jcj

This sucks in so many ways. When the "how the hell could this have happened" discussion starts, I am guessing it'll start off with installation security in general and then go to how this guy was hired by a H-P subcontractor doing NMCI work, with CAC access and reportedly a secret security clearance, despite a general discharge from the USNR for "a pattern of misconduct" and two firearm related arrests (the latter of which contributed to the general discharge). And how he got into the building with a shotgun (one report is that while all of the external entrances to W-197 had armed security, there is an unmanned door card-accessible door from the garage). RIP to these patriots Sources: http://www.washingto...fec8_story.html http://www.washingto...ry.html?hpid=z4 http://www.washingto...log-entry-18008

Antarctic service medal?

They are also subject to the UCMJ. You can look at examples of things that (usually) didn't turn out well, for all branches, here: http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/newcaaf/opinions.htm

Didn't they fish a viper guy out of the atlantic a couple of weeks ago? Edit: Here's the video (it was in aother thread here on Baseops so it's sort of a repost, but it's pretty cool) http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013308020007

SF Fire Chief has reported that the two deceased were found on the runway - did not identify anything else about them - so it could very well be the aft FA's if the structural failure tore their seats off the bulkhead. That's pretty horrible if it happened that way.

Anyone opposed - go start your own thread. the motion passes!

Major news outlets now also reporting 2 dead. Injured estimates vary, highest I've heard is 70. MSNBC reporting that 10 patients at SF General Hospital are critical, some patients were intubated & put on ventilator (breathing machine). Likely cause would be smoke or toxic fume inhalation during egress from the aircraft.

CBS now reporting 2 dead 61 injured

SFO NBC affiliate reporting all pax & crew evacuated safely. 303 total.

This thread pretty much makes up for the pain of the "flaming guys in uniform" thread.

Actually it does work pretty much automatically in federal service for medical, nursing, legal and (I think) pharmacist licenses. If you are working in one of these professions in federal service (such as in the Armed Forces, or the VA, or the Dep't of Justice, etc.) you are required to have an active license from a U.S. state or territory - but it doesn't have to be from the state you're actually working in. For example you can be a military doc stationed and working in Florida with a Mississippi license (doing your military job only, moonlighting on the non-fed side requires a valid license in that state even if you are a fed worker during the day). I don't know if this would be directly relevant, but there's precedent for the federal system to honor a valid marriage license held by a same-sex couple and obtained in a state where it's recognized - even if they later move to a non same-sex marriage state. One question will be what about the state-level issues for same sex couples who are married in a same-sex state and move to a non same sex state? And of course CCW licenses aren't really relevant on any federal installation.

I looked at my numbers today - I get paid overall .30 on the dollar for surgical fees..Medicare & Tricare pay more just don't pay enough to make expenses (pay your nurse, keep the lights on and the rent paid and pay yourself enough to pay your student loan, buy a "starter" house and support a wife & kids.. Most hospitals have about 5% that can't pay, we have about 15% and (because I'm a trauma surgeon and my patients are in high speed wrecks or shoot-outs with the cops or each other) sometimes my self pay percentage is about 40%. Insurers (who aren't tricare or medicare) are paying to care for their patient, plus a premium to cover the gap with uninsureds, medicare, Tricare & medicaid.(medicaid pays OK until they run out of their 12 hospital days per year - then they are uninsured) patients who don't meet all their expenses or pay their way at all. That's really how most hospitals stay afloat by doing alot of work om well insured where the revenue is greater than cost - to compensate for those who bring patient cost but no revenue. If a physician has a well established practice seeing little or no self pay and a large patient source from well insured patients with good commercial insurance, the first ones they'll drop are medicaid, medicare & tricare - mainly because the reimbursement is so low and the hassle of dealing with .gov. Sucks but that's how it is in many places. Docs that do take tricare may be young & more recently trained - haven't established a big practice yet - but that can mean that they're up to date on the latest and have the latest skills. Don't automatically run from them - check 'em out. Many are really good.

