Smokin

ACC and PACAF have gotten early PCS orders for guys not originally on the VML (moving them at 2 years TOS), but the ones I know about have been to other ops assignments, so moving them early doesn't decrease the overall number. If anything, it moves a 1st assignment guy out opening up the spot for a new B-course grad which would actually increase the manning in the medium term. But in the long run, when those guys hit their stay/punch decision point, 6-9 PCSes in 12 years, plus pointless deployments that see zero combat, will likely weigh heavily on their decision.

If they're all assholes (probably at least 95% true), does it really matter how you chose to vote? It looks pretty similar to the bed gun safes some guy invented they showed on that doomsday show. The guy had motion activated pepper sprayers throughout his house that armed with his alarm and a gate that would stop a suburban doing 45. Interesting ideas, but kinda crazy to me. I bet he only forgot to deactivate his alarm once...

And his disgruntled "sit back" attitude is exactly what the AF is looking for right? (not calling you out di, just proving a point) Meanwhile, I'd say a solid 40% of the fighter equivalent to water cooler talk is of what guys are going to do when they get out. I had never heard of anything like that around the squadron when I was a Lt. And I've seen more guys 7 day in the last year than the rest of my career combined. May not be a majority (yet), but they were some of our better guys. And worse for the AF, many were the senior IPs the young Lts looked up to. Seeing them punch successfully is reducing the hesitation for future 7 dayers.

I called back after 10 weeks and they said it usually takes around 8 weeks but the department is backlogged. I'm thinking for some reason there was a wave of military applicants who somehow knew about this...

Obviously Trevon's baby picture. Maybe the ultrasound of him in the womb if it was still available.

If you haven't been involved in disciplinary actions, I think you would be surprised at how high and how quickly details are known to the chain of command for relatively minor offenses, let alone allegations of sexual assault. I would bet a large amount of money that Lt Gen Franklin would have done the same if it had been an A1C instead (if he had been the convening authority, not sure if that would be true for enlisted). Had it been an A1C, we probably never would have heard about it, which means Congress wouldn't be out for his nugget on a pike.

Wait... you're saying hookers and blow is not an investment?

If offending people for offering dissenting opinions and explanations with rational reasoning is cause for not posting anymore, 95% of us wouldn't be here anymore. If we lose that capability to give and receive honest feedback, we start debriefing like bottom tier air forces and lots of us will die when we get into a real war. The guys flying the line need the insight and the logic behind decisions that higher ups like you offer just as much as the higher ups need honest feedback from the line pilots. Even if we disagree with it, it is far better to have a clue as to why things are happening. Is my sarcasm detector broken? This is 180 out from everything I've heard.

From this, I infer that you mean informed and rational dissenting opinion that is constructive to a discussion. That guy's opinions were neither. Since we're using a democratic process here, I nominate him as a $5 name. Anyone who posts a reference of him with either of his screen names or a link to his mindless ramblings should be required to donate $5 to www.flyingsquadron.com. If we ignore him, his ego will implode and he will eventually disappear into nothingness.

Maybe we should just disband the chain of command system entirely. We could have a panel of civilians who direct all military actions at all levels, that way we don't have to worry about enlisted guys not trusting or respecting those appointed over them. Airman Snuffy showed up to work 2 hours late, let's have a panel of civilians review if he should be punished.

CE is actually deployed more often in the current war than pilots (based purely on anecdotal evidence) since they're filling in-lieu-of Army taskings in addition to the AF billets. If staying in one place is a must have, don't join active duty. I'm at my 5th base in 9 years and I anticipate another being at my 8th base by my 13 year point and I think that is representative of the Viper community. Pilots move more often, but just about everyone moves every 4 years or so. My family has gotten pretty used to moving and it is no big deal. Totally agree with 'normal' will vary. There have been months of calm where I was home for dinner many nights and there have been weeks where I haven't seen my kids Monday - Friday despite being at home. I can only speak for fighters (specifically the Viper), but our deployments are generally a little over six months. There was hope it would go back to the 3-4 months when OIF and OEF drewdown, but I haven't heard a reliable rumor of a decrease in the near future. Currently, most guys will deploy once or twice for six months in a nominal 3 year combat unit assignment depending on the timing of when they showed up versus when the squadron is scheduled to deploy. TDYs are similar to the 'normal' above. There have been times where I've been gone for 9 out of 15 months and then other times when I've only been gone 3 and those were all 2-3 week TDYs. Everything seems to go in waves.

So, does this mean everyone else can only wear the Airman's Battle Uniform when going into battle?

Running due to the sound of a shell being chambered is pure hollywood bullshit. All that means is either the gun wasn't loaded at first (which if I were an intruder would make me question your resolve) or you just ejected a loaded shell onto the floor. Either way it is absurdly stupid. As for the semi vs pump debate, it is a matter of budget and personal taste. I use an inexpensive Winchester pump 12 gauge and I am back on target for a second shot almost as fast as a guy with a semi is. The recovery from the kick to back on target takes me longer than cycling a new shell. Seconded on Timbonez post. There is an old FBI report (I've been looking for it for similar conversations at work but haven't found it; if you have it, please post) that compiled thousands of police shootings and broke it down by caliber. The end result was that a 9mm was less than 6.9% less effective per round than a .45 in dropping the bad guy. That small of a difference puts caliber choice to be again budget and personal taste driven.

Does anyone take the bonus and get out before 20 years? (Honest question, not sure if non-pilots might) For pilots, the 10 year commitment takes most traditional guys to around 12 years, then the bonus takes them to around 17 years. I'm sure it has been done, but I just can't imagine punching at 3 years to retirement.

