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Didn't realize Iran was employing balloons.

Re-sharing these gems:

Honestly it was a ballsy move by Iran, if they had killed any US with the TBM strikes on IZ I think things would look different right now. The mood was lethal. When we had zero casualties (granted many folks had TBI) the decision was made to stand down. It could have easily gone the other way. Fun side note: since they destroyed our hangar with TBMs I used the event to clean up 5 years of property book shenanigans. Seriously, it was very beneficial. For anyone reading this: if your stuff ever gets destroyed by the enemy, seize the opportunity to do your unit a solid.

Man, this idiot doesn’t know crap!

*Promote ahead of peers*

Stolen

Bottom line, those MudHen drivers went to bed with a smile on their face, knowing they did a great job. Plus they garnered the admiration and Thanks of another nation. They will be honored in the future. Nice Job!

Okay, I've been there, done that although it was a while ago in 1994. Got hosed by what passed for DEI back in the day but that's another story. So, got hosed as the A-10 Division Chief of Stan/Eval for the Wing and my AF career is pretty much over. Not much I can do to fix that. "Should I stay or should I go now..." was an appropriate song lyric and I chose to go. However, I wasn't prepared to go with no airline apps but airlines weren't hiring, no Guard/Reserve contacts, nothing. So, I had to get those done before I cut the income lifeline and I ended up sticking around for about a year and a half before I separated from Active Duty and left with a $52K separation bonus. Got a GS-13 job as an IP at Barksdale but I was looking at the job as a place holder until I could get hired at an airline. I did get promoted to Major. After 2 years, I got hired by American so I switched to the traditional Reservist role. Somewhere in there I hung up the G-suit and got a staff job at 10AF. Got promoted to Lt. Col. I retired with 28 years total service although I wanted to retire earlier but 9/11, a faux bankruptcy, age 65 retirement, and a real bankruptcy made me not want to give up that lifeline until I had to. I'm currently paying back the $52K. As much as getting passed over was a huge insult, I think I'm better off for it. I wasn't worried about the next promotion, I wasn't worried about the next school, and I wasn't worried about the next job. I flew T-38s and A-10s for 21 years. I got into a more lucrative career and approaching my airline retirement, I have financial stability I'd never thought I'd see. That $52K that I'm paying back was basically a 30 year interest free loan for a house now approaching $1M in value. The military retirement also includes medical which helps. So, you have skills that are marketable and there are companies out there that value them. Even after getting hosed for promotion, I did do Air War College, I did an Electronic Warfare School and a few other odds and ends. Making yourself more valuable is always a good idea and don't burn bridges that you might need to cross back over. Your life isn't over but it is going down a different path than planned. Best of luck to you!

My favorite output from that was the crater directly where the hangar with gym in a box was with a quote “I told you to stop dropping the weights!”

Any FedEX guys know when the iPad (10) lanyards are getting ordered? I’d like one.

Multiple visits shows the unit you are interested. We never hired anyone that we hadn’t seen stop by a few times. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I am in charge of both, thanks 😃 Do you seriously think that Democrats are not in the military or in other positions of authority? New flash, people of all political stripes serve and do so well. My politics has little to do with my service in uniform. A fellow pilot on my team is a HUGE Trump fan and we joke about it all the time, but we work great together. He gives me shit, I give him shit, we fly the mission, etc. We'll be checking different boxes on election day 2024, but pretty much every other day we're fully aligned on killing our nation's enemies and protecting it's friends & interests with airpower. If that seems weird or foreign to you, I in turn hope that you are retired. TYFYS.

