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Had a non-aircrew friend who told me as a 2d Lt she firmly rejected the whole "listen to your SNCO's" advice because of shit like this. She realized at the end of the day she was the one in charge and SNCO's are notorious for holding grudges and also trying to exert command when they aren't commanders. Its not to say she didn't seek their advice but she was incredibly wise and taught me a few things about navigating the landscape of enlisted politics as an officer.

In one of my M9 classes there was an airman from services that was deploying to Kuwait to hand out towels at the gym and needed M9 for some reason. She had never handled a weapon outside of basic and never handled a pistol at all. I had to help her load her magazines. At the end of the qual she had one of the best groupings in the class and shot expert. She just listened to what the CATM instructors were saying and had no preconceived notions on how to fire a pistol. Damndest thing I ever saw.

I guess you're not old enough to remember Reagan!

Reasonably interesting race today.

When I did the COMBAT SHIELD EW Assessment program as my last assignment, it was disheartening to see how some (but most were not like this) SNCO MX types totally throw up roadblocks to the junior NCOs trying to make it happen. For some reason, it seemed to be mostly the pod shops that bore the brunt of that. 'Course some of the MX Os threw up just as many roadblocks. As an aside, for all you CSOs/EWs out there, COMBAT SHIELD is great assignment. Getting to go out on the road with a team of MXers, dragging cables with them on a flightline as an O-5, and watching them coach and mentor the host unit MXers was one of the most rewarding things I did in the AF. Wish I could have done it much sooner in my career instead of as a last assignment.

CGOs? Shit man I'm a Major and I still get concerned with any confrontation with a SMSgt or above. But you are right, we do put SNCOs on inappropriate pedestals. The whole base will stop for a MAJCOM or NAF command chief to come visit, its insane to me. But I did become a heavy proponent fo her advice on taking the classic "listen to your SNCOs" with a grain of salt and it is now apart of every feedback/mentoring session I do. "Hear what they have to say but make the decision you think is right. Ask other sources as well, including your peers and your predecessors." One problem as well with the whole SNCO mentality is it alleviates other officers, especially the commander, of their major responsibility to be involved and mentor young Os. You should be getting your most sage advice from those that have been in your shoes, not someone on a completely different career path who isn't privy to the adversities you are facing.

The problem with MX is the same exact problem that is going on elsewhere in the AF. Only thing different is the job of MX blows (ask me how I know...) so people don't have a good time to justify the endless bullshit. But the real problem is what the AF values. And it promotes based on these values. It DOES NOT value mission. It values bullet writing, bullshit leadership courses, ass kissing tours, etc. Oh you took NCOPME bullshit 101, you are on track for the next level. Writing award packages filled with pure bullshit will get you promoted, not busting ass on the line. This promotes pieces of shit just like it does everywhere else in the AF and they are going to continue running it into the ground. Only way you make SNCO is buying into the bullshit they spew. Maybe it is only in my corner of the world but it is as clear as mud here. Man I seem a little salty, but it is tough watching something with such pride and heritage turn into a f***ing dumpster fire.

I definitely think SNCOs are the issue in our mx squadron. They treat the airman like crap. Keeping a few hundred 18-20 year olds on a tight leash in a foreign country 6,000 miles from home is one thing, but their responses to minor mistakes are way out of proportion. They’re the ones pushing the OICs to hand out paperwork for “reasons”. You can say oh well the Os need to know better, but those Os started out in the sq as a 2d Lt with a NCO or SNCO mentoring/teaching them that this is how discipline is handled in a mx sq. Like a good Lt they listened/trusted the NCO/SCNOs telling them this because they know these ppl were doing the JOB while they were taking naps in kindergarten. It’s no wonder mx can’t keep ppl from leaving the first chance they get.

Weird because the nonners are always taking off work at 1430 to go “PT.”

Back in the Stone Age when I was at Dyess, it would really piss me off to see every summer AFROTC and Academy cadets get rides in the B-1 but most of our own maintainers never got a ride. Ought to be a rule that nobody else gets a flight until at least all the crew chiefs have flown.

I'm not a Trump lover or hater. When he started his campaign every "Career politician" hated him, GOP and Dems. That's when I sat up and took notice. There must have been a reason for that and I believe it's coming to light. He rolled into DC, kicked over their ant farm and started shaking the tree, and a lot of nuts are falling off that tree.

I tried reading your post with an open mind... but you lost me at “all racists are Trump supporters.” Most ignorant and naive comment for the month goes to you. (Albeit it was your “friend” who said it but you clearly support such a notion.) Congratulations. As a brown/south Asian guy, I went to HS post 9/11. I faced my fair share of racism. I don’t hate them, they were ignorant teenagers. But when I look back at many of them, they turned out to be some of the most staunch/vocal SJW democrats. So I know your “all racists are Trump supporters” is utter BS. Trump is a polarizing figure, but it is dudes like you that create more Trump supporters. I didn’t like the guy at the beginning of his campaign but it is pompous folks like you that actually drew me too him. So keep it up!!

