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The old girl is completing her final combat deployment...sad to see her go, but she is tired and it is time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRsYDYnv1rg

I can tell you that neither one of my South African friends shed a tear over his passing. In fact they both had rather harsh things to say while he was still sick. True, their status quo as whites changed greatly once the ANC and Mandela came into power, but they've implied that SA turned to shit pretty rapidly in the mid-90's. One transplanted here with his family as some of their relatives were murdered, and the other came over in his early 30's to escape the destruction of any semblance of civility in his home nation,

FIFY, there's a difference between unconventional military tactics and terrorist tactics. While the two may not always be mutually exclusive they are in fact different, which is why your analogy between GW and Mandela is faulty.

He is lucky he wasn't executed for his crimes, but that is a different discussion. So we honor someone just because they serve 27 years in prison for crimes? Are we going to honor Terry Nichols if and when he gets released after 27 years? I mean, hey, he may apologize, you never know. He and McVeigh were fighting to restore our Rights under The Constitution (so McVeigh said). See what happens when it comes down to opinion? By the way, I did a fairly extensive google search for Mandela in regards to 'regretting' and 'apologizing'...one or two things come up for 'regretting' and nothing for apologizing. Semantics? Perhaps. But you'd think I'd be able to find more on the subject if it was more widespread. By all mean, share what you have as I'm truly about more education. And for the record, I'm not saying we drag the guy through the dirt when he dies just because he's dead...but you hear very little about the atrocities he committed/was involved in, and I think that is the same to equating to sweeping those things under the rug because it doesn't further the desired narrative. So to be fair, I believe an honest debate needs to occur. You also didn't answer my question about Fidel Castro. A lot of people think he's done some positive/remarkable things over the years--suggest we lower the flags him as well? By the way, isn't it funny that people like to call Obama a communist and the Tea Party/GOP terrorists...but when we actually have a guy that was both then we're afraid to call him out on it? **Edited for spelling/grammar...and I'm sure I'm missed even more errors.

Really? What was the unemployment rate before compared to after Mandela and the apartheid? The rape capital of the world ring any bells? It depends on how they did it and what they did once in power. Rather naive viewpoint. That's like saying Saddam imposed order on Iraq while ignoring him gassing the Kurds or killing his own people. And no one has any issues with Obama hustling off to South Africa, yet ignoring our ally when Margaret Thatcher died?

Ah yes because a stable country, prosperous economy, is lesser preferred to the countries of Rwanada and Uganda. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad apartheid is gone, it was a horrible system. However, when the ANC came to power their Affirmative Action policies and the outright murder of tens of thousands of whites and confiscation of their property has in fact led to a worse South Africa. Johannesburg is now the rape and murder capital of the world. Did things need to change? Absolutely, however the process that they took while it improved some areas (minority rights), it also severely hurt others.

What we need to do is head over there with a few crowd pleasers and be done with it. I'm over it, fellas. We need to pack up our shit and GTFO. If they don't want us, why are we spending American lives, money, and time there?

Huh? In almost every category the number of retired E-7's alone exceeds the combined total of ALL retired officers by a factor of two.

I actually agree with you in part--a lot of people aren't quite educated about who Mandela was and wasn't. He's often thrown into the same vein as MLK/Gandhi when, in fact, his past is much murkier. Still, Chief does have a point: you can't underestimate how tempting it was for Mandela to just pull a Mugabe and play the revenge game on those who had been part of the Apartheid regime. He didn't, and a lot of people who did really awful things (both under the previous regime as well as ANC people) weren't punished as a result of pursuing national reconciliation instead.

I'll answer you question with another question: Is it ok for the Taliban and/or Al Qaeda to purposefully target civilians in order to push their agenda and achieve their goals? Yasser Arafat really cared about his people and pushing his agenda to benefit the Palestinians--did he deserve our American flag lowered at half-mast when he died? I agree about the terrorist vs freedom fighter remark, and it is largely about point of view. But I never support direct targeting of civilians to push an agenda. Timothy McVeigh believed is his cause, but I'm not about to sign his praises either. Any revolutionaries who intentionally targeted civilians were also wrong.

Oldest enlisted Airman jumps into final re-enlistment after 39 years of service. https://www.pacaf.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123373364

I think Buddy Spike called it...if we start honoring guys with a terrorist past/ties to communism then I think that's a very very slippery slope. He also didn't have the most kind things to say about the United States over recent years.