Call my accounts manager…. Tell him to put half of it in Raytheon. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Only counts if this is how it was done

It counts for nothing

You can Skillbridge for up to six months. I chose to do four. On Skillbridge you’re essentially PTDY still making all your AD pay and benefits while working as an unpaid intern at whatever company you’re Skillbridging with. I got my ATP out of it, paid for by the company I was working with, and I’m working full time for them now after leaving AD. https://skillbridge.osd.mil

Another important distinction is that while losing Afghanistan, it wasn’t an existential threat so we had the luxury of pretending to avoid civilian casualties more than we actually did. So it’s pretty ridiculous that Biden has the nerve to try to tell Israel how to conduct war after losing two urban wars. The only one that we “won” was bombing every city block to exterminate ISIS. Hamas (and by proxy Iran) are an existential threat to Israel that embed themselves in the local population as shields. They’re honestly doing a great job limiting their impact to civilians. All the numbers are dubious in the news because it relies on what Hamas reports. Definitely trust those guys.

And we lost. can you provide an example of a war that was won by the side that respected and protected civilians when the other side doesn’t? I think you’re expecting the impossible from Israel.

You remember where 1200+ Israelis were literally raped, tortured and murdered? Sorry but the hunger of the supportive population does not trump the security of the attacked population. Anything else would be an abdication of responsibility to the Israeli people. And a friendly fire accident is another regular feature of war. Sucks. We sure had our fair share. Unless you are arguing that the WCK convoy was intentional, then just saying "do better" is horseshit. Hamas could do better too. Everyone could do better. Lets make this useful and say how many dead Israeli soldiers are a fair exchange for how many dead Palestinian "civilians." Until then it's just sideline commentary. The Palestinians have a government, that's who should be worried about their hunger and safety. Instead it is up to Israel to move hundreds of thousands of people who cheered the rape and torture of their wives and daughters so the terrorist psychopaths they are protecting can be hunted and killed. But sure. Do better. Funny how the standard is always "do better" up to and past the point that the objective can no longer be accomplished. And how many of those were sheltered over or around the many varieties of Islamic militants? Subtract those. How many were storming the border fences or checkpoints? Subtract those. How many were civilians killed as the primary target, not collateral damage in response to direct attacks on Israel? That's the more relevant number. Once again, do you believe we were wrong for Hiroshima? Dresden? Because we did blockade Japanese oil, and most of Europe made Germany into a pariah state after WWI. Holistically is a cop-out. There is a line between geopolitical competition and outright acts of war. Hamas, not Israel, started this war, to the cheering of their poor, hungry population. It is Israel's responsibility to it's people to end the threat. When Israel starts raping Palestinians, bombing apartments, or dumping humanitarian aid into the sea to "make a point," then we will have the beginning of a basic equivalence. They are humans with free will. Yes, pawns. Yes exploited. So too was every population in history that eventually found their way to peace and freedom. And they elected Hamas in 2006. Hamas has since taken total control, but since when did Americans decide that populations are no longer responsible for their destiny? Once again, how many Israelis should die to save the lives of people who want Jewish blood in the streets more than they want their children to eat or survive? Americans and Westerners have a really tough time understanding religious fanaticism. When death is a reward for killing your enemies, you can't freedom and compassion your way to changing hearts and minds. How we haven't learned this after the last 20 years is mystifying.

Your Air Force dreams are dead statistically. You have three priorities now: Rack up hours for your airline application (fill the app out now and keep it updated every month). Start learning about the airline application process. Make damn sure you don't get promoted on the second look. You are forever a second class officer now. Some escape the gravity of a late promotion, most do not. Going to PIT should be a great way to not get promoted. Failing a PT test will guarantee it 😅 Prepare yourself mentally, financially, and logistically for a life outside of the AF. Where do you want to live? Do you know how civilian investing works? Are you ready to live lean for a while until your next career starts paying well? If you don't want to be an airline pilot, then you need to start networking aggressively. Spend the next year finding people who work in the field you're interested in and learn everything you can from them. We have people here who can speak to that world, I only know the airlines. As for airline hiring, I think we are possibly in a phase where the people hired today will be furloughed in a year or two. Maybe. Doesn't matter. Being furloughed means no airline apps to maintain and most importantly, no flying currency to worry about while you work outside of the industry. When hiring restarts, you get called back, no questions asked. Your airline will pay for your training and re-currency, which will put you in a spot to change airlines if you desire. This is part of the reason why you always take the first airline job you're offered. Good luck, and feel free to ask questions.