If you had an unrecognized fear of flying, uncontrollable motion sickness, or just didn't have the aptitude for flying I could see failing since that is why the AF started IFS in the first place. But it seems like a bit of a dirty trick to kick them out and make them pay back school if the guys still wanted to serve. Just because you're not a good pilot doesn't mean you would be bad at other career fields. Likely better than guys who they out-competed for the pilot spot to begin with. I knew two in ROTC that had to pay back their scholarship. One failed a couple required classes and didn't have any money, so served enlisted. The other quit after the second year and made some sort of payment plan.

Coincidence that the first words under this picture on the website are "Method of mounting..."? That is exactly the type of door I was thinking about. I think that if I designed it into the original building of the house with one foot reinforced concrete walls and roof, it would survive pretty much any storm and a door like that should keep out any thief. Good points. I'd never seen videos of gun safes being broken into like that; pretty crazy. I stand corrected and will be bolting my safe to the floor in my next house. Reminds me of the videos on youtube of guys busting through most deadlocked front doors with one good kick.

HeloDude - I agree that you should put it somewhere out sight, but you make it sound like your average hooligan breaking into your house while you're gone is going to be able to break into or carry away your gun safe. If you drop more than $500, it should defeat the average thief and I doubt pros capable of defeating it are targeting my house. My gun safe was only $800 (bought it as an Lt and it was all I needed), but it is rated to an hour and weighs over 400#s empty. It is considerable work to move it empty with a dolly and someone helping me. With my guns and ammo inside, there is just no way someone is hauling it away without a hydraulic lift on a truck and some serious moving equipment. Not saying it couldn't happen, but I bet it is close to 1K full. On a related note, anyone built or seen a safe room in their house? Not a crazy auto closing panic room, but basically a super storm cellar enclosed in concrete with a gun/fire safe door to get into it? I figure it'd be nice to be able to double the room up as a storm cellar and gun safe where I can hang the guns on the wall rather than have to dig through my safe to get the one I want.

They failed to show significant credibility issues because her past was basically excluded. For all the jury knew, she was a pure as the driven snow virgin when she arrived at that party. His past, on the other hand, was dealt with in detail to drag his character through the mud by cherrypicking examples from his life; just like you got upset at me for doing from your post. There are multiple letters that show up in the FOIA that were excluded from the trial that bring her credibility into question. I don't know what her reason was for lying, but she did. Maybe her contract on base was about to expire and she was worried she was going to get the boot. Maybe she just hated pilots, who knows, who cares; but she did lie. She lied about when she passed out, she lied about how she got out of the house, she lied about what the room looked like, and I'm sure she lied about what actually mattered that night. All of that is part of the evidence that I mentioned and it all was in favor of the accused. Do I expect DNA type evidence like there should be in a rape case when she only accused him of severe groping? No, but I do expect evidence like the above and it seems to have largely been excluded from the trial. I don't blame the jury; they were not given all the information. I blame our court system that allows exclusion of relevant information. Thankfully, we have a backup oversight that the civilian courts don't.

Yup, as if. Gen Franklin decided that there was reasonable doubt, as the jury should have. That means he is innocent. Not 'as if he was', but actually innocent. And your 'perfectly innocent' already betrays your bias. The wording should be perfectly guilty, because if he is not perfectly guilty, then he is innocent. If you can actually read the material available on that FOIA website and still think beyond any reasonable doubt that he is guilty, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. Her story just does not add up and contradicts multiple other people, including her friend who should have a natural bias in her favor. One - You cannot walk into a court case and NOT think that everyone is possibly a liar. You have two completely different stories as to what happened, so someone is lying. If you start out with the assumption that the victim cannot possibly be a liar, you might as well not have a trial and just execute the accused on the spot. A complete lack of evidence in itself should put some doubt in your mind. Yes, you will have people who are actually guilty go free, and that is terrible, but less terrible than innocent people in prison.

Pretty sure actually spending time in a federal prison is not untouchable.

Perhaps I misread Gen Franklin's letter, but it seemed to me that his JAG originally told him to uphold it, but after his extensive review, even the JAG changed his mind. As has been said but is worth saying again, good on Gen Franklin. He took a big risk and it may cost him his 4th star. I hope not, but when the next list goes to the Senate, I'm sure there are some feminazis who will remember this and hold it against him. Either way, he has re-instilled a little bit of my faith in the AF.

I'm always shocked when I see the copy of the tricare statement of how much the doctor billed versus how much tricare paid. What surprises me is that it has taken this long for health care providers to start making a fuss.

Not just one band, but two! Effects based music is really making progress. I expect this new medium of warfare will drastically shorten whatever we're calling the war on terror today. In fact, we should probably make a separate command, Music Combat Command, to make full use of the potential lethality. And what was with a dude framing his own ABU shirt? When I retire, I'm going to frame my entire flight suit. And my boots. A six foot by three foot single piece shadow box homage to himself in the living room is exactly what every retiree needs. A perfect centerpiece to the 'I love me wall.'

From drudgereport.com: EMPIRE: BLOOMBERG FINGERS CUOMO... Gross.

Oh, good. Yet another example of baseop's favorite pastime of contorting words beyond all recognition of the original statement. Did I say we should start a war because of the horrific oppression of their people? No. I said "IF THIS WAR STARTS BACK UP" then ending a government that still uses massive Holocaust style concentration camps is a more important reason for me to fight than supporting Samsung and Kia. That is a big difference from your implication that I advocate starting a war over it. A second Korean War would likely kill hundreds of thousands if not millions and is not something that any rational person should want.