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Does anybody else feel like, at least in the AF, this is a solution in search of a problem?

Apologize for any ambiguity. No I don't think you're combat deployable once pregnant. But that still leaves most of the flying that happens in the Air Force as fair game. I'm not sure why you're so intent on splitting hairs over this. Pilots should be flying as much as possible. 4-5 months out of the jet is a hell of a lot better than 9 months out of the jet. The Air Force has a policy that actually makes sense (for once) granting pregnant pilots some flexibility to continue to do their job. And now they've made a uniform so they can do that job comfortably. Both of those things are wins in my book.

Having said that... I'll play devils advocate again here and say that making a pregnancy flight suit isn't a very heavy lift for an organization with more than half a million people. Tucker is presenting a false choice here between accommodating people and lethality. An organization as large as ours can actually do both. Making a uniform to accommodate pregnant women does not come at the expense of lethality. There are those of us who go to work every day and train to China and Russia and Iran and Syria scenarios and that training keeps going no matter what new uniform is being developed. Obviously the job of the military is to kill people and break their shit. But the military is made up of individuals and individuals have needs.. other than simply being a badass tactician. I'd even argue that accommodating people does make us more lethal because it improves quality of life allowing service members to actually focus on tactics instead of not having a uniform that will fit your body. This is the entire philosophy behind all of the MWR resources the government pours money into at every base. I wonder how big of a conniption tucker would have if he found out that most bases have a golf course, bowling alley, auto hobby shop, arts and crafts shop, thrift store, etc... I get that people like him and Shapiro want to fight back against the endless woke bullshit that's pushed on us every day. But he did it in a really really stupid way, and chose a bad example. I'm not surprised at the backlash at all and frankly he deserves it. If we can make a flight suit to accommodate women flying non ejection seat aircraft well into their second trimester to support the killing of our enemies, that is awesome.

Offensive squadron patches are a serious matter in the Peoples Non-Binary Trans-Unicorn Positive Affirmation Air Force. They are often contrary to the ultimate goal of creating the impossible utopia that we will use any means to attempt to achieve for the 690th time.

Agreed that there are bigger priorities, but when has a president not paraded around for getting some low hanging fruit? And it really didn't take up much of anyone's time until Tucker decided to go wildly high aspect about this issue. Current guidance says non-ejection seat aircraft and it can go at least part way into the second trimester. Those regs have existed for a while so this is really just a case of uniforms catching up with already existing policies.

2 outta 3 ain’t bad.....

That’s exactly the point. The Commander in Chief shouldn’t be commenting on this. Uniforms designed for a fraction of the total force shouldn’t rise to his level. I’d like to hear more about strategy, procurement, budgets, technology, manning, etc from the boss.

I mean, I appreciate dying less. That said, losing a war because your 100 high-tech things got destroyed by 1000 middle-tier weapons isn't acceptable. We are failing to maintain the "high/low" mix we occasionally talk about.

Forgot one...

Thanks. However I don’t participate in the book of faces.

I guess I lucked out. We had a 4ish hour chat session going over a couple of modules. Then we all drove to Top Golf where I managed to score a 0/20. But I'm told that a low score is desired in golf. So...good day overall. Sounds like your Sq/CC (or maybe pressure from the OG or WG) is making it more painful than it needs to be.

All this Air Force / DoD mid-level leadership virtue signaling bullshit is a gold mine for cheap shot jokes. I am seeing on FB now, O-6s I knew as O-3s spouting the political line to score higher in some apparatchiks list of approved officers for O-7. So this is how the end begins...

Plus they may not need a RQ because they're not 6 months out of the aircraft. Doing a couple recurrency flights is a whole lot easier than a CC directed RQ.

You have just succinctly described the entire woke movement. Nice job.

Shit happens, it'll buff out.

You went thru SERE, go back to the circle whenever possible, food-water-shelter.

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I'm just saying that the failure of women to complete this specific test doesn't mean they are somehow lesser or ineffective in combat roles, that the test itself is brand-new, and that many men will bitch and complain that fitness tests don't truly measure combat capability...until you start including women. But if women struggle more than men, that some test that "doesn't measure combat capability" is suddenly evidence that women don't belong in combat. As if they haven't been there for years.

I feel like we lose 1% of our F-22 combat capability each time one of these events occurs.

No but, everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt but the electronically documented exchanges are not good. Things can be faked but there comes a preponderance of shit when the voters just move on, too much bullshit. He's not a bad guy and I really hope this is not something that taints an otherwise good tenure where he represented a part of the Republican party I don't ascribe too but respect his honest defense of his wing's beliefs and policy positions.

So we are to believe all women unconditionally, right? (sarcasm) Personally, after reading the breathless tabloid-like venue linked, I'm skeptical to the point of disbelief that this individual would act that way or be dumb enough to put anything out there that could be recorded for later use against him no matter how good looking the lady might be. Looks like a future opponent throwing one of the two main charges available, the other being racism, that will guarantee coverage. Easy to deny if the incumbent never dated her. If he did, then there's more question to be answered. But I do note from the politico report linked above, that he wanted to be SECAF under Trump. That's interesting.

