guineapigfury

So I took this thread a little off topic, let me rerail. I know a student pilot ejected at Vance back in 2010, do we know if he graduated?

Oh I know; it's just that there was absolutely a vibe of them taking his mistakes personally. Which is somewhat wierd because most of the cadre there when I went through were probably in elementary school at the time O'Grady was shot down.

They hate that guy there.

You want to deploy, and so do all the other Lt's. The shift work grind sucks, and dudes are looking for a way out. We just had a dude volunteer for a 179 doing TCN guard duty. My squadron has an unofficial policy of "everyone gets firsts before anyone gets seconds". I can't speak for other squadrons. Additionally, I've met exactly two pilots with two or more LRE deployments. As always: timing is everything and your mileage may vary. As far as "switching back to regular civilian life", I wouldn't worry about it ... you won't have time. Expect to work 50-70 hours a week. You'll have time to go to work, maybe hit the gym then get some sleep. Rinse and repeat.

That's terrible, but hopefully it went something like ...

Twenty years ago this story would be about a cop bravely defending himself society by killing some guy who lunged at his weapon. Thank God for dashboard cams, now let's get body-worn cameras on the police at all times.

I've always preferred my women petite, I blame Betsy Lynn George.

Works for her:

Here's the breakdown: SSgt has failed two PT tests and is coming up on his last chance. His life sucks due to long hours and "squadron politics". Also, he has a bad back. Says to a couple of SrA's that he's going to fail his PT test on purpose so he can get out. He's expecting to be busted down to SrA, then forced out via HYT. He fails the PT test, followed by the SrA's reporting what they heard him say. Court Martial follows, SSgt is acquitted. Moral of the story: If this is your plan, keep your fucking mouth shut.

Worked for this guy ...

My understanding is you can do this, but you are then ineligible for involuntary separation pay if/when you get cut.

I know some of our new Lt's (from all commissioning sources) chose this because the ADSC is 6 years and not 10. The jury is out on the 18X experiment until the first batch hits the end of their ADSCs.

I couldn't resist:

I'm glad they're resolving this peacably, which isn't the norm for this sort of thing. Here's some negatives.

I see that escalating into something like this:

All those bases have RPAs. There are also Guard and Reserve units in various places. I'm at Ellsworth, we work a 5-1-2. 5 days of flying, 1 day for admin and a 2 day weekend. Sometimes you end up flying on the admin day. If you have no admin stuff to accomplish, effectively you get a three day weekend. We have three shifts of 9 hours apiece. I frequently work 10-12 hours a day. At least in my corner of the world, you can expect 1 120-ish day deployment during your asssignment here.

I understand this, but the Officer administering the oath should have exercised sound tactical judgement and heard "So help me God", whether the reenlistees said it or not. If he didn't immediately see the blatant unconstitutionality at play here and recognize the enormous black eye this is going to inflict on the Air Force then he isn't fit to wear his rank on his shoulders. We were taught at OTS that officer's may use their moral authority to deviate from the rules when it makes sense, this is one of those times.

Bro, My wife failed the medical clearance on our way out to Japan. I did everything in my power to get us both out there and eventually did. Her situation deteriorated and Medical drug it's feet fixing it making a bad problem horrifically worse. It destroyed my marriage (finishing up the divorce now). If one of your family members fails the medical screening for an assignment .... DON'T GO.

Invalid at release. The plural of dependopotamus is "Officer Spouse's Club".

Almost but not quite:

Maybe she sings really shitty music?

I think the sleep thing is a much bigger part of it than people realize. When you're deployed at least you get to sleep in your crew rest. I've seen dudes showing up like zombies because they had family stuff to do when they also needed to be sleeping. I don't know what the fix is. Alot of our guys thought the answer was the VSP and I don't blame them.

Rant - On We RPA instructors work hard to instill a spirit of camaraderie and aggressiveness in order to prevent this PTSD stuff. It doesn't always work, some people are soft and just aren't cut out to hunt and kill other people. Watching other people die is upsetting to some people, especially if they had a hand in it. I've found sitting on a 9-line and not shooting to be far more stressful than shooting. I go home pissed off after that shit. Not everyone is like that. If you felt guilty over it, it probably doesn't help to sit in a mass debrief watching someone die 5 or 6 times while everyone else is drinking beer and erupting in cheers and laughter every time they watch the missile hit. Which is unfortunate, because the rest of the squadron needs to get a little rowdy for mass debrief sometimes. There is no solution that works for everyone. We've found the solution that works for most, so we'll stick with that. For the rest we'll use every resource we have to get them where they need to be. Still some folks won't be able to hack it. They may get PTSD, Q3'd, or we may just stick them on a line that tends not to shoot very much and hope for the best because we're flat out of dudes to put on the schedule. It fucking sucks, but it's the cost of doing business.