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Here's my input to the "great debate"... I admit that if I had a choice, an A-10 (or A-10-like) capability for a CAS mission would usually be my first choice in a survivable environment. However, that doesn't mean that it's an absolute requirement. I know I'm a bit dated, but out of my 250+ FAC missions in the OV-10 (Vietnam), 125 or more of them did CAS support at some point during the 3-4 hour sortie. I don't recall a single one of them resulting in the good guys being overrun due to poor CAS capability. Only one resulted in a friendly fire casualty and that was because the idiot stood up to get a picture of a Mk82 hitting the bad guys about 75 meters away (the ground CC's immediate comment was something like "Never mind, it'll save me the time it would take to beat his stupid ass to death"). The point of this is that we did great CAS work nearly every day with no A-10s. I worked F-100s, F-4s, A-4s, A-7s, A-1s, A-6s , VNAF A-37s, and F-5s, AC-119s, AC-130s, and even some AH-1Gs and UH-1Cs (gunship variants), plus my own pitiful ordnance, of course. Most of the work was in the 100-300 meter range, but some as close as 30 meters. In some cases, the sheer power of the 30mm may have been a detriment...the 7.62 was actually safer to use and plenty good enough in terms of killing power with less collateral damage potential. Each platform had its good and bad points, and had to be used carefully to maximize impact on the bad guys and minimize threats to the friendlies. For instance, a light platform with small ordnance (like an A-37 with 7.62 and 250lb slicks) I generally started working close with guns and backed up about 10m a pass until it was safe to use the 250s. When I had a couple of A-6s (usually VMA 225 out of Danang...really good at CAS!) I'd put one or two mk82s as close as possible to slow the action, then start dropping sticks of five or six (remember, they has 28 bombs each) behind the bad guys about 300m then march the sticks forward about 25m a stick. It didn't take long for the bad guys to figure out they were soon to be caught between a wall of bombs and fire from the friendlies, and they backed out fast. It might have helped that the first sticks tended to take out upper management, watching from the rear, early in the game! In general, F-100s were not too bad, since CAS and other close support was a large part of their mission, and the Marine A-4s and F-4s were very good at CAS since that was almost all they did (especially the A-4s from Chu Lai). They averaged between 20-40 CAS sorties a month and were very good because of their sortie rate. On the other hand, the AF F-4s from Danang (Gunfighters) were usually terrible, but that's because most of them only flew a real CAS sortie once or twice a month. I hated to use them closer than 200m. The VNAF guys were pretty good, too, but most of them had been flying for a decade, with the leads frequently having 1000-2000 combat sorties (mostly CAS) over a decade or more. Navy (mostly A-7s) was my last choice, mostly because they rarely did actual CAS, and I saw them infrequently which lowered my confidence in their abilities. As a matter of fact, my feeling is that good CAS may be less about the airframe than the pilot experience in the cockpit (and maybe about the guy directing the situation (air or ground FAC, or whatever the current nomenclature is). The Marine F-4/AF F-4 comparison is a good example. Just a thought...

He ended up in Russia by accident; I think his passport was revoked as he was changing planes to go to South America or something like that. He has stated multiple times that he'd rather be in a democratic country. He broke the law, certainly. Doesn't deserve to have a security clearance ever again. But sometimes laws need to be broken to serve a higher purpose. The guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers thought the same thing and never had to serve time for his leak. The scope of the NSA programs completely out of control and the American people deserved to know it.

Not sure if a real movie or......... yeah, anyway, here you go: GHOST TITS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjClBgF2Aw

I'm late 40's, planning to hit the eject button in 2015 which will give me about $75K per year in retirement just for being alive, not bad for a mouth breathing neanderthal . Married (wife 1.0), 1 kid (1st Grade), transferred GI bill four years ago (fully vested), 529 currently has $138,000, will hit the $235K limit well before 18. No debt other than one mortgage (30 year 3.5%, with $275,000 to go) and a car payment (1.4% on a remaining balance of $25,000) Owned first house since 1991, bought another in 1997, and current one since 2006. Never carried any credit card debt, have a libor loan pledged from my porfolio for large purchases that is basically a large line of credit @ 1%. Net worth = Doing ok 1.6M in taxable brokerage account (Current distro = .01% cash, 9.83% in MMF and BDP, 72% in Stocks/Options ,18.16% in Mutual Funds) 180,000 TSP 360,000 Roth IRA 300,000 Wife's Roth 187,000 Traditional IRA 120,000 Wife's Traditional IRA 138,000 529 college savings plan 50,000 Cash Savings Checking, Savings, MM, and a CD) 250,000 equity in Rental Property #1 (No mortgage) - Generates $1500 @ month in income. 175,000 equity in Rental Property #2 (No mortgage) - Generates $1300 @ month in income. 75,000 equity in Rental Property #3 (30 year 3.5%, with $275,000 to go) break even each month, win overall based on tax deductions. 50,000 equity in land (No mortgage) - Sitting idle and have to pay Prop tax and HOA fee, want to sell it. 500,000 equity in another piece of land (Inherited from grandparents - No mortgage - lease to a farmer for agricultural tax exemption) I max out my Roth IRAs and TSP every year. As a Capt who flew mostly at night, I spent some time as a daytrader...did very well AND very bad, lost $35K one day, made $40K on another. Got very nervous at one point when I realized I had over $100K on margin, so I quit. Luckily on the advice of a friend I got in early on SanDisk and held it long through a couple splits, made a LOT of $ when I sold it, paid off two houses, paid a metric shit ton in taxes (my tax liability that year was more than my entire AF salary), and gave the rest to a professional wealth manger who has since tripled what I gave him.

