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I was taught at OTS to salute if your outside, wait for the music to be over (if it's already started) if you're inside and do not rush to change your location either way. Also, I was an Army Brat for 16 years (lived on Army Bases for most of those years) and I have never seen someone get out of the car to salute. Honestly you'd be taking your life in your own hands as you're risking getting squished by some dependapotamus in her minivan texting the rest of the herd about 50 Shades of Gray being 50% off at the PX when she should be focused on driving and maybe noticing all those other cars are stopped for some reason.

If I don't spend another day of my life anywhere near that shit hole it will be too soon! Here is what I think we should do... Petraeus should gather all the Tribal Elders, "Gov't Officials" and even all the terrorist leaders and take them to some mountain top with a nice view of a remote valley (plenty of remote valleys in that dirt hole of a country). Then they should just set off a small scale nuke in the valley for them to look at... "Listen here you ass clowns, we're all leaving... we're all leaving now and we aren't coming back! If we hear you even say as much as a Jihad knock knock joke we're gonna turn this place into a giant bowl of glass like we should have done almost 10 yrs ago! Any questions?!?" I'm guessing a bunch of them will run across the boarder to Pakistan to let their buddies know, so hopefully word will travel fast over there! BTW... When was it that they announced the troop withdrawls from Japan, Germany, and Korea again?

Obama to announce plans to begin withdrawal of 30,000 troops Wednesday night. Stay tuned. I won't miss the B-huts one bit but then again I think some of us are still gonna be there for a long time. Maybe he had this on his mind...

Mother lode of WWII pics

In some ways those of you that have been in and out of Afghanistan over the past dozen years already are our kids going back there. My Dad, former USAF, was based at Peshawar Air Station (in what had to have been a real "garden spot" in 1962-63) with the USAF Security Service. With his work, he made a lot of trips through the Khyber Pass and in and around much of Afghanistan. (He still doesn't have a lot of wonderful things to say about his stay in either Pakistan or Afghanistan.) Even back in 1980 when the Soviets invaded I can remember him saying that it was a bad idea, and he repeated it with our own - "no matter how long you stay, there's no 'win' in Afghanistan" (the British have been saying that since what, the 1870's?) and that "we can bomb all that we want but there isn't much in the entire country that would even be worth the cost of a MK82." I'm watching this from way on the outside and I think we've done good things in Afghanistan, we've given the good people there at least a chance. Maybe I'm wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but it seems to me to be a case of diminishing returns. I'm not sure that our presence for another year, another two years, or another five years will make a substantial difference in the region at the time that our own kids, and their kids, are our age.

What's wrong with roadies?

nope, doesn't get lost, because Finance Guy is awesome and answers in a timely manner, like he just did on someone else's post. There's a rule about not starting new threads if there's already one in existance.

Bendy, The system is far from grand. AFSO21 doesn't work, but common sense action does. I agree, lets make it better rather than quit or encourage others to quit because there is shit on our green grass and we are becoming a sad footnote of failure.

Line number, pending PCS, wife has a great job lined up, wife/kids live on the other side of the country, so kids can move before school starts, Chang just moved in next door... lots of valid reasons where the 49.69% retirement vs 50% makes more sense.

I would say all of them, at least the good ones. What they don't want is you preaching your contrarian views once they've given marching orders. Bitching goes up the chain not down.

In my opinion, this is only so much politicking. The election is in April. All of the front runners have said that they would sign the agreement. If we start moving out TODAY, it would still take several months just to get down to 10,000. If the treaty is signed in April as one of the first acts of the incoming president, we will still have troops there. If Obama had told the Pentagon to start drawing up these plans MONTHS ago, then it would have been possible. But now, in my opinion, Obama has made it abundantly clear that we WILL NOT be leaving Afghanistan. And I hate that.

Line number

Good news

I'll second the "why are people complaining" line of thought. Do you haters actually think Gen Welsh is trying to fool anyone with MM? He's trying to make the best of a bad situation. If you can't have a little fun now and again, you're way too uptight. I don't think the AF was fixed overnight, and things are still pretty dismal, but now I don't have to wear blues on Monday, and my mustache is going to be wildly out of regs. Will either of those things affect a potential decision to get out? Nope.

