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All "volunteer" force....

I much preferred the days when Academy staff used macroaggressions to show cadets what worthless maggots they were enroute to earning a commission and respect.

Pretty sure that's the whole point of stop loss...

Want to lose all credibility as a leader? Use the term “microaggresion”. #Triggered Also, STEP promote that shirt to E-9 ASAP!

Is "ecosystem" the new "synergy"? YGBSM USAF Problem statement as written by career execs: "The Air Force's damaged aircrew ecosystem must be healed through stable and predictable funding along with incorpartion of advanced technologies to enable long-term systemic recovery required to FLY, FIGHT & WIN!" If it were written by Pilots: "Increase our budget so we can pay our pilots more and improve technology that will make our pilots' lives easier; both initiatives will increase our combat capability".

Choo Choo

microaggression. lol. how embarrassing for a Col to send an email with the word "microaggression" in it.

Anybody know if Stop Loss trumps an approved Separation Date?

Oh hey look Chang is back, awesome...said no one ever. Come on dude spill the beans on how far this mess has moved in the past few weeks.

The CSAR/Helo numbers look good now, but there are a huge number of guys getting out now at the end of their ADSCs or 100% set on doing it. Many are leaving to do jobs totally not flying related. A few are using the Rotary to Airline route, but they're older dudes that had 20 years in already. I can't begin to imagine what will happen when the contractors totally take over SUPT-H. Without having USAF dudes there to balance out the old contractors its gunna get weird. UPT by just sim instructors. Upping the flow of new dudes is going to do F all. We can't even train the Co-pilots we get now. Moody is a great case study. Brand new Lts are getting 45-60 hrs a year, getting passed around to guard units for any experience they can scrape up, or deploying with other RQS's. Have you ever seen a bitter Lt? Its like the Ghost of Christmas Future. The iron to fly them isnt there. More importantly the SMAs aren't there. Their retention is a whole other topic.

Reminds me when Larry got fatwa'ed: NSFW

I’ll gladly take back pay for my Creech assignment. $400/mo would have been over $20k. Now it just makes me even angrier and want to separate even more. AIP ended right before I got there and now that I’ve left it’s coming back. Damn you Air Force.

Strictly responding to the "microaggression" apology at the Academy. Senior military leaders do not know how to respond to social media criticism and demands. The conventional thinking is to immediately appease to the younger generation and the social media witch hunts because it will win internet points and avoid online backlash. This method is effective in temporary quelling the social media faux outrages (often not the core audience), but in the long run it erodes good standard and discipline, esprit de corps, and effective military command and control. The correct thing to do is simple, everything in the military comes back to the standards/core values. Defend the standards and the core values and you will eventually be absolved from the internet accusations (whether or not the person has the courage to do this is a different topic for discussion). Mattis is the only person I've seen unaffected by the social media and traditional media attacks. He receives generally favorable supports from military members and civilian alike, because he stick to his core values/principles, simple and truthful with his answers, and his body of work gives him credibility. When I think of the SECDEF I think of lethality, he only cares about lethality (have stated many times) and it's my job to support his priority. I cringe when I see senior managers create selfies and mannequin challenges (Debbie James) or the NSA Director wearing t-shirt and mom jeans in Vegas (Keith Alexander) in an effort to connect with the younger crowds.

Guess we will need a 'hazing' waiver for the fun stuff now. Wonder who the approval authority will be.

Uh, Geesh. Thanks. It's not a mess. It is a disaster. Complete disaster. Supposedly stop loss will not happen. Supposedly.

This is sad to read about what could be such a great job....however as I take stock of things and look back, when I was a Lt, many of the D-bag capt/maj types we all hated and hoped would never be in charge are now wearing eagles and stars. Most of the guys I looked up to for their skill, attitude and bromanship are out altogether or in the guard/reserves. Sadly, from a line flying FGO perspective 10 years later, many of the young guys being pushed and groomed for success are the ones that are simply going to carry on the current problems as they look to maintain the system that got them where they are. Of course there are exceptions on both sides but it’s a damn shame.

