, or even reply to an Art 15 or LOR. It'll go something like this: "You thought that rule was 'stupid', and IAW your massive misunderstanding of the CSAF's intent, and your ridiculously ignorant and dangerous judgment, you chose to not follow it. Under Article 31 of the UCMJ, you have the right to remain silent...." Does anyone seriously believe that if they see something dumb in the regs and disregard it, that they're NOT going to be severely punished be leadership for disregarding something in the regs? This is the Air Force leadership who has, downrange during actual combat operations, stated "compliance is more important than achievement." Whose judgment, exactly, is going to be considered the standard for determining if something in the regs is stupid and should be ignored? The current USAF culture effectively requires leadership at the Wing and below "mother-may-I" practically every minor deviation from the status quo because of this "compliance" mindset (you won't find that in the regs, natch, but you'll see it in the actions of Commanders as well as their stratifications following those "decisions"). So, can an Airman decide? Does he have to ask an NCO? Does that NCO have to ask their OIC? Does that OIC have to ask their Ops O or CC? Group CC? Wing CC? What level is the appropriate "judgment" level? My guess is that it is going to be at least one level higher than anyone who actually chooses to take this path. The first guy who does it is going to get paperwork, and then told that it was not in their authority to make such a decision. Anyone who actually values their career, their wings, whatever, is going to play the most conservative card possible and not dare to either think or color outside the lines, as that is what our experiences have shown us is the safest path. The only "courage" it is going to take for someone to break that conservative mold will be the willingness to lose your ability to honorably serve and risk being labeled as a problem child rule-breaker. For all the talk about "moral courage" I hear, what it translates to in the real world is falling on your sword and sacrificing your ability to continue serving honorably. Everyone I've known who has shown moral courage and tried to speak up about real problems with the status quo has been sidelined with paperwork, go-nowhere jobs, etc., because it has ruffled the feathers of officers who don't like to be told when they're not wearing any clothes, especially by people junior to them. I applaud what the CSAF is saying and wants us to do (because it is common sense to warfighters who are actually interested in, and focused on, professional warfighting), but it goes contrary to every other message on the topic of "compliance" that all levels of AF leadership other than the CSAF given over the last 6-9 years (to wit: reflective belts, uniform queep, mustache length -- you know, all the real important stuff for accomplishing the mission of combat airpower).

I got a "Top 5% of 15 CGOs" one time. Mathematically that's better than #1!

On the MXG/MSG issue, if you've been around crew chiefs, cops or EOD to name a few they like drinking and dirty/ dark humor just as much as we do. Honest question on the second point then, what is the end state WRT offensiveness? Some vegans I've met have the same reaction to beef as an EO manager would have to so to speaks. Will we discourage squadron burger burns? Then, many Baptists are offended by alcohol - close the class six? Ban coffee makers to support conservative Mormons who believe caffeine is wrong? The idea of trying to be non-offensive to everyone (vs making it clear that regardless of language, harassment and assault will be dealt with swiftly by any member of the squadron) quickly becomes a slippery slope.

I disagree. I worked at MSG and Wing staff and: YES, there was drinking at work after hours; YES, there were people saying "that's what she said"; and NO, it did not lead to sexual assaults or harassment while I was there. Perhaps in your corner of the world, it is not allowed, but in other corners of the world it is allowed in the MSG and Wing Staff. Certain organizations have traditions, others don't. Why are we trying to end squadron bars when it has not been shown to increase DUIs any more than drinking downtown? I'm not a fighter pilot so I don't "get" the "cranium" and "container" thing, but I don't have to...that is not my work environment. They do "get it" and having "traditions" like that helps their morale, so be it. I'm pretty sure people aren't groping and raping women because of it. The people who have and will grope women are going to do it whether I say "69" or not. I'm sure in some COMM Sq somewhere in the world, there are jokes about Bytes and RAM and those guys think it is funny, while in my community we won't "get it." That is what we do, we try to have fun at work believe it or not. Studies have shown that productivity is directly tied to job satisfaction. When morale is high, productivity is high. Yes, I agree that degrading women (or men for that matter), discrimination, etc have no place ANYWHERE (not just work), but I just don't see how anything in that memo is offensive. I guess I have different standards of offensive material. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have "fun" at work if while flying an 8-hour oceanic crossing, all I had to talk about were AFIs, PME, and sock checks. Perhaps we can start to attribute CLASS A mishaps to the types of conversations we have in the cockpit...excuse me...flight deck...if we really want to drive the point home. Seriously, what is the ultimate goal here? Are we trying to create a workplace environment where everyone goes to work and just talks about work, PME, AFIs and rules and then goes home for the day never to discuss anything from outside of work that could potentially offend someone? Good luck with that. I don't think you'll find that ANYWHERE in the world...except maybe Chinese or N Korean work camps. Sexual harassment and assault are very distinct entities than from what we are talking about here. I don't see a cause and effect connection between the two. I'm sure that 96.9% (actual made-up statistic)posters on this board believe sexual assault and harassment are wrong and will never do it...yes, even with the Squadron Bar Photo of the day thread. I'm also sure that 99.6% of those who will commit some kind of sexual assault or harassment in the workplace will probably do it regardless of what is discussed at work.