Awards/medals are embarrassing compared to the days of old. Even bronze stars and to some extent, DFCs, are handed out for simple baseline-doing-your-job. Everyone gets a trophy for just breathing and doing average shit. Ridiculous.

During my sentence...I mean tour... As an ALO with an armor battalion, I was having a conversation with one off the air defense guys and he proudly stated that the AD folks could visually ID 67% of all aircraft. I guess the other 33% are screwed.

This is completely wrong. I work SIMCERT stuff on staff. AMC self-certifies its sims to level C+/D “equivalency” (AMC has its dets go to the FAA course) but none of it is FAA certified. The time counts for nothing and do not put it on your apps.

Another good example of how a bullshit deployment can turn on a dime. Good work strike bros. And awesome work by all the maintainers getting it done under very hairy circumstances.

USAF shot down 70....repeat 70 drones last night. How many drone aces in the strike eagle community today?

Not to be a simpleton, but do they ask? In the past hasn’t really been their thing.

What the fuck are you talking about? 🤣😂 I'm sure I haven't called you a Muslim extremist. There is only one group involved in this conflict that outright desires the death and starvation of babies. That is Hamas. Not Israel, not the US, not you, not me. Only the Islamic fundamentalists are deranged enough to believe that the death of their own children is a good thing. You just keep repeating a bunch of points that imply that Israel is somehow intentionally starving people. They have done more in this war to protect the civilians of their enemy population than any organization, the United States included, has ever done in the history of humanity. There is not a single example that comes close. Considering your background, I surprised at your minimization of the unfathomable difficulty of distributing aid to a population who hates you, under the governance of a terrorist regime that is not only actively engaged in military combat against you, but has and continues to steal the aid in an effort to intentionally exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in the hopes, sadly successful it seems, of convincing westerners that somehow Israel is in the wrong here. The Washington Post article does a remarkable job showing why the aid is so difficult to distribute, though it conveniently starts with Palestinian allegations, easily ignored, glosses over Egypt's regular to accept refugees, then covers the many different Palestinian factions that steal, riot, or refuse to distribute the aid. There are two countries with larger gdps than Israel, and nearly every country with more space and people, yet somehow these Muslim countries aren't responsible for the Muslim humanitarian crisis. It's Israel, the attacked, who are responsible. It would be nice if Israel wasn't fighting an enemy that used years and years of humanitarian aid repurposed as weaponry and used to construct defensive tunnels. Even the notion that Israel 's historical stance towards the Palestinians somehow created this mess is laughable. What were they going to do? Integrate the Palestinians into one country, immediately creating a majority voting block that openly calls for the immediate genocide of all Jews? Recognize Hamas in a two-state solution and solidify a militaristic terrorist government next door, with even more undeserved rights given to them by the UN? Do more is meaningless. Do better is meaningless. Saying this is somehow different, or a different time, without explaining exactly how, is meaningless. More Israeli participation in Gaza means more dead Israelis. Doing more or doing better means more dead Israelis. We incinerated tens of thousands of civilians to protect American lives. And we would do it again in a heartbeat if any country strapped GoPros to their chest and fucked the bleeding corpses of our wives and daughters. I'm not accusing you of supporting Hamas, or even the Palestinians. But this strange Western tendency to reflexively build moral equivalence between two diametrically opposed populations is being exploited by the real bad guys to continue on to the next rape or murder. And as unfortunate as decades or centuries of human history can be, the Israelis alive today should not have to sacrifice themselves because of what a bunch of dead people did decades ago. There are poor and hungry populations all over the world, but only certain ones are participants in a religious death cult that glorifies the shedding of blood, be it their own or their enemies, in the pursuit of eternal Paradise. Treating those civilians the same as civilians who believe in fundamental human rights and dignities is an immoral stance.