Randomly perusing these forums and came across this one. As I am separating 30 Mar 18, I thought I'd shed some light since some of this information is inaccurate. If you are purely separating (not retiring) you can absolutely establish a DOS to avoid a 179. 3-day and 7-day options are for assignments and 365s because they are handled through the assignment process. The separations reg, AFI 36-3207, says absolutely zero about reasons preventing you from separating as it relates to deployment. I'm not even sure the word is in the reg. If you are able to separate given any of the reasons in the reg, you can do it. In October of 17 I was tasked with a deployment May 18-Dec 18. My UPT commitment ends in March 18. The next day after receiving the tasking, I submitted a separation package in vMPF for Mar 30, 2 days before my AEF window opens. AFPC said it didnt matter and than I could've picked any date before the end of the deployment and I agreed with them, but I'm superstitious and left it that way. My boss knew it was coming because I briefed him of this possibility months ago (because I was also supposed to PCS in the spring and theoretically protected by a DAV code starting in Nov 17). The deployment functional dude wasnt happy, but I showed my boss and the wing/cc the regs and put "completion of active duty service commitment" as my reason for separating and it went right on through. There is nothing in 36-3207 that prevents you from doing this. Retirements on the other hand, are different. The reg changed a few years ago and now if you can complete your -179 deployment within your ADSC (plus 30 days) you are required to go. However, people get confused about 365, the chart simply says if you are not eligible to 3 or 7 day opt then you have to go on the 365. If you are eligible to 3/7 opt, you can still do that (36-2110). They did also add notes about Stop Loss to the sections discussing retirement and deployments, however.

wasn't keflavik the base in red storm rising that got hit by the long range russian bombers? what a great book. rip tom clancy

What’s more concerning is the undermining of a military force O-6’s, GO’s, and E-9’s do to maintain a fucked up political correctness.

Like a runaway freight train brother.

100%

To be honest, I've been out of the bomber business too long to claim to be a bomber guy. These days, i'm an Intel/Cyber guy who used to fly bombers. To me, the the bottom line is that there is no way that the AF is better off retiring 1980s (B-1s) and 1990s (B-2) jets and retaining 1960s vintage aircraft. I know they already did it when they retired the KC-10 and kept the KC-135. You could also make an argument that the B-52 is still nuke capable and the B-1 isn't, but we've backed out of several other treaties, so I don't see that being a show stopper. The BUFF is an awesome airplane - my dad flew them up to about 1968 - but metal fatigue is going to have to catch up at some point before it hits 100 years of flying. There really isn't much data out there on proper operating procedures for 100 year old aircraft on a large scale. As for the B-1 being an MX nightmare, I started out flying Guard Bones and there were no problems. We had talented maintainers that made the jets operate they way they were designed. The AF decided they didn't need that capability. MX rates on the B-1 are the result of AF mismanagement. I'm also concerned that the design specifications for the B-21 were smaller than the B-2 with less payload and less range. If we retire the B-2 and keep the BUFF in a non-penetrator role, you will be making larger portions of the world "out of range" in a non-permissive fight. To me, the entire plan resembles the prior Air Force attempts to extort money from Congress by threatening to retire airframes like the A-10 because we just can't afford everything we want. By 2036, the B-1 will have had a good run, and so will the BUFF. The AF should keep the small number of B-2s we have longer than the B-52.

Well it’s just par for the course for SWOs to lie about training and readiness. See: 7th Fleet.

Why, thank you!

FedEx. However, “left” implies it was voluntary. Initially leaving was their idea - you know.....that whole furlough thing. My role in the outcome began when they recalled me and involved flipping them the bird from my MD-11 right seat making twice what i’d make if I had gone back. One of the best decisions of my life - but, made under different circumstances than today.

The Europeans in general make the USAF look competent which is scary.

Little Rock has some International Instructors in their LM school, right? Combined Loadmaster Initial Training?

I've spent a lot of time in Iceland. Blue Lagoon is fine if you have 24 hours. However, it's touristy and a tad gross; I won't be back. If you're at Kef or Reykjavik and have a day to kill, I highly recommend the Reykjadalur hot spring trail head. It's 45 min drive from the capitol, a 5-6km hike through unique Icelandic terrain which juxtaposes snow with greenery and boiling mud pits. It ends in a naturally heated creek, temperatures ranging from mildly warm to kill you hot. It'll only kill you if you hike north past the boards, as seen in pics.

I can already picture someone half-heartedly chanting this at a CC call

This. Wing structure wasn't near as broke as the oddity that is a NAF.

So we will overpay for contractors to teach upt, overpay for a new trainer, and fly our current airplanes into the ground trying to fix this..........why can’t we just pay current pilots more. Would be exponentially cheaper. 1 million for 8 years, 500k up front....take rate goes from low 40s to high 80s overnight. This isn’t hard

I like how they spent so much time on their graphs to show that they’re in trouble instead of researching why they’re in trouble.

I'm sure it'll attract the best kind of Mil IP: former CC's who've been blacklisted from the majors by the former people they shit on during their career.

If the new Raider squadron doesn't find a way to work "Bomby McBomerface" into a Friday patch or something they have failed from the start.

Yup