Your critiques on his part policy seem to fall in line to a media agenda to paint them as irrational and misguided. Your an officer dude, you have to be able to read between the lines on some of this stuff and realise POTUS doesn't make those decisions in a vacuum and media has no way of knowing what the environment around those decisions are. People bring him researched options and he makes choices. Usually the people that bring him choices are informed and briefed by career employees and not appointees. There is a circle in Washington that has been discussing the same shit for years. It's a mix of federal employees, academics and senior uniformed members. I can name a dozen reasons why all of your policy critiques were GREAT ideas although I don't personally agree with 100% of them. So before you discount the country for anti-intellectualism I'd suggest you review your own geopolitical playbook and figure out why some of these things could have been a good step for the country because you automatically assume the items you listed were "bad things". I think the current POTUS has the best geo-political strategy we've seen since Bush #1 up to the point he ended the Cold War. Leagues better than Clinton, Bush #2 and Obama. Why? Because Trump recognizes there are capacity limits for our foreign influence and being the only world super power, especially one bogged down for 20 years by a counter terrorism quagmire, doesn't give you carte blanche to effect the world any way you want. I got other news for you too man, foreign policy is America first. That is the basis of Western sovereignty and is nearly universally agreed upon by ethicist and academics who discuss the role and purpose of a state. Every country's government acts in their own interest. If you think Germany, the Kurds, South Korea or any of these other partnerships we broke glass on think we are "friends" you are full of it. They are going to stab us in the back the moment our interest misalign. Trump's vision is quite simple. America's best bet at influencing foreign politics is by being a stalwart example of domestic statecraft for other countries to model. Focus on ourselves first, and our virtue and prosperity will become attractive enough for other countries to model. But if you want to go adventuring all over the third world to build partnerships, my question is, who's going to pay for it? You complain about rising deficit but then half your post levies complaints that we aren't spending enough. Speaking of economic ironies, you bemoan the fact that jobs are stagnant and trending to a service economy but also bemoan withdrawal from environmental protection agreements and a trade war with China. Can you not see that these things are interconnected? A business only does one of two things. It either provides goods, or it provides a service. If we aren't providing goods, we have to provide a service. The US is trending to a service economy because it is too expensive to setup industrial manufacturing here, hence no goods. One reason that it is expensive is because of strict EPA laws that mandate companies have to front cost for compliance and how their waste is handled. For a while we were able to float on certain tech sectors because China didn't have the technological know how to upstart this on their own. But since we decided to allow 20 years of industrial espionage in an effort to preserve "a good relationship" we have now lost that edge as well. Bro, the world isn't sunshine and roses. You can have your EPA laws and warm fuzzies with China, but don't wake up pissed you are working at Starbucks at 35 then. You made a choice. But I think what annoys me about your post most of all is your use of the term progress. Because you don't recognize when you say that you mean progress by YOUR standard. What you don't realise man, is this all comes down to values, and in general Americans have the same values but they tend to order them differently. So when you say "progress" you have belittled every single person who doesn't order values the same as you do. You don't think conservatives love the environment? Bro have you been to a Cabellas? However, a some conservatives are making the concious decision that people having means to put food on the plate is a higher value than protecting a climate that we honestly have little understanding of how it's change will impact global sustainability. Some people are making a concious choice that economic prosperity is the most important thing to get control of first and then interest can be taken in foreign influence, the environment, etc....

So this is tricky right, because the above article is talking about who is funding NATO as a political entity, which has its own budget, staffs and policy divisions but very little warfighting matieriel. When Trump and others criticize NATO participation spending they are talking mainly about the funding going to maintaining a country's own standing armies because NATO itself has VERY little military power. In fact the ONLY air power units I know of under NATO operational control are AWACS and now a few Globalhawks. So the expectation for NATO to work is that its member states are contributing a sizable standing army to the collective. Germany can give its whole GDP to NATO but it wouldnt change the fact that NATO can't fight a war because NATO doesn't have forces. The agreement is the member nations provide OPCON of their forces to NATO once war kicks off. If you don't have forces to provide, you aren't really contributing to the alliance.

I currently teach at WIC and it’s not completely unheard of to have a FAIP go through while still Active Duty, but it’s definitely uncommon in fighter WICs. I can think of two Eagle guys that were AD FAIPs in the last few years that did it, as well as a couple of Viper guys. Much more common to see former FAIPs come through as ANG/Reservists. I wasn’t a FAIP and don’t have anything against them, but going FAIP to hopefully end up in your dream jet is damn risky. Hopefully it works out but there’s no guarantee and you could miss out on 4 years of real world experience and kick ass times for something that may not happen. At which point you’ll learn that whatever you fly is the best jet in the AF anyway but just be 4 years behind your peers in everything but saltiness. And how do you have any SA about what the drop will be as a UPT student? I just remember filling out a dream sheet and seeing what showed up on the screen at assignment night.

Good friend of mine did exactly that. Really wanted A-10s, but it wasn't going to happen out of his student drop, so he put FAIP near the top of his list. Got picked for it, did a couple years at Columbus, and is now out flying A-10s and loving life. That said, this is the ultimate YMMV. There's obviously no guarantee that your FAIP drop is going to be any better than the drop you saw as a student, and it could be significantly worse. All comes down to the same factors as everything else: luck and timing (and a little hard work and being a good dude).

Now we can't even produce enough sorties for B-1 aviators.