There is a group called Outcome Engineering that advocates for and teaches a program called "Just Culture" - its become popular in patient safety programs - particularly in military medical systems, and aviation safety and ATC systems. The program advocates for not punishing, but retraining and supporting individuals who make errors that are a result of improper or ineffective training or systems - even when those errors result in loss of life or other terrible consequences. On the other hand, the program advocates for little or no tolerance (punishment, if appropriate) for reckless or intentionally malicious conduct - regardless of the outcome. - in other words - by this paradigm the consequences of intentionally firing a laser at aircraft should be the same regardless of whether or not the action results in a temporary incapacitation of the aircrew, permanent disability of an aircrew member or a crash of the aircraft. It's a little more complicated than this, but I think you get the drift - if you accept that shooting a commercial laser at aircraft in flight is a reckless or intentionally malicious act, he doesn't get a break because we all lucked out in that the pilot was only temporarily blinded & not permanently disabled and didn't crash. Maybe 30 months is too long - but maybe not. He intentionally aimed and fired a commercial laser at an aircraft in flight. How much different is that from a firearm or other weapon? Granted perhaps a commercial laser is less effective when fired at an aircraft in flight than an actual weapon but what was the intent here? I still fly an airplane every once in a while and I take that a little personal.

(I'm not a military doc but I'm a civilian pilot and general surgeon - we do hemorrhoids - and a former navy corpsman & did navy aero med back in the day long ago) Internal hemorrhoids are an exaggeration of normal anatomy that exists to provide a "cushion" for stool as it makes it's way out. If what you have is painless and it is a hemorrhoid, it is probably internal (external hemorrhoids are usually painful and are less common). The first concern i have is making sure that it's really a prolapsed internal hemorrhoid. That's not an uncommon thing to have - but a common error made with problems back there is someone erroneously diagnosing something as a hemorrhoid when it's actually something else - because a good careful exam wasn't done so a good accurate diagnosis wasn't made. So for that reason the best advice really is to go see a doc. Usually a well trained family medicine doc or general surgeon can get this figured out in an office visit. Assuming it's a prolapsed internal hemorrhoid, unless it's huge and is what we call a grade IV hemorrhoid (meaning it's unable to be reduced - pushed back up inside) surgery's unlikely to be recommended until a whole bunch of other things have been tried first and haven't worked out. In fact we really don't do much hemorrhoid surgery any more because the non-surgical treatment of hemorrhoids (medical treatment with suppositories & fiber supplements, banding, thermal) is really good and usually works out well. Even if you did have to have surgery, the recovery & prognosis is usually excellent & I can't think of why it would interfere with a military career - including aeromedical qualification - once you're healed up. The timing issue might be more complex with you being scheduled to start @ USAFA this summer. I'd defer to the military docs & medical folks on the board, but I'd suggest your best bet might be to go ahead and get it seen about now - you'll really want to be done with it if possible before BCT and if you get it seen about now that's probably how it'll work out. I think you'll find the near-universal advice on the board is to be completely honest with the military medical system about any civilian medical issues/treatment you've had, & frankly in the big picture of things hemorrhoids & hemorrhoid treatment just won't be that big of a deal once you're past it. If the pilot qualification examination is in your third year at USAFA this problem will be resolved one way or the other long before you get to that point. To your other question, we've trained several military surgeons from all branches in the university program where I practice - they have the same training & same professional requirements as civilian surgeons, and practice by the same professional standard unless there are restrictions because of being deployed in a combat zone or austere location where facilities aren't available. If you have a prolapsed hemorrhoid that is unresponsive to non-surgical treatment, that's an indication for surgery whether you're a civilian or in the military. I just don't know how it would affect your situation if you showed up for BCT with an undiagnosed and untreated problem. But if it's what it's what you think it is, unless it's huge, there's some non-surgical treatment that will likely shrink it down really well before you go if you get it seen about right away. You're unlikely to be the first person that this has ever happened to, just get it taken care of & it'll work out OK. good luck.

He pled guilty so he probably had to waive any right to appeal as part of the plea. As Coasta says it's in the federal system so he'll do the entire sentence. There's no "good time" or parole in the federal system. The best he can do is a minimum security federal prison camp like the one at Maxwell. I don't think there are conjugal visits in the federal system. And then he's a convicted felon for life unless he can get a presidential pardon, which is not so easy. I think I've read that there have been pilots permanently disabled from laser injuries, so I really don't have a problem with the sentence being excessive.

(I also work with HIPAA alot in my day job) Agree w/ deaddebate that a HIPAA complaint about this process won't go anywhere. But it would be fun to watch. The part of HIPAA that may be relevant to this is the part that mandates confidentiality protection for ***protected health information (PHI)*** - in short, medical stuff. If things like waist size and run times are collected by a fitness coach or unit fitness monitor or whatever the USAF term is (not acting as medical personnel) for a program that's owned by Manpower (not Medical) it's probably not medical stuff and HIPAA doesn't apply. Especially if it's recorded somewhere other than the medical record. If for some reason it is information protected by HIPAA, HIPAA only protects against unauthorized disclosure. HIPAA allows lots of disclosures to various entities, even prosecutors & law enforcement with a proper subpoena or investigatory demand letter. I'm pretty sure that disclosure to the USAF for the USAF wide fitness program would be an authorized disclosure for USAF members. So I hope he's not throwing down alot of $ for a lawyer becasue I don't see how it could pass. But I admire the fighting spirit and it would be fun to watch.