I love how some people try and make it sound like pilots are all constantly drunk at work. In my, clearly biased, opinion informal Hanger Talks over a beer at the end of a long and productive duty day have a far greater positive mission impact than any Closed for Training Wednesday ever has.

Personally, I think this rapid cycling has shown victims that whether they have a real case or not, they can destroy the person they are out to destroy. No one wants to find someone not guilty of a sexual assault in the current climate, no matter how tenuous the evidence. Someone else said it earlier...the AF is essentially telling us they want to run like any other company, where people come to work, exchange mild pleasantries at the water cooler, and go home. I think leadership is going to be shocked when they realize how much they have destroyed the camaraderie that we used to have by taking away things like roll calls, naming ceremonies, hell, names. Sure, we'll all be more professional, and we'll all be much less inclined to stay after our commitments, to stay late at work PERIOD, to hang out in the bar and mentor new guys. Leadership wonders why people don't want to join the clubs anymore...well, they're about to wonder why no one is willing to stay late to wrap up mission planning for DACT sortie and would rather just min-run the upgrade programs until they can make their ADSC an work for an airline instead. You wondered aloud why the AF had to throw so much money at the fighter guys to stay, and I'm telling you loud and clear that this is one of the causes. I'm totally on-board with the idea we should do everything we can to stop sexual assaults...I just don't think giving guys LOCs for dick jokes around the squadron is solving the actual issue.

I would love to see an actual breakdown of where sexual harassment/sexual assault claims are coming from (sts) in the Air Force. I guarandamnedtee you the Operations Group will be significantly underrepresented (and within the OG, the OSS will be significant overrepresented... just as they are for DUIs).

When 82 year old Robin Olds lead us in the singing of "Balls of O'Leary" at the Sheppard O-Club in 2004 with a room full of 200 pilots (men and women) it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. It was right then and there that I understood why the "unprofessional, sexist, and innapropraite traditions" that you know nothing of were so important. You want to convince me that your perspective, the "senior leader" perspective, is better than Robin's. You have failed to do so.

I can not believe that in 2013 a system this stupid is in place to rate commissioned officers in the United States Air Force. Dear higher ranking members how can you not be clearing this shit up so we get honest, easy to digest feedback on how to improve as leaders, managers and (some of you) warriors? This black magic nonsense helps no one.

Oh, you mean like the official slogan of the comm sq at Al Dhafra? The one that they stamp on every in- and out-processing checklist as well as have on their walls, etc. "Shooting comm all over your base" Real professional, that one.

Everything you said, which I mostly disagreed with but still respected as valid, was undone right here. When's the last time you were around a group of maintainers? I've heard more horribly inappropriate shit come from maintainers, some even female, than any other group in the AF (except perhaps EOD). Whatever metric is being used to measure the problem, it's ######ed if someone actually believes the OGs have a bigger (rather than more visible) problem with SA/SH. Here's the other side to the coin: Never in human history has the military operated this way. That doesn't mean it won't work, hell, I'd bet it will. But to me it's like the uniform battle. Every time an E-9 goes on a rant about pilots with their zippers down or maintainers with dirty boots or personnelists with jackets on indoors, they fall back on the "history" that the uniform represents and the "heritage" we are shitting on by wearing it "disrespectfully." Yet every picture I see of WWI and WWII looks like a competition for who can wear their hat funnier, or not at all. Vietnam vets could be seen wearing more than the required pieces of flair, if any uniform items at all. It's made up. They're using a fictional history to justify the new direction. Just like our current battle with SA/SH in the workplace. There's no historical precedent for a non-sexualized military, so instead of attacking how fighter pilots (or whoever) have been doing it wrong all this time and we just "finally have a senior leader with the balls to confront it," be honest about it. Times have changed, and we have to change with them. The Captains and Majors complaining about having to change aren't to blame any more than the Colonels and Generals (now the ones telling them how stupid and offensive they are) are for doing it when they were captains and majors. But if you think our culture is worse than others, I challenge you to spend some time with an army unit living next door in Bagram. It may calibrate your expectations. Sir.

I agree with HOSS. I was part of a small group sit down with our O-7 wing king and he gave us a no holds barred discussion on PRFs/strats/etc. He explained that based on his experience, a board adds some assumptions to strats, i.e. #10/100 CGOs on your O-4 PRF doesn't necessarily equal top 10% material. Logic being someone on the board may assume 50 of those CGOs are Lts, which then drives the strat to #10/50 Capts at best. Drilling down more says ~12 of those 50 Capts are meeting their O-4 board and so, in theory, that strat could equal #10/12. This is clearly a "glass half empty" thought process but one my wing king said he has to be prepared for when writing PRFs. The bottomline is that he encourages a strat that clearly states the individuals standing, so like HOSS said the CGO strat as a Lt is better than the #1 Lt strat, an FGO strat as a Maj would be better than one as a Lt Col, excluding a #1/2/3 strat. The example he referenced was dealing with an O-5 BPZ PRF where he wants to ensure everything screams top 3-4% or better because that is who is statistically likely to be promoted so he may exclude a #8/100 type strat in favor of a smaller pool but better percentage/more competitive breakdown.

