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The only time I was ever late for showtime in my flying career was in Guam. They had to get the maid to let the AC into my room. Lol. He was laughing, I was throwing things telling them I didn't want room service. My Chief Boom didn't see the humor. He basically told me. "Biff" this is your one mulligan. We had a few other booms on that flight so it didn't leave the sqd. Fucking Guam!!!!

Hell, nobody was habitually on time during the PGUA campaign. The DO was late too; well, that's because we Amish-relocated his rental car to the top of one them grass covered cement pillboxes that lined the parking lot walls on the flintstone house buildings at ol' Andersen. Shit officially got real when they couldn't find enough navs to fill the flagpole mission cuz half the squadron was down in Tumon getting their scuba cert...on a Thursday. Fair trade for a "deployment's" worth of losing your mortgage payment to $3.50/day per diem fvckery, but I digress. And lest I be accused of stolen valor, I disclose I fought that war via TDY, which netted me the full $121/day and Outrigger non-A letter. Hate the game, not da playa type of thing. Or as my ANG brethren would say, #GuardHarder 😄 You mean post-flight debrief? That was primary, standard....it's right there in the expeditionary IFG... Honorable mention to Rick's Cabaret off Calmont Ave in Fort Worth,TX. Debrief standard for the milk-run night Ranger sorties, for those familiar with Barkatraz Ops. Parking the steely in the back parking lot and unscrewing the license plate, ah the good ol days. One of those CONUS family man / PACAF degenerate fvcks is now an AFRC one star. Still remember 2-man corpse-carrying his alcohol poisoned #ss to the Qs in the most LO way possible (which is to say, poorly). Folding his legs and chucking (my kid's gen calls it 'yeeting' now) the room key behind us as the door slammed shut. That was about what HHQ sortie debriefs looked like at ol Club USA. Talk about "you too could be the best of what's left". Usual suspect prob doesn't remember it... but we all do. And that's all that matters to me, "General". There were 3 kinds of PACAF men during the CENTCOM potato peddling days that were the Lost Decade: 1) those who made it through Normandy without getting mowed by the machine gun nest, 2) those who didn't make it... and 3) the liars who swear they weren't there. 😄 . Make no mistake, you won't find it on the IEU list, but we all had it. #PACAF4Life #IknowWhatYouDid

Somebody had to go to the G Spot lol. I hope that place still exists. Yeah. Training has taken more people I know than combat. Fly safe bros!

You joke, but you legacy soybois got nothing on some of these counterinsurgency vets at NK. To wit, summer of '21 in my hometown, all hell and pandemonium broke loose. I have it on 2nd hand account by mutual acquaintances to the people in question, a NK crew did in fact barricade themselves in the downstairs rooms at SJU and told to change out to civilian, straight up Benghazi style. State police did have to go into the terminal with about a platoon's worth and shut things down. Similar anecdotes of the event from FAs and gate agents are available. So yeah, if I'm a linked-In warrior, you betcha I want to roll out with my hand on the shoulder of an NK guy on point who's done an exfil or two before. Getting to the Mouse in Orlando is no joke! 😅 /TC

As I've told before here ...Tumon Bay was my Vietnam. The irony of course is I've lost more coworkers and peers as an AETC warrior than my prior MWS equivalent did to combat. Statistically I've spent the lion's share of my indentured service in a more hazardous job than the one that was supposed to give me turkey shoot medals and permissive JDAM war stories. But they don't give out AMs for that... it's just called doing your f*ckin' job. At the end of the day, 'Needs of the Air Force' was their stipulation, not mine. Which is a euphemistic way of saying: FUPM. #7305 #FUPM #TumonBay #PACAF #Eticket #TPstalls

Spirit airlines on his bio, well by God that man needs to be a COCOM immediately!

Yeap. Those dudes make me laugh. They always seem to be extra bitter towards those who actually did the mission. Maybe when they see that a six year SrA has 10 more AMs than the 20 year O6, they'll let you guys stop wearing blues. Edit: Those guys always list every aircraft they “Flew” in their bios as well. Example: T-37,T38,C-5, F-16D (4 hours),B1 (5 hours) MC-130 (6 hours) , MH-53 (4 hours), Spirit Airlines (69 hours). 1 Air Medal. 10 bronze stars. Lol

I just finished T-6 so I have a few more thoughts on this now. Honestly, I don't think those extra few months saved are worth it. Better to go through the entire thing in my opinion. Yes we have some knowledge and know concepts related to flying as an 18X but it's nowhere near as in depth as you'd need to have a TX transition. If you're good, you'll PA some rides anyway. If not, you can use the extra rides to get better. I do think on average we probably had better hands and knew the T-6 a little more than someone who hasn't gone though any formal flying training for the Air Force but not enough to make a TX course worth it.

