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I'm convinced Chang is a line flying Major that just loves to rile everyone up while sipping some 18 year single malt.

They hang at the mall because the only contact they have with their grandchildren is the obligatory mass-produced Christmas card/photo they get from their now estranged adult children once a year. See, years ago mama left the service member while he was deployed (again) and got full custody of the kids. Convinced by her bitch also divorced friends that it’s in the kid’s best interest, and to make the adjustment as smooth as possible, that they have minimal/no contact with their bio-father. Then, now-divorced mom meets and marries a nice guy with a “regular” job. You know; 40-hour week, home each night at a reasonable time for dinner and able to go to soccer games/school picnics/dance recitals, etc… and this guy is now defacto dad because “he was there” during those developmental years when the kids “needed” a father figure in their lives. All these vets have is the mall, war stories, flat cheap beer at the VFW and of course, a handle of Military Special Whiskey in the new improved non-breakable plastic bottle from the local Class VI. All this and only half his retirement check cause she got that too.

Working day and night except for: Wednesday's closed at 12 Every 3rd Thursday closed for "training" PT on Monday's till 10ish (desks not actually manned till after 3 hour lunch) Resiliency Fridays Commanders call once a month Did I miss any? Seems like maybe in a given week... 15 mins of good solid work. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

If you do that, you're almost guaranteed to be promoted.

It's pretty simple. Management waged a war against a culture and won. Some things needed to go, but many others got swept up in the moment. Here we are, years later, and so many of us see this as just another job. When you mort so many good cultural aspects and we end up viewing this as just another 9-5er, don't be surprised when people leave for a better 9-5er. A generation of spineless PC enablers (masqueraded as leaders) created this situation. Now they can live with with the aftermath.

Says the guy with -291 dislkes.

I think Chang is a better troll account than scoobs. I wonder if multiple people participate in it.

From the article: "The Air Force feels that implementing a stop-loss policy would cause pilots to flee the Air Force before the door closed, and they won't stick around to see if things improve. " This tells me the AF will hide stop loss till the last moment so no one can separate before. And I think Everhart was showing an unfiltered, unauthorized view into potential scenarios.

It would be more but most of us are on mobile and have no dislike function... Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Chang...please stop with the rhetoric and oversimplification of the repercussions of stop loss. You challenge the patriotism of individuals who HAVE served and separated from the AF. You have no knowledge of their level of patriotism or sacrifice. Are you an advocate for conscription to fill the void of other such manning shortages? What's the difference? Stop loss, for all intents and purposes turns an all volunteer force into a selective draft. I would argue drafting or applying stop loss to individuals to become power point rangers or bullet sponges is an effective technique because patriotism be damned their morale is likely in the crapper anyway. Now apply that logic to aviation, where individuals are FORCED into a position responsible for multimillion dollar weapon systems. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Be sure to add a line to the ORM matrix for stop lossed aircrew members. Don't put the past screw ups of your beloved personnel world on the shoulders of aviators who departed the fix for greener pastures. It is amazing that you cannot see that YOU are the problem and the solution is NOT to ask more from those that you need. Fix your world, demonstrate your accountability, fire your leadership, and then maybe you will have an influx of VOLUNTEERS to come back and demonstrate the patriotism that is within each of us. Until then...fuck off!

Well it's going to be fun watching this thread explode. Chang you troll, did you just like your own ridiculous post?

