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He is mentioned in the memoirs of several POWs, including Leo Thorsness (MoH recipient who at one point shared a cell with McCain) , Bud Day, and James Stockdale (also both MoH recipients). They did not speak ill of him then, nor when he ran for President in 2000 or 2008. I'm personally going to take the word of three MoH recipients over "some guy my dad knows whose uncle was a POW", or some swiftboat conspiracy theory website that looks like it was designed for free on geocites in 1997. Throwing spears at the mans grave is pretty classless, imho.

Troll...

I am officially a has-been. My fini flight was this morning, retirement ceremony this afternoon. Bittersweet to say the least. Getting out of that jet for the last time was a bigger deal than I was expecting. It's been a good ride - 21 years in and 18.5 of the last 19 flying the Mighty-Mighty (quick MC-12 stint in AFG back in '11). I haven't been posting much, but it's about to get a lot less. Thanks to all the warriors out there; keep fighting the good fight. Now I'm one of those guys that thank you for your service. I probably won't buy you lunch though - I'm still a cheap-ass airline pilot. Do your best to keep this place following it's roots - helping people in the fight (or trying to get there). Hasta-la-bye-bye. Evil

I'll pass. I didn't know the World Series was ongoing until they had played Game 3. I simply do not give two shits. When does the NFL season start?

So I put this here vs starting another thread that likely wouldn't be that long. Sean Connery died today, aged 90. The best James Bond ever. So suck it, Trebek!

More so they added non-flying deployments to the list because they are "flying related."

You lost my interest after that intro...

Liberal "intellectuals" are waking up. https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FKamalaHarris%2Fstatus%2F1322963321994289154&widget=Tweet

Screenshot your electoral predictions. https://www.270towin.com/maps/r9v80 Trump wins.

Yeah, it’s pretty damn rough with INS/GPS to hit an uncontested TOT these days. I say we dedicate missions to it..maybe a phase. Reminds me of the time in the ‘stan, there I was, EGI failure...no sh-t...checking my g-shock watch hoping I had the skills to make that TOT to the tanker +\- 10 min with quartering headwinds so strong, I had to wind correct. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

It’s fine, I’ll drop this for internet discussion. I am plenty qualified on foreign policy/acquisitions and have valid reasons for my opinions, so I don’t need any holier than thou condescension.

“Give me a committed B student with a boiling will to win over an A-plus scholar with a careerist agenda, and we’ll be on our way.” Dan Pedersen in his book “Topgun” about his founding of the Navy Fighter Weapons School.

I would just say pilots are well equipped for it (as are most vet officers from an ops career field) You have the right degree of charisma, government knowledge/expereince, intelligence, aggressiveness and patriotism. Being a veteran to some degree gives you an electorate advantage although it's hard to quantify. It certainly doesn't hurt though. And holding a TS means you likely lived a fairly clean lifestyle free of scandal.

I think the unwillingness to talk, even within “private” settings (phone call, face to face, etc.), is a negative byproduct of the safety empire. We immediately debrief every sortie and freely share lessons learned, but as soon as something bad happens, there is no debrief/lessons learned for anyone outside the immediate circle for months on end. Guys with direct knowledge of a mishap should be able to provide any initial info/lessons learned to bros around the community...maybe not on a public Internet forum, but certainly privately (including phone and email). Example: The Holloman strafe mishap that killed the contractor. I was a couple days from my guys flying CAS with hot guns, none of whom had flown CAS in the last year or so. I sought privately any debrief/LL info, as I wanted to pass those initial LL onto the guys; I was concerned about our low proficiency on the heels of a fatal mishap that occurred doing exactly what we were about to do. What I got was zero info, in the name of “safety process.” Cool, because of our safety overlords, we were denied any lessons learned, and pressed on. Turns out we got into a very similar situation a week later, except the pilot had enough experience to recognize it and avoid any problems. We literally almost repeated exactly the same mistake a week later, completely ignorant of what happened at Holloman and any initial lessons learned we could have applied to our own flying. That is a massive foul. Same exact thing happened recently with the two F-35 landing mishaps. Separated by a week, no initial info/thoughts passed to the F-35 CAF. Hill repeats similar conditions as Eglin. Only after that does an SII come out about landing. Could have easily killed a pilot a week later; all we had to do was pass initial thoughts debrief-style and Hill may not have happened. I flew probably 20 times after the mishaps before I knew what was going on...20 times I could have fucked up/ignorance is bliss. That’s bullshit.

I’m all for diversity in the ranks but I doubt we are suddenly going to find a ton of missed high-end recruits in the inner city. I’ve said before, I could find better recruits by stopping the BS academic and chess club qualifiers that get kids into UPT. I’ll take medium-intelligence type A recruits any day over the super-high-intelligence weenies I see filling the cockpits. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

KSPS 20-08 Eurofighter x4 - Germany F-35 x5 - Norway Eurofighter x2 - UK F-15C ANG F-35 ANG A-10 ANG T-6 FAIP A-10 B-1 F-15E F-16 x2 F-22 F-35

well they are marines... they'll scrap it and use the metal to build 3 F-35s! RUT

All political stuff aside, if you don’t like flyovers then you’re a commie pinko fuck and I don’t like you.

Yet another, I can finally finish my timeline! Reserve Heavy Squadron Interview & hired - Oct 2018 MEPS - Dec 2018 FC1 - May 2019 AFRC Board - Nov 2019 Swear in - Dec 2019 340th In-processing - Oct 2020 OTS - Oct 2020 UPT 2.5 - Feb 2021 Age waiver, medical waiver, and a pandemic...don't give up!

I'm a conservative. Conservative. Not an Evangelical, or supporter of the radical right. Not accusing you of being any of that, just laying down who I am not. I like to use logic. I realize we used Israel as a pawn during the cold war. I don't think that worked out well. Cost us a shitload of $$$. For what? Since '48, what has Israel given us? Why would we not sell Israel next generation fighters? Because they do air raids on Syria with out or support. And they do other stuff that we shan't say on here. And because since '48 they have acted against our interests in all five of the DIMES if you believe in that stuff. Israel costs us money. A lot. I pay taxes, what I think are too many taxes. The US passed a 38B bill for Israel in 2020. Too lazy to look up if it passed. Regardless if it passed, if there is an aid bill that big out there...for Israel....Not a fan

Oh goodness. So you don't make $100K as a federal contractor? I can get you a better gig. And we're hiring. PM me.