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This. The reality is that these professions take a certain type of personality. I'm sure we all have friends from past generations and from foreign militaries that we've met over the years. There's a reason a Vietnam vet can sit and bullshit with a vet from Desert Storm, who can sing songs with an OEF vet, who can booze with an RAF pilot, who can chase skirts with a Eurofighter pilot. We're all cut from the same cloth. It takes a certain kind of personality to do any type of job and ours is no exception. The problem is that our profession attracts a certain personality type while our leadership demands another. Yeah, got it. Porn, dirty songs, booze, etc do not have their place in the professional environment. Got it. They're gone. But you will never cut the wild-hair-on-your-ass attitude out from the type of person who is attracted to our profession. I'm not making excuses or tooting my horn as a fighter pilot. The same applies to the dudes in Ranger Battalion or the Marine sniper or the Navy SEAL or the C-130 pilot landing on a short dirt strip. Our jobs must have a person, male or female, who is willing to work for minimum wage, spend many months per year away from home, and take the lives of other human beings. If you can find some liberal punk from UC Berkley who's in touch with his feelings to do these jobs then please, hire him. But reality says you cannot have both. You cannot have a dedicated professional killer and a soft-skinned politically correct poet in the same person. If you want the PC type in our military then go find some to replace us. I dare you. If you want professionals to continue to carry out the mission, then get the fuck off our backs.

Crotch Grab. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fzrE8lGJds

Sounds like a good idea, but here a few things to consider... For one thing, current laws allow us to collect our Law Enforcement retirement at age 50, after completing 20 years of covered service. If one does 25 years, then the retirement can be collected at any age. If this were to apply to the military, there would be, in essence, no retirement benefit unless one completes 25 years of service, or at a minimum 20 years and can wait until age 50 to collect. So really, all it would do is make everyone serve 25 years for retirement, as there's really no incentive to get out before that. Should we leave (I'm a reservist who works as a fed leo full time) before our retirement, we can apply for a deferred retirement at either age 62 or our min retiremten age, however there are no health insurance benefits with this type of retirement (and the requirement to do the 5 years to vest). TSP also follows us. Should we transfer to a non-leo position, we lose those "covered years" (i.e. they revert to only being worth 1% instead of 1.7%), despite the fact we paid 1.3% of our base salary (non-covered positions only require 1% contributions from employees). Another thing is that with the 6c/12d retirement, there's a social security supplement for us to hold us over until we get to the age where we can collect social security (b/c of the mandatory retirement age). That's another item that would need to be addressed - would that apply to the military also? At 25 years, one can expect to collect 39% of their average high 3 salary under FERS LEO retirement. That's a huge difference from the current 60% a service member would receive for the same number of years. Who in their right mind would stay for that? Also, the military retirement fund isn't the problem -- it's mainly our healthcare. Also, I'm home every single night from my LEO job (although there is forced OT but we receive compensation for that either through LEAP or AUO depending on your agency). I can say no to being sent overseas - I do have to go on a stateside tdys if required, but they're few and far between. I work my share of holidays and weekends, and crappy hours, but even then I still make it home for part of the holiday/b-day party/bbq/ little league game/etc. Not putting down what I do, but the commitment to the military is much greater than that of my civilain LEO position -- there's a need for a unique retirement for the military. I do both and I can say there's no comparing the two -- I miss alot more of life and make more sacrifices in the reserves than I do for my agency. In my opinion, watering down the retirement will cause the better people to leave and those that stay will be the ones who can't do anything else - exactly what we don't want to further encourage.

Completely agree. The most recent criteria was updated in 2003, but the majority has been the same since the 80's. A bitter pill must be swallowed, by the legislators to re-structure the law, and the doctors to enforce the standards.

3 My UPT class ordered our nametags through these guys and they were friendly, fast, and cheap! I'd definitely use them again

I confirmed his SERE story with a SF guy I was carrying Space A. "Oh yeah, the pizza guy, we all know him!"

I personally consider Francis Gary Powers to be one of the most important Americans to have ever lived. His fateful flight ended up serving as the catalyst that propelled our space-based surveillance efforts. Those early programs created not only valuable intelligence, but firmly cemented our place at the head of the table in space operations. The ability to utilize space for intelligence, communication, navigation, weather, etc. has helped America remain a super power economically and militarily. Without him being shot down, who knows what the future would have looked like. He's a hero in my book.

Well, that won't hurt retention at all. Take away the 20 year retirement and there goes the last of your experience between years 11-19.

I'm old, but not that old!! No, I was a generation later. I did meet him several times in the early 70s when he attended pilot reunions at D-M. Very nice guy; quiet, but easy to talk to, except if you asked about his visit to the Soviet Union, then he was just quiet! When I got there in 1973, some of our supervision knew him, and some even flew with him in F-84s before they joined the U-2 program.