Bingo. Every detail, task, function, duty, requirement, mission, etc. has to be looked at top to bottom and if it can not be readily related to an operational mission, requirement, duty, function or task in a few credible steps then it needs to get the boot. In a broader sense though the USAF is in decline, IMO, because of a total misunderstanding of what leadership is based on. Leadership is based on Professional Competence foremost, Adherence to Core Values second, Common Sense thrid. If you are incompetent in your job/field it does not matter if you have integrity, you can not follow someone who can not perform the mission nor hold the standards or is not intellectually capable of multi-dimensional decision making or strategic thought. Victory or success must come first for without it there can be nothing or little at most. If you do not have integrity you can not be trusted. You can not be lead by those you don't trust. Trust is not lost in making decisions where some are disappointed if only that their preference(s) were not chosen for legitimate reasons. It is lost when decisions are made for opaque reasons, not clearly explained and no strategic, operational, institutional or widely enjoyed personal benefit is observed. We need a reason to fight, serve, obey or preserve, we can not do so blindly. If you do not have common sense or context recognition of when to apply procedure/rules/policy firmly and when to bend or not follow them if time & conditions necessitate that for appropriate reasons (mission success, safety, futility, cost, etc.) you will not be able to function in a dynamic, uncontrollable environment like the real operational world. Unforeseen events and factors will challenge your knowledge, training and plans in ways that there is no ready made decision tree to take you easily to a right answer., a leader at any level must be able to adapt. We used to first evaluate professional skill and then test leadership potential of those demonstrating superior skill while simultaneously looking for character defects when those selected would have to make decisions affecting others for the success of the mission and their ability to adapt, innovate and interpret in an unpredictable environment(s). Deviation from this classic model to what I would call a specious model (assuming pedigree equals leader) has led us nearly to ruin.

huh... how far it's changed from "you can all be replaced."

Did gringos should make a song about this mess. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Thanks for posting the exact same trash in two separate threads.

Maybe we could get Chang to validate who he is to ClearedHot, we could then take his word for it.

Personalists are heros? Holy crap. Total F-'- ING twilight zone. I think General Chang is general goldfein. Send the ing HEROs on the so called pilot 365's then. Because everyone knows we don't need to be there. Heros? That makes me sick and is a total spit in the face of true heros that have sacrificed all for our country. Hero's? What do you think our KIA would say about their personalists? Edit: the cuss word blocker is back on. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Sure about that? Many Guard and especially Reserve units have become mini-AD, same queep and BS, just with no PCSing. The ARTs in my unit who are being slammed with AD-mandated crap overflowing their plate, and looking to leave at the first good opportunity they get, attests to that. Then again, the ART program is its own problem in and of itself, but that's another story.

I guess we now know for sure what the Mattis doctrine is. "I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years," James Mattis

I hope they let a slick Herk guard unit on a 60 day deployment drop it...

You said it yourself already, the problem with "AGR$ for all my brothers" is that it turns the place into Active Duty proper AND absolutely places scarlet letter on airline-aspiring Reservists that haven't been hired already. The airlines do notice the uptick in long tour mil drop and throttle their hiring of said demographic accordingly. Delta has been known to have already behaved in such a way last year. Hell, it's getting to the point there are people on the other board asking about the feasibility of using the god-damned sabbatical program to try and snag a mainline number, come back to regAF for like 7 years (since there would be an ADSC in excess of 5 years associated with that program), get an AD retirement, and have it all employment protected. I don't think it's gonna work, but if it does then watch out, that first asshole is gonna ruin it for everybody else behind him. It does beg the question, if the airline job is so great, why the fvck do people long tour MLOA the shit out of it all the time? Don't answer that, I'm being rhetorical; just a little pot stirring for the a-word crowd that like to speak out of both sides of their mouth on said topic. :) All to do about nothing of course. There's no shortage of AGRs in desirable locations. It's a tight little club too, they got their inheritance line to those jobs out 2-3 iterations out, so that's 12 years worth of tom dick and harrys gerrymandering the honey pot. Most of the leftover revolving flying openings require living in DOD-standard, make-work, pork barrel economy shitholes, at the expense of your family's QOL. So in the aggregate it's not as effective of a solution as chronically-fatigued/burnout regAF folks naturally feel it would be, especially for the majority that wishes to stop living in Minot/Altus/Cannon/Laughlin/et al and raise their kids somewhere dignified. Something the AF could try, that AFRC would jump on in a NY second, is to make the ART job (title V), a title X mil equivalent for USERRA purposes. ART crisis averted overnight. People would take that paycut in a heartbeat, since what they're really doing is hiding from their shitty schedules/commutes as junior guys. Further antagonizes their civilian coworkers at the airline for sure, but the game is chess. But since it's not legally possible to take MLOA for a civilian job, which the ART is considered to be, then the openings remain unfilled and ARPC is forced to consider AGRs. Problem is that AFRC simply does not have the political capital to ask for such a thing. AFRC is ART centric for money reasons, you can't just flip the manning system wide to be majority AGR. That will never happen, wish in one hand shit on the other type of thing..