I think I've mentioned before on the board that I'm a surgeon. Come see me & I can make your waist < 39", doesn't matter how much over it is in the "before" picture. You'll need some healing time. In fact, I've always wanted to learn a little liposuction & I've got a great book & some tutorials on you-tube. But if lipo doesn't do the trick we have the more traditional methods of whittlin' to fall back on... I'm sure not what big blue intended, but if you're gonna out-shoe the shoe... (just kidding - maybe - or maybe not...) In all seriousness, it seems to me that the Marines have it right. The PFT they take is the same one I took as a corpsman in the 1970's & 1980's (except they changed our sit-ups to crunches now). They've added the Combat Fitness Test (CFT) which seems to be a realistic test of fitness for ground combat. And they're serious about all Marines taking the test from the CMC on down. Except for the special ops elements I don't at all think that the Air Force needs to have the same fitness level as the Marines, but it seems like it wouldn't be too hard to have a standard test of aerobic fitness, strength and task related fitness as a basic standard for the entire Air Force. You can certainly modify the technique and scoring for age & gender if you need to as the Marines have done. If the Marines can make a program work... It sure seems like a 39" waist measurement standard is arbitrary. But I agree if it's there the CC has to meet it & I applaud the Colonel's professional and thoughtful way (which he certainly knew would also become very public) of addressing the issue with his command at what must have been a pretty unpleasant time. Makes me want to call him up & see if he needs to have a little outpatient surgery in the back of the van & go get re-taped...

Yes. If the jury returns a guilty verdict, the defense can move for court to grant judgment of not guilty notwithstanding the verdict. Rarely granted. Before that happens, after the prosecution closes it's case the defense can (and usually will) move for a directed verdict of not guilty - usually on the basis that the prosecution hasn't made a sufficient case to prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt (to get a guilty verdict the prosecution has the duty to prove guilt - the defense doesn't have to prove anything, but does have the opportunity to disprove any case the prosecution makes). This motion is also usually denied. Appeals court may address findings of law (procedural matters & decisions of trial court judge) but will rarely second-guess findings of fact by a jury. These are general rules for civilian courts. I presume UCMJ is similar, but I don't know.

I thought he was going to Arizona to help some female retired O-6 former A-10 pilot run for Congress again?

Here is a similar site for Oklahoma & Arkansas - a few less crash sites but at a glance I didn't see any duplicates. http://okwreckchasing.org/crashsites.html

But then what would the SECDEF do about his leaves...

Doubt the timing is strange, other than a coincidence - also doubt this has to do with Benghazi or anything else important. Seems to me it just broke when it broke. Relative media attention doesn't surprise me. I hate that I'm writing ths but I'm sure I'm right on this one: - Attack on embassy, murder of ambassador (a real one not an honorary one on a CONUS base) and three other DOS staff members, important to people like us but for most of the nation it's 'yawn" after one news cycle. - 4 star generals having sex with hot, younger married women, who then have a e-fight over one of the generals - and throw in a shirtless FBI agent too for good measure - intense public interest. Pardon the pun, but no surprise to me that the media's "all in" on this.

This

Quoting one of my professors "Hormones are powerful things..." If there's not another "shoe to drop", there might be a return to national leadership for him (albeit probably not at the POTUS or VPOTUS level) in a couple of years and after his marriage troubles are resolved (in whatever form that occurs). He is incredibly well thought of and has alot of support (even in this situation). but, same is true for his wife. It certainly took intentional acts by the General and the biographer for this to happen. But I am imagining this didn't start with the General seeing her and telling his staff "have her washed and brought to my tent". Nonetheless, he should have been able to foresee this outcome & as much as I admire & respect his service, he just wouldn't be able to stay as the DCIA. I see it as a loss for everyone involved - the General and his family, the biographer and hers and, really, all of us. I am guessing his next career move, if he chooses to have one, will be academics. With his experience and a Princeton PhD, many serious universities would love to have him join their faculty. I am thinking his most significant challenge now is with his family.

One does wonder...