Many here on this forum have a false sense of the quality of officers we promote in the top 20% (school selects to Maj), and BPZ to Lt Col. Many argue that only party planners, burger flippers, box checkers and execs get the good paper and strats. The top 20% records I've seen, including hundreds at the last Lt Col MLR, had instructor, evaluator, combat, weapons school, command and DG at FTUs. The exec only, careerist officer is easily spotted and appropriately dinged. Strats are not the most important discriminator. Most of the criticism rattled off here at BODN describes the great pilot with golden hands, long mustache, high combat time and natural leadership abilities that gets screwed by the shoe commander who values early PME completion and bake sales over skill in the jet or ability to lead a crew. Bullshit. The harsh reality is that there are a large number of ing squared away operators who dominate the top 20% and knock out mediocre, non-conformist crybabies who rationalize their low strats and weak push lines with an overinflated sense of how good they think they are in the jet or with a crew or how effective they think they will be in the joint, staff or senior leader world. From what I've seen at boards, MLRs and thousands of records and PRFs, the bottom 15-20% are the no shit bottom. Nothing personal, I'm sure there are good people below the line, but you have to draw the line somewhere and we tend to get it right much more often than we get it wrong. We value job performance and we document it in the formal record. The biggest challenge is telling the top 20-50% crowd they aren't as talented as they think they are. Do your ing PME, in time and stop encouraging young officers to blow it off because you think it is stupid. We should promote by AFSC. LAF grouping doesn't meet our specific leadership requirements. No need I compare a comptroller squadron commander to a flight lead. If we do this, more good pilots will be passed over and will miss the school cutoff, but we will promote experience we need. Fire away, I appreciate the no holds barred honesty and flight level perspective. Edit for gramer

I'll take that one. Ready? Here goes... You have got to be fucking shitting me. There are so many dissimilarities between what this idiot did and what I wrote that it's ridiculous. I'd be glad to spell them all out for you if you care to PM me, but the most important is that I told a cadet directly what everybody else was thinking and bitching about, and my email went "viral" before "viral" even existed. This idiot posted multiple "joking" images to social media accounts that directly contradicted the core function of her duties to properly respect and honor fallen military members. If you think those two are even remotely in the same ball park, you need some calibration.

I just had my IFC1 a couple of weeks ago and everyone out there was awesome. The Flight Doc's were really cool. Everyone worked with you. If you have a problem they'll just make you retake the test. They aren't there to end your career, they're there to evaluate whether or not you can fly an airplane. We had about 30 guys in our class and I don't know of a single wash out. The optometrist was really really nice too. I could tell that she genuinely cared about all the applicants. They will tell you if you require a waiver, and what the odds are for that waiver. The only thing that I didn't like was that everyone administering the tests would not give you your results. This is probably a good thing though, to keep applicants from over stressing because you're going to be stressed enough. Don't stress out over it. There is a sandwich shop upstairs where you can buy lunch for all you guard and reserve dudes that aren't fortunate enough to receive one of those nifty boxed lunches like the ROTC guys. I do suggest looking up AFI 48-123 SUP 1. You can find it on epubs. This is where they get EVERYTHING. Knowledge is power, in the event that there is an issue. The worst part about it, to be honest, was the psych eval. A 4 hour computer test. Nothing cosmic, but really boring. I was in and out in a day and a half. Before going I starting nitpicking things out with myself as potential problems and it lead to stressing out and it wasn't worth it. Just take it easy and relax. Like I said, its nothing cosmic. With the things you can control, you already have under control. With the things you don't have control over, you can't change anyway. Make sure you don't have cavities!! If you have one it is not disqualifying but they hold your FC1 until you can provide proof that you have had it fixed. Make sure you drink a lot of water! If you are dehydrated, itll show + for protein. They'll just make you retake it but its not worth the hassle. All blood work and urinalysis is done at the hospital, everything else is done in area B of the base at the ACS ( Aeromedical Consultation Services). For the dudes that are driving, get the numbers of the other guys there and go to dinner that night. Just relax, shoot the shit, and have a good time with the guys. Don't drink alcohol because its just not worth screwing anything up. At least that's how we saw it. I don't suggest it but I'm not your mommy. There are quite a few restaurants around the area. You will wait in a break room for most of the time. They have a 50 inch on the wall for you to watch but you'll most likely be spending time talking to other dudes that are there as well. Don't sweat the red lens test, I think I saw something on that earlier. It's common sense, and the tech explains everything to you very clearly. You shouldn't screw it up. Also, no news is good news! If you don't hear anything, that's because they don't need you to hear anything. You're fine! I'm sorry if this is all over the place but I was just writing things down as I remember. If you have any questions about the appointment just PM me. I can't tell you anything about the tests but about the appointment in general I'd be glad to help you out. Again, DON'T STRESS and Good Luck!