Say what you will, that was likely the most entertaining post I've read here.

Couldn't digest what he was saying because he used curved quotations. Just threw me right off. Seriously though how can the AF be fixed? Top to bottom overhaul and admit truth? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Fuck you Ram, the world deserves to know! Hopefully the source selection goes with the great white, sure as hell don't want that piece of shirt tiger shark Northrup is pitching - only one laser, bullshit!

I respectfully disagree and see a different message - he is not considering it because Stop Loss is not his to consider, and not his decision to make (his own words and true); however it is in CSAF's lane to advocate for it to who does have authority to consider Stop Loss (i.e. SECDEF and higher). He didn't answer that question of advocacy, instead he mentioned Stop Loss use in case of an emergency - which aviators know can be declared at any moment, as required. The CSAF's comments about pilot shortages being a national crisis could mean emergency..right? Or perhaps I'm irrational...or something. He's certainly shaping the narrative, and definitely attempting to put-at-ease the masses. But everyone suspects something is brewing (ex. those warning on this forum) and an educated man is anything but at-ease. Freedom is at stake, and there can be no service without self - I have lived that hell and know it's true. Individuals (a 'self' make up our service), it's what makes us strong - diversity in every regard, but I'm a firm believer a great work to life balance is critically important. What is missing is work to personal life balance (too much, time to resurrect the USAF PERSTEMPO trackers and not simply deployed metrics), an energizing work-life culture (yep, it's dead), and small civilian-military pay gap (it's huge). What gets me is our CSAF is advocating outside of the USAF that we as a nation have a national pilot crisis which is a bit out of his sphere of influence - I agree we do, but would appreciate his/those efforts focused within the USAF. Introspection into the USAF is well within his sphere, why are we going external? Why is that his strategy? What affect does he think he'll get from outside his sphere? Is it simply diversion and informing?

Some more news on the subject. https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/04/12/air-force-opts-to-keep-f-16s-flying-for-decades-longer/ Anyone in the know who can speak to what new/upgraded stuff the viper might get besides AESA?

Kind of hard to hide, now, if the Chief is actually considering it a card to be played at some point. Cat's out of the bag. And if it really isn't on the table, as the article implies, it seems that Everhart wanted to win the scare tactics game by going straight to the nuclear option, to prove that he and his friends mean business. Or at the very least, to test the waters to see if outright bullying actually works. And on another note, comments like these are appearing in almost every article about pilot retention I've read thus far: "As part of its effort to improve quality of service, the Air Force is also reducing additional duties and non-mission essential training required for pilots, and outsourcing routine administrative jobs in squadrons to allow them to fly more." Yeah, I've seen the SECAF memos, and the jobs/duties that are being cut, but I hadn't heard of nearly half of the them. And none of them seem to equate to flying more or less. We still fly the same amount of hours as we did before. Squadron Website Manager? That's a thing? I had no idea until my buddy told me he actually was the squadron's website manager. Had been for over a year. When I asked him about it, he smiled, and said "we don't have a website."

Read the last line again. Are you seriously going to bitch about curly vs straight apostrophes then click send with a mistake like that in your out-line?