Respected and honorable statesman? I think you misspelled Marxist Terrorist. https://americanfreepress.net/?p=11873 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing https://freedomoutpost.com/2013/12/nelson-mandela-media-fawns-though-marxist-terrorist/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp5gdUHFGIQ

By the time he was in college I had moved on to doing that with Flt Atts on my layovers.

I think all of you are forgetting a pretty major fact when measuring the intrinsic value of THE USAFA. A 2Lt fresh from the zoo already has the jaded outlook & ingrained saltiness of a senior captain, but with the same ADSC as his peers. You just can't put a price tag on that kind of training.

I went to the University of Hawaii on a sailing scholarship, 2 yr AFROTC, flew fighters for 11 yrs, retired early from a major airline after 24. I always wondered if I #$%* up my life by not going to the Academy.

Really good old Bell Canada TV commercial wish more American businesses would do things like this. Fitting for Veterans Day and Remembrance Day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd1FNPx_YN4

OK - the 20 year retirement is designed as a retainer,not a retirement per se. The idea is that by taking the retirement check, you place yourself in line for reactivation should the nation require it. Doesn't happen but it can. So why 20 years? Well, for this we go back to the reason fora young service. When 20 year career was developed, there was a lot more gruntwork requiring young, very fit service members able to keep up with the demandsof infantry, flight in un or poorly pressurized cockpits, hot bunking on ships,etc. Since WWII we have moved more into a technologically service orientedforce that requires more brain power and less brute power (some career fields exemptedof course - infantry, tactical aviation, special ops, etc.). This means that servicemembers are not only more valuable longer but are more valuable over time(experience). So while a 42 year old infantryman may be struggling to keep up with a 22 year old infantryman, a 42 year old acquisition specialist is running circles around a 22 year old newbie just out of tech school. And will be for the foreseeable future. So in essence, the need for a young force is less important now than it was in 1950. In some cases (acquisition,intelligence, logistics, maintenance, etc.) older is probably better and by age 42, the service member in question is likely at the peak of his or her proficiency and therefore a very valuable commodity. The other reason for the 20 year retirement deals with the military culture andhow our careers evolve. We generally move every 3-4 years and have a few remotes/six month deployments and several PCS schools (e.g. PME, Tech School, UPT, RTU, etc.) over a 2 - 24 year period. This means the typical military family (member and spouse) cannot generally build deep roots in any community they live in. Even if they buy a house they live there for only 3-4 years then it's on the road again. For spouses this means no second careers. Even spouses with portable jobs (e.g. teachers, nurses) have a hard time maintaining a career as they move from one location to another. As a result, by age 38-44 the typical military family (member, spouse and now probably 1-3 teenage kids) will have less than 3-4 years on station when the member retires. Now contrast that with the neighbour who has lived in the same house and worked in the same area for the last 20-22 years. That family unit probably has paid down their house significantly, both spouses probably work and have viable careers and the family has established lifelong friends and connections. This means the military family at age 42 is essentially starting where the civilian family did 22 years earlier. And you don't get those years back. The military member may find work paying the equivalent to his or her former position but not the seniority. In this case, the military member is starting at the bottom. For the spouse its worse. He or she has been off the career track for 20-22 years and now must start over competing against other candidates more than a generation younger. So you have a new house (with a full 30 year mortgage), two new jobs (one at absolute beginning status) and live in a community that maybe wonderful but is alien and will take years to really integrate into. Who would do this to themselves voluntarily? The answer is "the military" and primarily for the retirement. The immediate support of the retirement check and medical benefits is a cushion allowing for an easier transition to the civilian world. While you don't get rich off of retirement it will generally pay the house payment, the utilities and the car payment. After that, all you need to do is cover food - and youcould do that as a greeter at Wal-Mart. Not that most military would do this... It is however an option. So if retirement was taken off the table with a general promise of less money at age 57 but not before the rank and file are going to bail. If they go through with this 10 year retirement at 57 it will be even worse. There is no incentive to stay past 10 years since you are vested and you won't get your money earlier anyway. In fact staying the extra 10 years would be devastating financially as the member could have made far more and paid off more of his or her house/cars etc. in that next 10 years. Simple economics... So if the committee wants to really change the retirement system, they really need to change what a military career is. For this, we need to discard the notion of a need for a young service. We also need to discard the "up or out" policies we have now. In short, like many of our allies a military career is something you do for life, not for 20 years before finding something else to do. Proposal - set the mandatory retirement age at 57 - all officers are fully qualified to Lt Col all enlisted fully qualified to MSgt. The cream as always will climb to the top while the rest will fulfil their careers moving from tactical to staff and training positions over time. In some services, the pilot force is managed in this fashion - in Sweden for example, all pilots are supposed to be fighter pilots in their "youth" progressing to transports and helicopters as they get older. Those who want to leave and fly for the airlines do so but at a loss of retirement benefits. Several NATO allies have an all or nothing retirement program that requires their members toreach age 55 before retirement. At least one NATO member even restricts retirees from taking on new work by reducing their payments by the same amount they receive from their new position (discourages the military to contractor revolving door). There are some benefits to this plan. The biggest being the re-branding of a military career as a calling versus a job. Unless the member wants to be CSAF there is little need for the careerism we see today. Members would choose jobs according to AF and personal needs and desires versus how it affects their careers. There will be less pressure to get promoted "on time" allowing for more broadening of careers and longer assignments (5-6 years). You still have the spouse issue, but since the member is staying in one place longer, there is less disruption. Moreover, by the time the member is ready to retire they are more likely to be grandparents than parents of school age children - even less disruption. And finally - retiring at age 57 means the retirement package starts right then allowing for a better transition. In my opinion, the establishment of a career to age 57 is critical to any changes in the retirement system. If the government decides to simply move retirement to 57 and high five then the exodus will be huge. Mainly because military members simply aren't crazy or stupid enough to place themselves and their families in the position of starting over at age 38-44 with nothing but a promise and a plaque. It's just not fair. This is common sense... Just my thoughts Hobbit

