Leaderboard

I guess I will both agree, and at the same time respectfully disagree slightly with your position. I do want a certain moral fiber woven into my kid’s school day, but I will also admit that it’s a very specific moral fiber that I’m referring to. And I specifically moved (for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to) from VA to TX, and the atmosphere difference was better than I could have hoped for. Citizenship, civics, civic duty and virtue, and yes, even general principles on how not to be an asshole. I’ll also concede that it’s a slippery and perilous slope should the school board take a turn for the worse while the parents are asleep at the switch. Southlake, TX, for example.

They flat out say, “yes, we are incorporating CRT into K-12 education.” And the facts back that claim up. To me it’s an apolitical topic…no type of morals/values/lens (beyond basic don’t-break-laws societal norms) belong in public education. If you want religion taught at school, send your kids to a religious private school, if you want CRT-driven curriculum, send your kids to the CRT private school, if you want kids to learn in a drum circle from a teacher named Flower send them to the hippie private school, etc. If you can’t afford those/don’t want to, then teach the values/morals you want to at home, and let the public school take care of non-politicized/agenda-driven math, science, history, and literacy. Pretty simple and apolitical concept…in theory.

AA: Pros: Tons of retirements, significantly more than any other legacy. Seniority is everything. Wide body international flying. If you desire international narrow body, tons of Caribbean/Central America destinations. Easy flying, I either sit reserve in base or afternoon flying, no more than 2 legs a day, I rarely set an alarm clock. Can do turns or 4 days. Average Calendar Day + Sit time. Sick if Needed. In house union (I view this as a pro, others don't. We have lots of control over our Committees.) Work rules can be advantageous but they are not simple and take effort. Cons: AA Pilot group is apathetic and morale is low. Great news is see first sentence above. Current CEO/COO are cheap, and management is very old fashioned "we are management, you are labor." Culture is the opposite of SWA. Lots of debt. Hopefully our Scheduling issues can be fixed in the next contract, but management will drag it out for years... and most senior AA pilots (as in age, not seniority number) just want to get paid and go home before they retire <2025. Despite the above, it still beats Active Duty by a long shot, for both pay and time off.

No digs on SWA, but keep in mind you’ll fly the 73 for the rest of your life, on multi-leg days, to the same towns. There’s no real option for change of scenery, change up the flying, etc. But, I know several friends who are happy there. Don’t know enough to compare contracts. AA seniority is rapidly moving, which is awesome. But AA could be bankrupt in 5 years, or SWA could not even exist in 15 years…who knows. Anyone who says they have a solid grasp on the Airline long view is full of shit.

Our district is espousing CRT. So yeah, it’s out there. Probably in far more places than you think. The way I see this, teaching creationism in school, you name it…do what you think is best at home as a parent, but keep all of that out of public schools. The govt/public schools does not get to teach morals, core values, lens, etc…that’s the job of parents. The public schools can obviously can draw the line on academic cheating and breaking laws…but anything beyond that is now into personal morals, values, etc…not their place or purpose.

I could write a few pages on my feelings (disdain) toward our continued involvement in that place, but I'll keep it short and sweet. My two trips were over a decade apart. First one kinda felt like I was doing something, but even then, there was no clearly defined strategic objectives, just some nebulous bullshit. At least I was helping the Americans on the ground. The second time (late last year/early this year), was a complete waste of my time, money and hours on the jets. Zero strategic goals, zero tactical goals, zero sense of accomplishment, zero feeling of what we were doing meant anything. Two good things came out of that trip...we brought everyone home safely and it strengthened my resolve to get out. Who is going to be the first to pen a book called The Eagle went over the Mountain? Maybe they'll update to the Graveyard of Empires.

Totally with you, I was being more black/white to take as much ambiguity out as possible. To your specific point quoted above, I think you can replace Southlake, TX with an alarming amount of “insert-town, state.” Parents need to wake up and get involved.

Oh you're preaching to the choir. But it's moot. Pilot retention is NOT something the AF legitimately cares about. The Service Chief has bought lock stock and barrel this PTN illuminati version of fixing the manning problem via production. Which is itself peddled in a version that purports attaining said goals without the need to re-up a former UPT location (Moody being the obvious one in present circumstances). For the record, that pseudo-intellectual pet project is not attaining the production targets they have been aiming for since FY18. My prediction is that it will continue to fail to meet targets until the current autocrat in the training throne retires and the next chucklehead tells everybody to start ramping up some other pet project. Now, even under the Chief's own implicit stipulation of focusing on production over retention, chances of actually enacting Occam's Razor (e.g ramp up Moody) and getting on with the task at hand? Zero. Our capitalization priorities are FUBAR as it is; zero chance that ever becoming a COA that won't get wholly dismissed from the jump. So PTN gaslighting, and more hull losses is what you'll get. --brk brk-- On the QOL front, the reality is that a lot of the thrash that made ops tempo what it was, is AFCENT/CENTCOM created, and none of the AF sub-hierarchies dared push back for effect. AETC tours were supposed to be a reprieve, but they got co-opted into that individual augmentee, operation deny xmas nonsense peddled by CENTCOM, and cheered on by the cOmBaT-cRed/deployment-bros that found themselves in the seats in NAF/staff circles. Meanwhile, that one "deployed" base in Qatar looked like mornings at the local Home Depot parking lot. Fwa run amok. But keeping people in garrison for a tour, or honoring BoP follow-on is all of a sudden blasphemy? Copy. No amount of money is gonna fix that. That's why I went AFRC from day one. I got 99 problems here, but being told I'm "a drain" on the Total Force because I choose to stipulate non-financials (schedules and homesteading in my case) over money or promotions when offering my indentured servitude (aka control), is just not one of them. For the RegAF otoh, squeezing gratuitously appears to be a given, and no amount of money is gonna fix that anti-labor pathology. You need a doctrinal shift, and that's a wish in one hand type o' thing from where I sit. So yeah... the airlines are hiring. 🤷‍♂️

3AM. Klaxon, 0.69 secs later, C-RAM engages, startling me wide awake because its fucking loud and I'm in a tent, so my thoughts go.... big ground theory, big ground theory, big -- BOOM. The middle east can suck a dick, and I hope I never see any of it ever again.

I've heard of a guy who was one week from his TDART start date when the rug was pulled out from under him. Don't worry, the Air Force has solved the pilot shortage. /s

JP Does a pretty good job.

In case it hasn't been posted, here are Marx's communist tenets. Notice how many of them have already begun in our country, with significant roots in our legal systems: Karl Marx's "10 Planks" to seize power and destroy freedom:

Lab made

Classic scene that’s obviously farsical, but the part that I’ve come to understand more as I’ve gotten older is the line of “someday this war’s gonna end” and being dismayed by that. I haven’t gone overseas in a few years and I can’t believe that I miss it. Looking back on it, I really enjoyed my 3 Afghanistan trips and really felt like we accomplished some good things in the tactical sense. It’s all a ball wash in the grand scheme, but being there to help out some young Rangers or even just walking to mid rats at Dragon with the Bros was truly a great time. Queue up Dos Gringos “Back in the LPA” while I fill out these TPS reports.

LOL, that would be an absolutely terrible move. With stop loss, you're likely to get a pulse that shows up to work, and in the case of part-timers, who will participate much less. You (the gov) got yourself into the fuck mess, don't drag me down with your bullshit bandaid.

Maybe someday Ferrari and McLaren will catch back up to Stewart and Tyrrell.