Aw yiss...that's one more F-35, boys! Let's go find us some more purses to squeeze so we can get ourselves a 4-ship! Yee HAW!

From PSDM 13-131: "The FY14 FSB will consider officers in the grade of Captain and First Lieutenant in the 2009, 2010, and 2011 accession year groups (as computed by Total Active Federal Commissioned Service Date (TAFCSD)." So it looks like you are safe, for now.

Firefox for computer and an iPad, maybe I'm just dumb and missing it. I'll look some more.

When this would have sufficed!

Screen shots of balance sheets and 1.0 or it never happened.

I never liked you.

Can I get one?

My compliments to her surgeon.

Inappropriate range attire and I don't care...

DFRESH, is there anyway to change the voting to allow for people to change their vote if they fat-finger it? Also in case it hasn't been said enough, thanks for the awesome work in keeping the site working!

The View New Content issue is related to the cache change I've made to the site. Although some random pages may require a manual refresh (until I find them all and write code to prevent it), the way the caching is built now provides much faster site access overall on all platforms. But thanks for the data point, and I'll see if I can't fix that up to go with the new data caching scheme. Also, the double-tap may randomly show itself while we do some mx functions on the site. The IPBoard staff is working on stuff that goes above my nugget right now.

So what ever happened to Joe1234?

Maybe I'm being naive for thinking this...but this time I have a feeling that they won't pull the whole 'turned down for VSP but still subject to the RIF' deal. During the RIF a few years ago, there wasn't a published matrix showing AFSC's and year groups that were affected (at least I never saw one?). Though I'm sure AFPC will always screw up even their own processes, this time they have shown their cards with the matrix. Last time the VSP was 'open to anyone' and then we saw what happened that time, and this time they're telling fighter, helo, and RPA guys to not even bother because they're not affected. It will be even more obvious this time around if AFPC pulls their bait and switch bullshit...and I'll try to give Gen Welsh more credit than Swartz. I'm usually much more of a pesimist (more like a reaslist) but I'd be willing to bet that if you're turned down for VSP, you won't even be subject to the RIF. We'll find out here in a few months.

May I recommend mint.com (also available as an app) to track all your finances/investments real-time, see where your money is going, and calculate your "net worth." Here's what it tells me (5.5 year captain pilot, single without kids or a house or debt/loans): Cash: $21k Stocks: $46k Roth IRA: $43k TSP: $22k Other investments: $34k My car: $28k (paid cash) Total value: $194k

Thanks, dickhead. The vast majority of us don't go to the CAOC by choice and we all question the validity of this place when our CENTCOM counterparts do their jobs from stateside locations and garden spots like Larissa, Tampistan, and Vokel. That's an old argument that no one in leadership will entertain. In other news, Detroit, Oakland, and all U.S.-Mexican border duty locations will be added to the stateside IDP list and Clovis, NM now qualifies for HDP-L.

The -135 fleet wasn't grounded after the horrific Manas crash. If that didn't ground the fleet, what would? Edit: this forum is still doing that stupid double-post thing.

I had to tell her to leave until I confirmed she wasn't giving everybody the clap (aka the double post issue). Once I made sure she was not the cause of our STD, I let her back in to get ransacked some more.

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" did not suck--great couples date-night flick... Edit: excellent score, awesome photography, good plot, with plenty of twists and surprises, and a bit of comedy to boot. Recommend.

Why does anyone even expect this RIF/VSP/Nonsense to be any different this time around. I dropped by the front office today and it was business as usual. People are literally confused out of their minds about job security and the guys in the front don't even acknowledge what's going on....apparently those in charge with tenure and job security could really give two shits about what's happening, as is evident by the mass confusion. This is literally like having a mishap jet take the barrier, and calling the spouses and telling them their husbands are dead, to prep them just in case it really turns out to be true. Great relief when daddy comes home, but what the hell kind of process is this?!

I wasn't aware that a two-sentence, 39-word post was outside the definition of 'clear and concise.' Also, it's you're. And college-aged.

Typical

Oh, no doubt. Sucking up to a drug dealer can be helpful too, if you need a few Gs on the side or perhaps an ex knocked off. Doesn't make it right, and it doesn't change the company you keep, or your actions around them. What you call "networking." But I understand for a guy like you, it's a skill in your vocabulary to slob and suck. For a guy like you. As for me, the only way WalMart would enter this equation between you and myself, is if I bought the company, you applied for a job, and I told you "not just no, but hell no." Followed by, "We don't hire ass kissing politician-wannabes without principle at WalMart. I know you're used to doing that in one uniform, but it won't be the WalMart uniform."

Snowden is a criminal.