Masshole's point about Thatcher and the fact that the flag wasn't being flown at half staff to recognize Pearl Harbor are probably the two more disgusting points about this discussion. I am no fan of Mandela's and I don't think his passing warrants the US flag being flown at half staff only because other more deserving individuals didn't get that honor. It was a clear political move by our President and I know that is a cue for Vertigo and nsplayr to join the conversation in 3, 2, 1...

Maybe, but your view is very cynical. In this age of technology, you can look at anybody's life and if it doesn't conform to exactly how you want it to, you can rip them apart for it. By using your logic, Mother Teresa can be viewed as a terrorist, Michael Jordan isn't the greatest because he's an asshole, and Elvis isn't the King because of drug use. Mandela did great things and it's easy to second guess every detail in hindsight. I'm not saying these things shouldn't be scrutinized but good deeds need to be celebrated since they're far and few these days.

Unbelievable sources. From the first one, "Under white rule, blacks in South Africa enjoyed better living conditions than any other African country where blacks kill each other in tribal warfare." Wrong empirically and qualitatively. My toilet paper is more reliable than that site.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter? Are you now saying the revolutionaries who started our path to freedom from Britain should be considered terrorists and shouldn't be honored?

I think it's only fair I answer your question. I don't know of anything saying GW did either. Mandela freely admitted he regretted targeting civilians when he was on trial and later after prison in his biography. He spent 27 years in prison for it (isn't that what prison is for? rehabilitation?) and instead of coming out more bitter and radicalized, he fought the battle using peaceful negotiations. How many people could you honestly say would be peaceful after 27 years of a brutal prison? His life is a great lesson in the things people are capable of with the right drive and energy that, despite opposing political views and huge mistakes, great things can be accomplished. The fact that he admits his skeletons gives me more respect for him than almost any other politician today because he fought the fight, lost, and still came out asking for forgiveness in the end. If we can't celebrate a person (even though he went to prison for his crimes and fully admits them) performing great deeds then maybe we're just too cynical. To answer your question: I draw the line after evaluating the person and their history. In this case, I don't agree with his socialist tendencies and his targeting of civilians, but I can't ignore his prison time, humility, and the great accomplishments he did after such a complicated life and fully believe his life has better lessons learned than almost any other politician today.

2 percent sounds like a good deal provided it has nothing to do with voluntary separation pay or separation pay should it come to that which I think it will. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Anything that can improve lives and culture should be celebrated. Hitler, dare I say, did good things too. *Gasp*. I know it's crazy but the autobahn, modern rocketry, innovations to film, and huge medical advances were attributed to him and his reign. RADAR was developed to help combat invasions from Germany. Those things should be celebrated but we don't celebrate Hitler, as a person, because he was bat shit crazy and murdered millions of people. Last thing I'll say and I'm done: by the logic shown, George Washington, and his army, should never been seen as honorable for using tactics the British viewed as terroristic and unconventional. I'm thankful for what President Washington did, just like there are many citizens of South Africa who are thankful for the fight Nelson Mandela fought. Nelson Mandela fought for his people and should be honored for his role in ending brutal apartheid's in South Africa. I don't think he's a saint, but I think he fought against a very brutal system and should be celebrated for helping bring that bull-shit system of government down.