Had the world military powers of the time done the right thing and refused Hitler the Sudetenland, he would have lacked much of the necessary military industrial strength necessary to fight wars. Had they then when given a second bite at the apple actually gone to war as they said they would instead of executing 6mo of, “the phony war,” they’d have engaged a German Army depleted in strength and sapped with casualties and logistical shortcomings, instead they waited and allowed them to consolidate and engage on their terms. They did that because of a populist belief they could/should avoid conflict and aggression at the cost of “those people over there” who aren’t in our foreign interests. In the end that commitment to inaction left them with no choice but to fight an eventually far more bloody/costly war. So when you bring up that one time you pulled a Hero mission up your ramp you are attempting to do the same, particularly when you make some appeal on one hand to maintaining influence and avoiding conflict, and pretend with the other that we aren’t doing exactly that successfully in places like the Ukraine. And it also serves as a bold warning to a Chinese government trying to figure out how to divert from its home front population problems. A war in your own terms is not nearly the attractive idea when it looks like you will lose badly. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That's a straw man argument. No one said or pretended there's been a time without any human conflict. You seem to be saying any conflict is acceptable because that's simply how the sausage gets made. Don't you see the irony in prefacing that with calling any other position "bold faced ignorance brought from a position of insulated relaxation"? I gotta give you credit, however. That's the strangest insult I've ever been given here, and many attempts have been made. You seem to be an astute student of history. Maybe review what you're calling an autocratic land-grab to avoid any appearances of ignorance or irony. I'm sure most of us here have seen the (if I may substitute) "freedom and democracy" getting made. One of my many memories is Capt Matt August. Three helos landed behind our Herc one night in Baghdad. His buddies carried him up the ramp and placed him into the HR container. The sight of 12-15 Army dudes, all arms around someone else's shoulders, crying standing there with my crew and I,while a Chaplain shouted his impromptu memorial service and prayers above the noise of the GTC (APU) is a memory I won't forget. I'm sure It didn't seem like a "little brush fire" to those who knew him and I would be hesitant to dismiss it as such. I just spent a day at the new WWII museum in New Orleans last Saturday. Absolutely fanastic. Highly recommended. It was good to be reminded how much resistance there was to enter the war until the pre-conditions crossed a relatively high threshold. And it when they did, it was a monumental effort of which the entire country was behind, designed to achieve a quick and decisive victory. I'm not a peacenik against all war. My contention is our current pre-conditions and thresholds for engaging, or continuing to engage, in foreign conflicts are often too low or for the wrong reasons, not that there shouldn't be any conflict.

There's a whole generation of Buff dudes/dudettes who did their Lt/Capt time doing six months on Guam at a stretch, and were on staff/IDE/whatever during the OIR days. Like you said...obvious exceptions. I will say, the jet getting blood on her beak again did wonders for the community, even if it was just playing ISIS whack-a-mole.

Wait…I thought you already did identify as a woman?

Yes, being isolationist in our foreign policy and allowing autocrats to take what they want is exactly how you prevent a World War… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For me, this falls under WTF Some pretty damning statements about DoD, Milley, etc in this Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

There’s nothing to wonder about regarding a rated O-6 plus with less than 5 AMs: They actively worked their career path during a time of great need to avoid deployments; they are consequently unworthy to command. AMs (minus SAAMs) are similar to tally marks on prison walls. There’s only one way to earn them which is packing your shit up, leaving your family, and putting in time. Yes it’s a participation trophy but that counts for something when you’re a leader. Of note on Eagle dudes without them- I’ve met plenty who wanted so much to be part of the war they volunteered for Advisor gigs or MC12, etc. If you were a rated aviator during the GWOT and wanted to fly in combat you could. It’s that simple.

I hate to admit that one of the first things I check in a bio is number of Air Medals a senior leader has. My thought being that those who have reached O-6 to Flag rank in current times were in their prime during GWOT and had ample opportunity to deploy. Not even based on heroic flying or anything but just being there and getting participation ribbons. Obviously exceptions exist (Eagle/Raptor dudes being a great example), but when I see AFSOC dudes with 1 Air Medal it really makes me wonder.

There was a famous Black Hawk shoot down in 1994 from friendly fire in Northern Iraq due to the mistakes of many ABM’s. None of the ABM’s on the jet were rated officers at the time so the Air Force couldn’t punish them. Then they became rated and started wearing leather jackets and could command flying squadrons.

China is effectively 4 countries. While the North and Central China have held power the idea that China is this massive united population is a false impression/oversimplification. North China is the China culture we associate as Americans when we think of China as an opponent, but they are about to go through a disaster to their economy and debt/savings structure that will make the Great Depression look mild by comparison. And their A2AD structure works both ways, so having this collection of countries that hate you as an immediate barrier island chain able to interdict your entire coast lines importation of sea going vessels is bad for their economic model. Especially when their economy is the largest importer of pretty much ever raw material/oil/food stuffs on the planet. We don’t even need it to go kinetic to ruin them. If you did what the world did to Russia with sanctions and market exclusion you would hobble their economy, cause upwards of 35-40% unemployment overnight and completely upend their ability to just issue state backed credit models to keep their economy churning. It would be a death sentence for their current unification and basically send them back to the 30s. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I’d say 90% of it was a waste. I dropped my first bomb 19+ years ago in the Koregal, what I realize now that I didn’t then, I’d probably be fighting the US foreign invaders also if I were a remote Muslim tribal farmer with no education. Most of you would too. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I understand to an extent what you’re saying. It was a garbage long term plan, and honestly whether we left 10 years ago or 5 years from now, what does it change because essentially we’d have to stay forever to continue stopping threats that originate from that region of the world. But that all said, we accomplished a lot, it’s just a lot that you don’t know about. There are 10s of thousands of people alive today in the western world because of actions in that region. Sorry it was never printed in a newspaper, talked about in WH press briefing and everyone involved went home not talking about it. Lots of frustration on all of our parts with how all the admins handled the last 20+ years, but even with the steaming pile of shit we all got shoved into, there were positive things that came out of it, that’s a fact. That is not a statement in support of how the whole thing was managed or how long we were there.

Full disclosure: After my grandson saw the movie, he asked me if I used to be like Maverick. I answered honestly: "I was really more like Bob". His face fell a bit.