The Super T or a similar platform can carry everything needed for the mission I've talked about, has much greater persistence to actually cover the ground forces rather than do a fly by, dump it's bomb, and return to the boat, and as you mentioned, can do "all the crap we could have used in the last decade." News flash, we're still gonna be doing much of "all that crap" and the MEU is actually a really good instrument for doing that type of lower intensity stuff. Have you been to Africa? South America? Philippines? The stuff we're doing there or could do there should be the bread and butter of a post-Iraq and Afghanistan Marine Corps. Plus FW (even the much derided prop-driven variety) can keep up with the V-22s and has the legs to escort them in and remain overhead, traditional helicopters can't as you've pointed out in justifying why you need a jet. The Marines aren't buying shit, the American tax payer is buying everything. We can afford a lower cost platform, hell, we can afford way more of them, and you get about 69% of the capes you want and 100% of the capes I think you actually need. The F-35B is hurting the entire F-35 program at large, just for the pipe dream of "needing" 4x 5th gen fighters to launch off of a short boat to do OCA. Want vs need. You do need a CAS platform to escort V-22s and provide armed overwatch for Marine boots on the ground. The country needs a ready, forward-deployed combined arms force to respond to contingencies, the vast majority of which are low-intensity (disaster relief, embassy evac, downed aircrew, FID, COIN, support for SOF, etc.). You don't need a stealth super-plane to land vertically and launch AMRAAMS at soviet fighters. That's not what the Marine Corps was designed to do and that's not what the nation needs the Marines Corps to do.

Count it! Loved Vol 1, read it a few months back. You can borrow all three for free if you have Amazon Prime (which I do), but glad to own all 3 for the low low price of $0. Cheers to the author, he's certainly deserving of payment for his funny and memorable writing.

Thanks for the heads up! Great series...

German day on Saturday featured a caricature of a german girl in a Dirndl, with the anatomy and artistic merits approaching WWII nose art. Operations came to a complete stand still, the chow hall (excuse me, DFAC) was put on quarantine and we had an afternoon of mass breifings to talk about the evil of sexism that had been visited upon us. A few very brave young SrA got up and berated all the field grade officers for our insensitivity. They say that DFAC is closed for kitchen renovations but in reality, the AF sexism disinfection team is having to scrub the place from top bottom to remove the scourge of cartoon cleavage.

This racism and sexism stuff needs to stop. I do not know how anyone has the time to do their job while simultaneously waging war against every stupid joke that may or may not be done in poor taste. How does anyone maintain their sanity taking offense to bad caricature or sexual innuendos? My guess is these people have never experienced hate or discrimination. Do not get me wrong, racism and sexism are still alive but not nearly as pervasive as people want to believe. Just recently at a school-sponsored event some guy refused to shake my "nigger hand" (I am Asian so I am confused as anyone). That is an example of what is hateful, not some blonde pin-up on the side of an airplane or a Looney Toons character advertising tacos.

The people we want out won't leave. The people we desperately need to stay want to bolt... The AF should work much harder to figure out why that's the case.

All the talk about what's appropriate for the "workplace" highlight, for me, the true trajectory of the Air Force specifically and perhaps the military in general: today's military man is just working in another corporate job. It seems to me that the most resistance to the elimination of heritage, nose art, dirty song traditions, etc come from those who are most involved with the business of killing (the modern fighter pilot, and sarcasm that RPA guy with 1,000 kills /sarcasm). Most Air Force functions can be contracted to civilians, but the actual killing has to stay in house. These communities are understandably upset that they're being forced into a corporate business mold of behavior. I personally didn't want anything to do with the fighter traditions, so I joined a different community. Also I sucked flying the Tweet. I also agree with Liquid in that sexual assault and harassment have no place in the military where we uphold a more stringent code of honor than the rest of the country. But the Air Force is clearly moving toward a more blended type of corporate identity, one that sets aside a month out of the year to honor the homosexual lifestyle, so don't be surprised when the notion of giving your life for your "wingman" goes away.

As well as those mentioned above: Shutter the following: Thunderbirds Blue Angles Service Bands ...shit, all demo teams. If you do not contribute directly to day-to-day operations, you're gone. Quit forcing people to PCS every 10 minutes. Dismantle the Reserves and create a larger Air Guard force. They have a more expansive mission (state). Give all helo's to the Army. They are better at operating them. Contract nearly all services (pay, lodging, personnel, ect). If your job typically involves you NOT deploying, let a contractor do it. Quit changing uniforms every other year. Shit is getting old. No more leather couches when members are required to pay for thier own boots. (yeah, it happened) Spin ups do not require you to buy 150K worth of shit you will never use. If you cannot walk of the door with what you have, you're doing it wrong. Do not retire the A-10, but get rid of the F-22. Scale back the F-35 buy. Bring back warrants in the AF and let them fly. Close the AF academy. Let them track from West Point like in the olden days.