I know, I know, two seasoned veterans having a serious discussion about ethics and yes, innocents dying is legitimately never good and it's a tough situation...but all I keep hearing is:

I'll go in pieces: Israel is not starving anyone. Hamas is. It's not Israel stopping the aid, it's the complete absence of anyone to receive and distribute it. Because Hamas wants more dead Palestinians. They have stolen aid for years, and continue to do so. Those deaths are irrelevant because they have nothing to do with Israel. Because as you are pointing out, what matters is how you wage the war. What does not matter is how many innocent civilians die as a result. You wage the war ethically, and that's all you can do. Especially in this situation where civilian deaths are specifically being used as a countermeasure to Israeli attempts to destroy Hamas, arguing that the arbitrary number of deaths is somehow relevant is literally playing into their strategy. You seem to have bought the Hamas narrative that Israel is starving the Palestinians. Nonsense. Sure, but that's global policy anywhere and anytime. It's not like the Allies didn't have culpability for isolating Germany and turning it into a pariah state. That ended up with World war II, but we still killed a fuck ton of Nazis. The dirt on their hands arguments is always used to draw a moral equivalence between the two belligerents in a war. But there is no moral equivalence here. Israel has never done what Hamas did, and by any rational account would never do what Hamas did. Hamas not only did it, but the vast majority of their population celebrated it. Anyone who has even the slightest difficulty understanding who the good guys and who the bad guys are in this war, and I'm not saying that's you, has no place in the discussion. Ultimately you have to base your judgment of a society on what they do, and what they proclaim. Based on this, I choose 100,000 dead Palestinians today over 100,000 dead Jews over time. I would rather neither, but not all civilians are equal, because not all countries are equal, and not all cultures are equal. Hamas was chosen by and supported by the Palestinians. At a certain point the population has to be responsible for the type of country they create. Again, that doesn't mean you have a green light to intentionally Target civilians. But that's not what's happening, and that's not what I questioned from your first post. The number of dead civilians does not serve as the measure for whether a war is fought ethically. There would be a whole hell of a lot fewer deaths if Hamas didn't purposefully put their military targets under and around civilians. And our long-standing rules of engagement allow for killing those civilians. Doesn't make it fun, but it doesn't make it unethical either.

Why not? A supportive population, in fact an actively supportive population, is a part of the war machine. If we start down this road then we have to retroactively denounce Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Tokyo, Dresden, etc... Easy to do when it's not our own brothers and kids being killed on the frontlines. If I have to choose between their civilians and our soldiers in a war they started, it's a pretty easy calculation for me. No country in the history of combat has spent as much energy, money, and blood protecting the civilians of their enemies, not even the US. War is ugly specifically because if requires the mass death of civilians.

It’s literally under a thread called “Today in hypocrisy…”, not “How to fly an ILS in the T-6.” The thread is fine as it is.

If you think Tommy Tuberville will make that decision, we really are fucked. And hearing a high ranking GO actually be honest about costs, troop numbers, etc is a nice departure from the Afghanistan hearings.

I’m going to caveat this by saying that I am retired and can’t speak to the current internal climate of nsplayer’s wing. But I will say that I have known the WG/CC and Command Chief for a long time and consider them very close friends. They are 2 of the most fair individuals I have ever served with. When the WG/CC was a SQ/CC, I was his DO. One of the best commanders I ever worked for. He always asked my opinion or for my advice. He was well informed and a great aviator, but more so , he was a great person. I am sure he addresses the social issues but I would be very surprised if they drive his decisions. I would say the very same thing about the Command Chief. That wing is in great hands. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

A nice check that comes every month as long as you have a pulse and don’t commit a felony. Also Tricare Select at a very reasonable price. ETA: I know your question was bout decorations, but as nice as a decoration is, what I wrote above is what I really wanted.

