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Yeah but in my welfare state, if you are a garbage man at age 25, you are a garbage man until 65 (age rises yearly to keep up with lack of welfare state pension funds) when you have enough work service to collect your 2,000 euro or less pension per month. Want to work longer? Too bad, mandatory retirement to make space for new garbage men in the workforce. Want to get a job on the side to supplement your measly state pension? No way, if you do that you lose your pension because you are double dipping. So enjoy your retirement in your cozy 800 sq ft European apartment and 100hp $7per gallon diesel car that you can’t afford insurance on. Maybe you can hit the overcrowded beaches and mountains with your fellow Europeans competing for limited resources. At least you get free sub-par healthcare along with the immigrants. N/A for the politicians who vote themselves the resources of the people. Hmmm, sounds a bit like socialism-lite, the democrat dream. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

But in this specific line of discussion, those U.S. idiots who major it art and are washing dishes screwed themselves and it's their mess to clean up (financially), as it should be. In Europe those same idiots who chose an art degree and are now washing dishes got a free ride courtesy of the tax payers. As a taxpayer, the hell if I'm paying for an art or history degree, I will however be OK if some of my taxes pay for somebody to become an electrician, plumber, etc. That's technical training that will directly benefit society and they'll contribute to the work force in a manner consistent with their education (vs. getting an expensive, useless degree and only contributing to the labor market in the same manner a high school student could).

Yes, the current plan is to use past 11F pilots currently in AFSOC as the initial cadre and cross-train AFSOC 11S pilots and 12F CSO’s to them.

I don’t think that’s happening as much as the rumors say...I know a lot of ARC bros who are Capt/young Maj getting hired at delta and the rest of the big ones (including a couple at fed ex). I’m not surprised either, take the emotion out of it and by the numbers it doesn’t make sense for a company to bypass high quality applicants for anti-USERRA reasons.

I don't disagree with you, 5 years is a long time to immediately bail on your new employer. From a macro level though, does a few guys doing this really have much of an effect when there's 14K+ pilots on the payroll? Reality is you're talking about maybe 1% of the pilots at a given major doing something like that. Emotions aside, that's pretty inconsequential. Add on the fact many ARC pilots are well qualified for these jobs - does an airline want to pass on those caliber of individuals because they might execute a plan like this (not to mention they've secured a guy for 25-30 years after his hiatus)? To be clear, I'm not going down this road now or in the future, but it does seem like this topic can be emotionally blown out of proportion, especially when guys are taking mil leave to fill badly needed positions (and not just throwing mil leave around simply to avoid holiday flying, etc.). At my unit there are dudes on mil leave without a lot of time at the airline, but they are doing critical jobs that frankly we'd be in a very tough spot if they hadn't come back full time - that's what USERRA is for, why should they be judged because they came back after 1 year?

For what it's worth, the requirement is for the Non-A number, not necessarily the actual letter, for DTS purposes...

You forgot the critical step! At least 2 Exec gigs

Oh, so promising news!

"No issues for them" but how about those who hope to follow them. I'd think a little bit about dropping that grenade at the bottom of the ladder and pulling it up behind you just to avoid being junior. If you get activated, that's different. If you go into it planning to walk away after day one of indoc or after probation is over, you stand to hose a lot of buds who may be trying to follow your path. Maybe you'll be a number lost in the current hiring wave at some of the biggies - maybe not. It's been a clear trend over the last few years at FedEx (maybe other airlines - can't say for certain) that their enthusiasm for hiring current guard/reserve pilots has diminished significantly. USERRA protects current employees - it doesn't guarantee someone will get hired if a particular airline has had enough of their current pilots dropping 5 years of orders. Not too difficult to find a reason not to hire someone without admitting it might be to avoid hiring an empty uniform for the next 5 years. Just food for thought.

I have far less personal experience in Europe than many on this site, but in the time I've spent there on various TDYs talking to my counterparts, its loud and clear their system is not great. What di1630 is saying is on par with what my counterparts have said during those trips. One example was a Maj who was considering going to school (similar to us going to a civilian school for ACSC), but to even get a basic apartment was nearly unaffordable...on a Major's salary. Taking his family wasn't even in the equation, they would have to stay on their bum fuck island in the middle of nowhere - no other option was remotely affordable. Not a single pilot I talked to had much, if anything, to say in terms of, "Yeah that sucks, BUT let me tell you about all of the awesome things I get from my government for paying 69% in taxes!" There's a reason many of those dudes would love to take an opportunity to teach at ENJPPT or fly F-4s at Holloman. Seriously, Wichita Falls and Alamogordo are AMAZING opportunities they salivate over...if that doesn't tell you something, I can't help you. Bottom line, life in Scandinavia is not that great for most people. Yes they are proud of their country, history, etc. and don't love everything about America (makes sense), but pragmatically opportunity (including better QOL) is significantly greater in America than their home countries. To the school debate - I think it makes sense to divert tax money away from bullshit like Welfare and use it to send people to technical schools. I agree with others here, that is not socialism, and honestly makes sense. I don't think diverting money to pay for Joe Blow to go to UT, UCLA, etc. makes sense - I have a real problem with higher education costs/the product you get these days anyways. Up the technical school game - there are very good careers one can have going that route. For example, my neighbor is a master electrician and lives on par with me as a Maj...so my two degrees aren't doing much for me over his technical training (in terms of purchasing power). I don't care about that, just pointing out the ridiculous stigma that if you don't go to a 4 yr college, you'll be flipping burgers the rest of our life.

For fucks sake it's 'lose'.

That SrA is just trying to do his/her job...blame the leadership who won't/can't streamline this process. This should be as simple as scanning orders and your ID card when you show up on-base. Any further details can be provided by your unit during their daily personnel report. Your orders have enough info that they can determine your gaining unit, your accountability/vRED info. It's a travesty, and I bet some of those young Airmen would love to figure out how to improve the system (maybe I'm optimistic). However, the SNCOs/officers who came of age in the MPF/Finance dumpster fires are so entrenched in the system that they quash any innovation.