Sincerely doubt there would be any change to the status quo. By considering stop loss, leadership is signaling that they don't really want to solve the underlying problems. It seems logical to me that if they really can't fill cockpits and "put warheads on foreheads", before they stop loss they should cancel all in residence schools, scrub all staff positions for non mission critical slots, audit all deployed air assets and remove anything extraneous, bring home anyone currently on an exchange, truly eliminate all non mission related duties, etc. All that stuff is hard. It's much easier just to yell "STOP LOSS" and call the problem fixed.

Everhart is bluffing. Even if he tried to implement Stop Loss, the blowback would be unpalatable.

I was primarily focused on the 4 star level with my previous comment, like the MAJCOM/COCOM/CSAF level. That way there could actually be some long term vision/plan for the organization, and accountability for decisions. It'd be insane for a company to constantly change out CEOs every 2-4 years just to give someone else a turn at it for career progression; why do we do it in the military? On a semi-related note, "The Generals" by Thomas Ricks is a interesting read, basically documenting the decline in leadership at the General level in the army over the years. A lot of what is discussed is easily relatable to the Air Force's current leadership problems.

The final epic collapse of integrity brought to you by the senior leadership of the United States Air Force. Out of one side of their pie holes they proclaim to "care" and want to address the issues that are causing people to leave. Out of the other side they go behind your back to Congress to change the 1500 hour rule and threaten the Airlines with Stop Loss. Goldfein, Rand, Everhart and the others have abdicated any shred of integrity that remained...I am truly disgusted to say I know them and trusted them. They can't Stop Loss you forever (the will certainly try), get out NOW! Don't waste a day if you have the option, this is not going to get better anytime soon.

They were doing this when I was there for SOS. Solution? Buy a second hat...(ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer) Some non flyers in my class were happy to call out flightsuit wearers on the leg pocket not being zipped. They weren't so happy when they got called out by the staff for not having their ABU cargo pockets buttoned. "But it's where I store my cover, and buttoning it makes it hard to get my cover out." Ironic.

Trump gives no fucks about Obama's fake red line.

Back to the topic at hand... I spent over 1/3 of my career in the Weapon School and from the instant I walked through the door at Nellis one thing was blatantly obvious, Albino Drivers are complete and utter assholes (including my old man who was one, but of course excluding BeerMan), that being said they are "our assholes" and I do not want cross the fence without those inglorious bastards.

It's hard to convince someone you're broke when you're bankrolling shit like this:

As a Viper dude, this is a terrible idea for more reasons than I'll get into.

STFU SNAP. WGAF. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

While I don't have first hand knowledge of the what's happening today at USAFA, these articles basically describe the attitude and focus of the AF as a whole. Our culture has gone from combat to corporate. Front line folks still have the right focus, but that seems to be in spite of the overall culture, not a result of it. Depressing to see.

I think there was another thread about the regular IMA program, but here is my nickel summary. I am about 6 months into my new IMA job - CAT A with 48 IDTs plus annual tour. The deal I have with my boss is that it works out to where I owe them about two, 3-weeks stints per year. Last month, I did my PT test and physical at the local AFB on inactive duty days and only travel to the IMA job when there are big exercises, etc. The commitment seems pretty straightforward, and I get real pay, not just this points crap, for it. PM me if you want details on my job and my process to get into it. I'm about ready to start my 2nd 3-week gig next month, but so far so good. And it's a helluva lot easier than doing drill weekends and keeping up with flying currencies, etc.

