Leaderboard

My 9 yr old called me a racist when I told her to eat her asparagus. Teaching moment, I asked her if she knew what racism was. “Dad, that’s just what my generation says when we don’t like something” Thanks leftists for making racism a joke.

I do.

Yup. Unlike in the past, I don't see a way for anyone to talk their way out of this. Every time politicians beat the war drums to intervene somewhere or another, there is grumbling along the lines of "if they want boots-on-the-ground in Syria/Libya/Africa/wherever, send the Congresspersons or their kids first." Entertaining and cathartic to think about, but obviously not feasible. Covid gave the occasional blurb about politicians disregarding their own lockdown decrees, but that was written off as "politicians behaving badly." You had AOC try to make some noise awhile back about how Trump and the Republicans failed her "Abuela," suffering in Puerto Rico with no help months after their hurricane. And then some of the normal right-wing pundits started asking the question about "what has AOC done to help," to the point of Shapiro, or one of those clowns starting a Go Fund Me for AOC's "poor Abuela." Entertaining, but just another bullshit AOC media sideshow. Now you have immigrants getting bussed to the blue cities. It's hilarious and fascinating in it's impact, but most of all, you gotta love the simplicity. I can see no real path to someone talking their way out of this. You said you were a "Sanctuary City?" Well, here you go. Provide some sanctuary! It's like watching some political black comedy movie unfold in real life.

Valid, and something that became readily apparent once inside the belly of the acquisition beast. Contractors are incentivized to "ship it" and get paid, regardless of quality. The USG (civilian employees and military members) try to put up guardrails and speed bumps, but when push comes to shove, the contractors win. And it's on the USG to hope for the best, pick up the pieces, and try to make things work. All of that, I accepted as part and parcel with the entire acquisitions ecosystem. However...... While the F-16 is a ~$25 mil a copy, and the ACES-II seat is ~$2mil a copy, the choices that made the difference between life and death in this case were on the order of tens of thousands of dollars. My experience was the USG civilians and uniformed personnel in the SPOs had little sway with the stuff involving big bucks. They could however move the needle significantly when the dollar values were small. Somewhere in the forest of cubicles at Wright Patt or Hill, some Item Manager, Equipment Specialist, or Engineer could have made some noise about the availability of the shorting plug. They could have pushed the issue to the forefront, and it sounds like it's enough of a low-buck part that a company like Teledyne might have found another source just to make the USG shut up. Or, someone at Teledyne might have even taken notice, recognized the issue as well, and taken up the flag inside their company. While the company is incentivized by the almighty dollar, there are a lot of worker-bees punching a clock at these companies who really believe in what they're doing for the warfighter. Same with the decisions on setting and subsequently extending the TCTO deadlines, and signing off on life extensions of the DRS. Someone with the USG who cares could have raised the red flag. A USG civilian could have refused to sign off on the extension. Everyone knows the trope about USG civilians being next to impossible to fire. There is very little standing in the way of those folks saying "No." I spent the better part of my 20s and 30s in the belly of the beast, and I've had a good bit of time to reflect on it all. The Air Force has a literal army of civilians that are supposed to be managing all of this stuff, along with a smaller contingent of uniformed members. They're spread throughout the SPOs, Depots, etc. There is a tremendous amount of Make Work, and it's all very much a jobs program. In amongst the deadwood, seat-warmers, and oxygen thieves, there are also a lot of good people, who want to do what's best, and really believe in what they're doing on a day-to-day basis. In amongst all the bullshit, every once in a great while, I got to see instances when something no shit really mattered. Events where technical decision making by a conference room full of pasty-faced nobody civilians had a real direct impact on people's lives. Real "figure out a way to fix the oxygen system or they'll die" Apollo 13 style shit. And I was always surprised. The bullshit got put aside, the bureaucracy was swept away, and Shit Got Done. If people were lucky, there were some back patting, and maybe a couple beers together after work. On rare occasion, six months later some people tangentially involved with it would get a meaningless award or two. Mostly though, the people who made the wins only had their own job satisfaction as a reward, but for those folks, it was enough. It's not like there was a Big Red Button on the wall that someone pressed and everyone switched from bullshit-mode to get-down-to-work mode. It was more the fact that, as a whole, you collectively had enough people that gave a shit, that they were able to generate a critical mass to make something happen when it really mattered. I spent ten years in that realm, and last turned in my badge about ten years ago. I watched the mass of the lets-get-it-done folks dwindle over my time, and I can only imagine it's continued to deteriorate. People retire or get sidelined. Merit no longer gets you promoted, and often it's not even political games that move you up anymore. The Drive for Diversity watered down a lot of the experience, up and down the org chart. Shouting matches over the proper technical solution used to be, not common, but not unheard of. Once it was resolved, the combatants would usually shake hands and go get lunch. That sort of thing would have you written up by HR now. I'm just bitter about my own experiences as a cog in the wheel, how bad the whole enterprise was, and how much I saw it get worse over time. Events like the Shaw crash just get me dwelling on it all. TL:DR: Contractors gonna contract, but I wonder if some cubicle-dwelling USG civilians cared enough and put their foot down, they could have prevented some of the "holes in the swiss cheese" of the Shaw crash.