Yes, MSG and MSG don't tolerate this! There are no sexual assault or sexual harassment issues in those groups. You bring up a great point...we should immediately stop using fighter pilots to train new recruits at basic training, since those issues are what put us in the spotlight in the first place. You fighter pilots can no longer be drill instructors....you're fucking fired! The MSG and MXG don't need to release MFRs because their E and Os dont tolerate it??? Are you fucking serious?!?! Yeah, they may not tolerate it, but it is apparent to me that maybe they should put out memos that say don't use sexual innuendos because this 'problem' is force wide...not just the small group of pilots. I think the CSAF realizes that too which is why he directed a force wide workplace clean up... By the way, I can't put pictures of this year's summer family vacation on my desk because someone is offended at my wife's bikini. Then stop fucking looking at my wife and stop going to the beach. I use pictures of my family at work to remind me that there is still some form of normalcy in my life. So she's wearing a bikini...that is normal to me. Focusing on one group of people because they have 'traditions' that can be visibly eliminated and reported as 'action taken' is not going to fix the problem. No...not as long as you still sell those magazines in the BX that have women in bikinis and sell 'sexuality.' Not as long as you play sexually explicit movies at base movie theaters, not as long as you play sexually suggestive programs on AFN TV and radio (by the way, I learned 'that's what she said' on a program I watch on AFN). It is difficult to take leadership seriously when they selectively target eliminating sexuality in one place, but promote sexuality (ie sexual preference) in another place. I think you know why we don't eliminate the magazines, TV programming, etc....because it would hurt morale. Morale of your people is what makes them more productive. The politicians who have never served a day in combat don't understand 'morale' in a war zone...nor do I expect them to. What helps MY morale in a potentially hostile, stressful situation like a combat zone are things like humor and jokes that lighten the situation. It may be a David Chappelle skit that makes jokes about race, it could be a movie like The Hangover that is sexually charged Vegas buffoonery. I'm not a fighter pilot, but I imagine those avenues of stress relief help relax at least one fighter pilot, and thus could potentiall make them better at their stressful job. I don't expect a REMF desk jockey in the MSG to understand that (not that their job is any less important...they just have a different type/level of stress). Just like I don't know what the snake eater SOF guy on the ground does to relieve his stress. I'm not expected to. Take away avenues of stress relief among your personnel, and you WILL see a drop in productivity....period. Does it make anyone a better pilot?? That kind of motivation is up to the individual. I would bet that in some cases it does. No one is suggesting that we pat Airman Yummy Britches on the ass every time we see her at work. There is a great distinction between sexual harassment/assault in the workplace and the use of 69 or that's what she said. Sure, 69 could be offensive, but so are a lot of other things that aren't getting attention. You will offend at least one person 100% of the time in any given situation. ** sorry for long winded response...

Because perhaps it shows that our sexual assault problem stems from environments disproportionately filled with young men and women living away from home for the first time, not a smaller body of professionals who are disproportionately older, more educated, married, and who happen to enjoy a little off-color humor and early afternoon drinking. The thinking of the so-called leaders mentioned in this thread is truly Underwear Gnome logic: 1. Curb the double-entendres in flying squadrons. 2. ??? 3. Reduction in "unwanted sexual contact" among junior enlisted members. Before the PR kerfuffle over military sexual assaults started, I suppose, about 18 months ago I actually bragged to my civilian friends about how extensive our efforts were in that area, relative to higher ed: i.e. the big push to educate people about their reporting options, the existence of restricted reporting, the SARC program, the mandatory pre-deployment briefings, etc. Could things still be improved on? Sure. Is any sexual assault/harassment "acceptable"? Of course not. Will we ever get to zero? No way Jose. But IMO what we have here are a body of leaders who are either making uncontextualized conclusions about the prevalence of the problem based on their emotional reaction to specific cases or The Invisible War (and hasty generalization of anecdotal evidence is one of the classic logical fallacies), or they actually know that there isn't much more they can do and are simply doing something visible because they won't get to the next rank by not being a team player. It reminds me of nav school, where when the Friday safety briefs weren't quite enough to keep one or two of the four hundred mostly 22-26 year olds from making bad alcohol/driving decisions, everybody got to sit in the Taj Mahal in service dress to hear how serious the leadership was. I'm not going to lie and say that a substantive crackdown on fun at work would actually make me get out short of 20 years... I'm an economic realist. But I don't have to be happy about it, or pretend the Air Force wasn't once a much better place to come to work.

That's why we never change the checklists, right?

While we are up for this massive culture shift in the military, lets get rid of Betty. I am offended for.... For someone I'm not sure who but I am. The implication at men can only respond to the shrill sound of what can only be presumed to be an Angry 33 year old divorcee collecting yet another child support check while she tells me everything I'm doing is wrong is just insulting. It can't be a hot sounding chick either... If I listened any better to pretty girls my wife wouldn't be so pissed off I was ignoring her all the time.

North Mexico? West Greece?