Solo T-38 ride at SPS rocketed out of the top of the airspace by 6-9k feet, turned off mode C over the top. Note at ops desk upon return to go see ADO. "Why do you think you're in my office?" "Because Ft Worth center called you?" "No, it was because you knocked me over as I was preflighting the jet next to you when you got stuck in the turn out of chocks and damn near went mil power to get going again. And then your crew chief called to let us know you left your probe heat on at shutdown and he burned his hand. Now, why would center be calling me?"

I propose LRF for the test bed.

Everything depends on the execution. If this is done half-assed, like mid term feedback then it just becomes more paperwork to fill out. I say keep this simple. We already do a climate survey every year, roll it into that. Add one or two yes/no questions along the lines of "I'd go to war with him/her" or "My commander should be considered for promotion". If you get a significant percentage of no's, you've got a problem.

I would consider combining these threads, but the information at the beginning of the linked thread really is out of date and I don't think we need to propogate it. Read from about page 8 to most recent on page 10 but know you can find most of it elsewhere on the forum, or ask for it here, or PM me. Any future information should go in this thread. Below are the updated links. http://www.wpafb.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=20352 http://www.wpafb.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=20353 http://www.wpafb.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=20358 http://www.wpafb.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=20362 http://www.wpafb.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=20373

It's not A/A but still sweet

People make mistakes: it's called life. What's with the sweeping judgments? If only there was someone on BODN who has also sent an "email heard 'round the world."... A moderator, perhaps... Who flies (flew?) Strike Eagles... If only...

His speeches are great, Gen Welsh is an inspiring and engaging man. I seriously hope he can do some good. Blues Mondays is a small point and not the best to use as an example, but he could have started the ball rolling to kill it in half the time he took to throw down the gauntlet for mustache March. My point was that if he desired big changes in a big bureaucracy like the AF, he should have kicked in the door with a knife in his teeth on day one. Spending a year with mock promotion boards in an effort to build some kind on consensus instead of ordering common sense changes ASAP just pissed away a chunk of his tenure. If he can still fix the big rocks like AAD/PME/evals/promotions and make them stick after he leaves, that would be terrific. Still, I'd gladly wager with anyone that new lieutenants will still be slaving on their BS Touro masters in 5 yrs.

Ask for the weight tickets you provided back, copy them on the nearest copier, and then provide two sets of weight tickets (one for the PPM and one for the TDY enroute). If he won't accept it, take it up with his supervisor. Press it higher if you're still not satisfied with the answer and you'll eventually get someone who can tell this asshat to stop being a douche. I would hope that anyone in a uniform who has done a TDY enroute will sympathize with you. -9-

please move this to the thread already created for this purpose...

So it could get lost among 27 pages of unrelated posts? You must work in TMO.

I'm having a problem with TMO and need regs/ammo to fight this. Story: PCSd from Florida to Wyoming with TDY enroute at Little Rock. Partial DITY/PPM the entire trip. I got empty and full weight tickets for both legs of the move. I filed my DITY paperwork and have received two payments. Here's the problem: They only paid me for 600 pounds Florida to LR and LR to WY. They are refusing to pay me for the remainder of my weight from FL to WY. As I understand it, I should have received payment for 600 pounds FL-LR-WY and the remainder of the weight from FL-WY. TMO here says they already "used" my 4 weight tickets on the 2x 600 pound moves and cannot reuse those weights for the remainder of my weight for the FL-WY move. He quoted me this JFTR Supplement as his basis of refusal: So... anyone got any ideas?