Wow, a real tear jerker tune there. This particular lyric really spoke to me: “In this chrome heart, you’ve got dino-sized room I'll be your knight in scaly armor, dispelling the gloom Through the steam and crumbs, our hearts beat as one It's a Jurassic love that can't be undone.” Really though…this tech is wild. That song is better than 90% of the trash played on the radio, and it’s about a dinosaur that loves a toaster ha!

I just finished watching Master's of the Air. Well done series imho . I look at each and every one of them who brought down an enemy plane with a 50 cal as an ace whether in a P-51 or a ball turret.

Back on the personal finance front... Fidelity will allow SPAXX as your sweep account in Cash Management Accounts (CMA) starting around June 15. IMO this makes CMAs a no brainer. No need to mess with separate online savings accounts to get higher rates on your cash. I know this took me a while to wrap my head around and I wish somebody had broken it down for me earlier, so for those that don't habla CMA, here's the skinny... CMAs are brokerage accounts that operate "like" checking accounts. Debit cards, ATMs, fee reimbursement, checks, online bill pay, direct deposit, etc. Your cash balances by default are kept at various banks around the country. You can see which banks, but there's no reason to care. You get FDIC protection, ~2.7%* interest, and manage your cash centrally via Fidelity. If you elect to keep your cash in SPAXX, you give up FDIC coverage, but you can get ~5%* on your cash balances. Vanguard just started "Cash Plus" accounts to compete. I'm sure they'll be great accounts, but I moved from Vanguard because (IMO) their service starting slipping around 2020 and became untenable. Bottom line, especially for the young dudes: Look beyond USAA for your banking needs. With some work, you'll be very wealthy one day - learn to manage it well now. *all rates are as of 4/15/24

Great decision by Obama...I am sure none of that cash was used to buy/build drone/cruise missiles/TBMs that were shot at Israel last night.

Anyone watch FBI Director Wray's testimony yesterday on renewing FISA? "A coordinated attack on the U.S. is likely." He tried to say it without saying it, the border has let a lot of bad actors in and we are about to reap the outcome. The administration is now signalling Biden will come out with an executive order the end of April on the border so he can claim he fixed it...even though he has been saying he doesn't have that power for the past three years.

They really aren’t. CDE basically doesn’t exist. Now that said, they absolutely aren’t purposely targeting civs and I find little sympathy for the ton of civs there that actively support Hamas. And I do blame Hamas solely for putting legit mil targets purposely under/around/next to as many civs as possible. Could Israel do better, yes, but are they between a massive rock and a hard place, also yes.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that” Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

My Class Patch, perhaps the most boring annd uninspired ever designed. I can draw decently, so I was tasked to come up with some designs. I like heavy metal music and came up with about 5 other patch designs, one with Van Halen’s “Light Up the Sky” as a theme. My lame classmates chose this one, the worst of the bunch! Then the guy who was tasked with getting them made chose a bargain basement company who only offered a few colors, he thought he did us a favor by saving money!,,The one on the right was another I designed in 1991, for a Special Ops crew I was on. Metallica’s Black Album was big at the time, so “Sleep with one eye Open” from Enter Sandman was perfect. The Grim Reaper was our mascot..

This has been argued at the end of each and every saeculum. You think our differences are more polarized than say, the build up to the civil war? You think the abuses of wealth and power exceed the 1920's? I don't. I think it requires enough of a time gap that the people we could be asking about the differences, if there are any, are dead. They could give us, as a population, the perspective needed to keep from repeating the cycle. But that's exactly why it's a cycle. Because those who lived through it are no longer around, no longer in charge, so we now *have* to experience it for ourselves. Because we have not gone through what the previous generation went through that created the America we long for today. But we will, and if we win the war, again, then we will have another 80ish years of American unity and strength, at which point our great-grandkids will have holodeck arguments about how America is collapsing and it will never be the same again.

The response from NPR - "NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment." This is the same leadership team that fired Juan Williams for being too conservative for their company, they even went on to call him "psycho."