How far into a pregnancy can a woman fly a fighter on a combat, or training mission? Honest question, I tried to find the info. What kind of support mission would be okay into the second trimester? I would have a hard time being okay with my wife, or daughter, or granddaughter now(ha) doing six or seven sorties a day in a Herk supporting operations in wherever the AOR might be. But then again if the woman can handle it she can go to the back, have the baby, hand it to the loadmaster, then come back up front in time to complete the checklist and fly an overhead approach to an assault landing.

Yeah, we’ve suddenly woken up to what those of us in the survivability and tactics sections have been screaming about for over a decade. There is no actual plan to buy Spike, it was just to prove possible the theory that a 64 doesn’t need to live/launch with line of sight half way in the WEZ of every modern RF threat. They were using it because we (the worlds only super power) lack stocks of a missile better than cold warrior veterans like AGM-65 or AGM-114 since we have comfortably demonstrated that’s all you need to kill a D-bag with a shovel planting an IED or riding a moto in the desert. When you look at the war stock of what we will go fight a peer with, and compare the Pk of the frontline R model Hellfire against a T90 or 72 with modern ERA and God forbid working Arena APS on it the numbers start getting scary. It’s probably a good thing we are pulling the Volcano mine systems out of the warehouse and revalidating our TTPs for it (another relic of the Cold War). Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I know a guy who is 39 and got picked up for an AFRC squadron (granted it was an unusual case but still). That is a load of bull.

1. Our society and the greater whole of western nations have an extremely short memory on anything, much less the will to actual do something about changing our relationship with China. 2. When the original evidence to this theory propped up last year (checkout the SIPR side of things) it was widely criticized as nothing more than a Republican fabricated ploy to wag the dog and distract. So yes the critics and talking heads that kept up that narrative need to be held to task on them spinning it as a narrative. We have more than enough people involved in fixing the problem, we don’t need to solely focus on that and let China exercise their soft power influence in the WHO and scrub/secures any existing evidence while we diddle and wait. If this is indeed what happened what they did makes the Soviets and Chernobyl look like not a big deal.

Here's a stray thought that might be useful: If you are considering taking the mediocre man's money and going civil service, look at going NATO civilian. Not only do those cats work at NATO speed so there'll be plenty of time off, but they are in nice NATO places. There's even one office in the Norfolk area. And, you cannot be taxed on your retirement by any NATO member, including Uncle Sam. I have no idea what working at one of these would be like. Only a couple of illuminating conversations with a retired USAF and retired RAF dinner conversations while attending a NATO school a few years back. It is a MAAAASSIVE old boys' (in the who you know, not your gender context) network to get selected and get promoted, but it's doable if this is a thing for you.

Is it bad I got really excited when I initially thought you were talking about Dodge bringing it back to compete with the C8? Guess I've been out of the fighter game too long.

One can argue we won WWII because we had a vast quantity of decent quality. The Panther and Tiger tanks were better than the Sherman or T34 in many respects...but not when facing 10 or 20:1 odds... We seem to have forgotten that lesson. 187...

https://babylonbee.com/news/heroic-secret-service-agent-dives-in-front-of-biden-as-reporter-tries-to-ask-a-question?fbclid=IwAR3JH0kpCfv_sEHyHu6Z4mQ3dsuoFCHxFjucbZSKsi-ZLyHmmg9LwD2KYFo

Almost as dizzying as keeping up with what the woke crowd decries, right?

We may not have complete overlap in our views, but God do I appreciate having a rational adult in congress. Keep up the good work!

No Fear Thanks fellas. Fear is really all over politics and its corrosive. Im at total peace. Put the above video out yesterday on Fear to begin that convo on what is driving our politics and what is the next generation learning, besides be crazy=get famous.

Nobody got "cancelled", the estate elected to stop printing these books, none of which sell well, a couple of which have sold literally zero copies in the last few years. It's been useful at helping me cull the crybabies out of my Facebook feed though, most of whom love capitalism and free market right up until they want to signal made-up virtues when private entities make business decisions on their own. Also lots of overlap with the crowd who wanted to "cancel" (in their words) the NFL, Yeti Coolers, Delta Air Lines, etc. This shit is entertaining. I'm eager for them to start attacking Kidz Bob next for "cancelling" the offensive swear words out of modern pop songs.

Correct, the "find the fraud" statement was verified not to have been said. Again though, the story wasn't retracted (as has been incorrectly and repeatedly stated in many posts above this one). Because the substance of the story is largely unchanged! Even if it's a minority of Americans, how have this many of us been conditioned to be ok with POTUS contacting elections officials? The best of us are rightly horrified by this, as we would be if Hillary, Romney, McCain, Gore, or any other loser of the general election were to do the same. Nevermind that it was POTUS. Sources can be wrong and/or mislead. Newspapers print corrections as needed. This correction here isn't some shocking indictment on print journalism.