I'm doing it right now. I'll tell you what I did, but no guarantee it's the best or most efficient way, or hell, even the right way. Go meet your Force Management NCOIC and buy them lunch. Tell them what you're up to so they can create a folder on you and watch your progress in their 1980s database. If they're good, they can keep everyone else in line and translate common sense into MPF speak. Find the PIRR job you want. Through networking and Googling, I found a guy doing the job already, cold called him and introduced myself, asked about the job, was he happy with it, etc. He gave me his AD CC's and Reserve CC's names. I called both of them, introduced myself, told them I was interested in joining them, etc. Their main concern was making sure I wasn't a dbag, I was willing to do some work for them, and I understood this was mostly unpaid. They said lots of guys call them intending to bum, and that's not even close to possible, at least according to them. They asked for an emailed resume and some screenprints from vMPF. Nothing cosmic. They "hired" me based off a couple phone call "interview." Talk to your local Reserve recruiter. The AD CC of your PIRR unit might have a recruiter he has worked with in the past. If you're going to move (say, to your domicile), they won't talk to you until you're local. The recruiters have no way of knowing where you actually live. Just sayin. Tell them you're Guard, you're not yet scrolled, and you want to transfer to XYZ unit. You'll probably have to hold their hand a little through the process - I've been unimpressed. I think I am the first officer my recruiter has transferred. First things first, GET SCROLLED. It takes months. Make sure your recruiter starts the process yesterday so it's ready when you are. Make sure you can send encrypted emails to your recruiter. The new Guard mail.mil and the Reserve us.af.mil servers don't pay nice together. You might have to get his digital ID via some voodoo magic. I think this is how I did it. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Get-a-digital-ID-0eaa0ab9-b8a2-4a7e-828b-9bded6370b7b Start your 1288. Your recruiter will tell you what to put in each block. Route that through your Guard WG/CC, TAG, etc. Write a conditional separation MFR to your Wing CC to accompany your 1288. My SQ/CC had one on his computer, so he just changed the name, signed it, and sent it over to the Guard MPF. Wait. The 1288 will come back from your JFHQ/TAG and your Wing MPF should send this to the recruiter. He'll send everything to the RIO. Wait some more. Eventually the RIO responsible for your area will contact you either directly or through your recruiter. They'll want some ARMS stuff. They make sure your app is complete before it goes to ARPC. Recommend you talk to your RIO person (mine is an O-5) directly at least once to establish some kind of rapport. They can be pretty helpful and they can fix a lot of the Recruiter issues. Wait longer. Eventually you'll get a swear-in date, which will establish your separation date. You'll swear in to your new Reserve unit and your Guard Wing will create a separation order effective 1 day prior. Outprocess and inprocess like you have 69 times before and off you go. Good luck. It's been a school of hard knocks. Nobody really knows what they're doing. You're obviously the first guy in 30 years to do this. I hope your desired transfer date is on a distant horizon.

Why?

Stop Loss always has been (and still is) on the table. It has to be. U.S. citizens are depending on military pilots, some reading this forum, to defend this country and their right to L/L/PoH. We must sustain an appropriate posture to our enemies in this interconnected world. Stop loss, if invoked, becomes a patriotic duty. I sincerely hope we have a few patriots left in the pilot ranks. Your personnelists are working day and night at the highest levels to solve this problem by any other means. Those personnelists are heroes in my book, and I believe they will be successful. However, if they are not successful & Stop Loss is invoked, it will be easier, and shorter, if service members remember their core values & jump on the bandwagon. Young people- do not be disheartened by the negativity on this blog. The future of our Air Force and our country is bright, and you are the beacons. Thank you for serving.

Stop Loss always has been (and still is) on the table. It has to be. U.S. citizens are depending on military pilots, some reading this forum, to defend this country and their right to L/L/PoH. We must sustain an appropriate posture to our enemies in this interconnected world. Stop loss, if invoked, becomes a patriotic duty. I sincerely hope we have a few patriots left in the pilot ranks. Your personnelists are working day and night at the highest levels to solve this problem by any other means. Those personnelists are heroes in my book, and I believe they will be successful. However, if they are not successful & Stop Loss is invoked, it will be easier, and shorter, if service members remember their core values & jump on the bandwagon. Young people- do not be disheartened by the negativity on this blog. The future of our Air Force and our country is bright, and you are the beacons. Thank you for serving.