The US Border is nearly entirely a federally controlled entity. Kamala claiming border state governors are failing to due their duty is just simply incorrect. This entire problem falls right on the federal government, and most notably Kamala and Joe themselves. How the word “border town” has been thrown around by the democrat elites is eye opening to their disdain for immigrants and those that live in border communities. Democrats are also playing with fire here as the values of the Hispanic community in general don’t align with the woke progressiveness of the New Democrat party.

All good points and something I learned in my brief run working with contracts and acquisitions was that contractors have a fiduciary interest to their company (forget all of the "were on the same team" crap, it goes right out the window once their EOY line is red) and USG employees have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer. The problem is USG employees are rarely in their role long enough to become competent at negotiating or insisting on performance in line with the contracts work statement and seeing younger officers get run over by a project manager in his/her mid-late 40s with decades of experience negotiating ends is not an uncommon site. As far as the counterfeit parts go, I think there are strategic implications to that as well that are worth investigating in regards to vulnerabilities in our supply chain and how susceptible it might be to infiltrate them. Cams and rivets is one thing but what happens when firmware starts relying on counterfeit silicon components from China....

Old man lack vision, and vision wins wars. So does overwhelming force, but it seems like the entire world was wildly overestimating Russia's overwhelming force. It's obviously not worth gambling on, but it has made me wonder just how functional their nuclear deterrent is.

Damn. Sorry gents. My notification went off to update this, but I was TDY. Fixed now.

I'll bet that when the town council (or whatever passes for local government there) passed the "Sanctuary" thing, they never dreamed actual immigrants would ever show up. Maybe that should be called "Safe Hypocrisy"

https://www.919sow.afrc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3154553/draco-crew-excels-despite-adversity-in-afghanistan-withdrawal/ Here’s a great write up about a Reservist pilot and crews mission in Kabul. Hopefully AFSOC PA can get can the stories of the no shit heroism of the Draco folks involved there.

Not to move away from the commander logging flight hours. Just my perspective on what’s wrong with the Air Force. Two things the mindset and expectations(or lack thereof) they build in ROTC, and the discrepancy between mistakes in MX/OPs versus Support. I’ve got people commissioning from ROTC, awaiting their EAD and almost missing their EAD/RNLTD because the NCOs at their detachment failed to update them on the EAD moving up. Only reason they made it was another one from their class went into Force Support, recognized the name and contacted the LT. No idea they were moved up by over a month. Same NCOs messed up their entire commissioning class certificates, wrong year, not full name and other issues. The NCOs both left getting decs. Cadets and newly minted LTs are continuously told to take it on the chin and “be flexible”. We’re actively teaching the next generation of leaders that it’s ok to do subpar work, in fact you’ll get rewarded for it. I don’t know if it’s a lack of motivation, a lack of seeing the bigger picture, or what. But I’ve had multiple LTs from ROTC tell me they actively recommend people NOT go to AFROTC because of the BS they’ve been put through. I was prior E when I went through ROTC, so it’s hard for me to have an unbiased opinion on what’s BS when 17 year olds were telling me about “in the real Air Force”. In my own experience I tried to go reserve pilot through AFROTC, and didn’t get put up to the board because my NCOs tried arguing I couldn’t go because of my type of scholarship. After emailing HQ, sitting on that email for two weeks, they informed me, a week after the deadline, that I could apply. When I went to the commander and Education Officer it was basically “tough shit, sorry it happened”. They proceeded to just not send applications for the next guy trying to do it. I was MX before, if I lost a screwdriver I got in exponentially more trouble than the NCOs who potentially costs two people their dream careers. I’ll never understand the discrepancy between support mistakes and subsequent admin actions versus MX mistakes and admin actions. I get the life or death scenarios involved with mistakes in MX, I’m not arguing we should be more lenient. I don’t understand how jacking someone’s pay, not out-processing, not doing your job doesn’t result in the same leve of “punishment”. Rant over Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app