Clark Griswold

I'm glad that someone is interested in change that is sorely needed (pension reform, the end of "up or out", fighting the idea of only one ideal career path, ease of movement between active & reserve status, etc...) but I don't think this (direct lateral entry at O-6 level) could happen except in some limited career fields (some cyber, medical, legal, maybe some intel, etc..) but in terms of operations (kinetic but also direct support to kinetic capability missions) I think that is a disaster waiting to happen. It has an odor of desperation to it, not a strong one but I can smell it. Our institutional culture is sick and therefore we have to call in true outsiders, insert them directly into senior rank structure and hope that somehow their talent is universal and that will fix it, just seems like naive hope and that is not a COA. The real solution is to "fix the glitch" and that glitch is a huge swath of officers and senior NCOs that have little operational experience / perspective / concern but high administrative focus & authority. I realize that there are lots of other parts of the AF that are not operations and they are important, important that they support and not hinder operations. One way they hinder operations is by growing excessive amounts of leadership in their fields which will give them an outsized influence in the policy and strategy of the AF as an institution.

Yup https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/19/texas-secession-movement-brexit-eu-referendum and http://www.thetnm.org/

No worries, no offense taken and no hurt feelings report required. I emailed his .edu account I found and hopefully the e-mail doesn't get just routed as junk. I would really be interested in his participation also as his opinion is based on his academic experience and research and he is well accomplished in that respect. But it runs so contrary to everything I have seen in my experience as an AF officer that I have to check myself. I am fully willing to concede that as an AF officer I am biased against his proposition but I considered his opinion from reading several articles on his book and idea, listening to a few interviews / discussions he has given on it and reflecting on my experience, military science and history education, organizational knowledge and have concluded not just no but hell no. Not the most eloquent response but that's my answer now to get credit you have to show your work... In relation to Airpower, they see it as only a tool to the ground commander, in reality it is both, an independent action and supporting action. Extending their idea, anything that separates the ground commander from control over Airpower is a hindrance to be eliminated. The problem is that it is likely we would not have Airpower that would be relevant at all the levels it is required to win wars, not just battles, if a ground-centric leadership were shaping Airpower. From Army Aviation bubbas I have had the honor to serve with, they even complained that Army Aviation was poorly used / understood by Army ground commanders and they're in the same service. To light a candle and not just curse the darkness, we need to train / exercise together more in not just the same canned LFEs but new scenarios that will force cross service coordination, have exchanges at the squadron / company level at Company grade officer land junior NCO levels and PME at every level should be joint and hosted / taught by a mixture of officers & NCOs from all the branches.

Thread derailment in 3,2,1... Here's your breakfast... Return to course... My opinion is Leave also, if Remain wins Brussels has them by the balls, freedom beats the guided cage every time .

Nuance was the best way I could describe it but it seemed in the interview he was making what seemed to be a "softer" argument(s) for his idea, which I am only about 10000% opposed to. No argument that rearranging the deck chairs from 3 groups to 2 groups would probably not have that much affect or if it did it might have the opposite effect he (I and I suspect others think he has which is to massively expand the size and missions of the US Army). I imagine that most who believe in reviving the Army Air Corps are animated by hindsight and interpreting US military history failures as often involving a disconnected / ambivalent AF, some of it deserved most of it not. Follow on: I emailed Prof Farley and asked him to participate in this thread, I hope he establishes an account and does so, would be interesting. Most of the complaint about the AF even when it was the AAC/AAF was it has always favored Air Interdiction and Strategic Attack at the expense of CAS, the USMC might have the same complaint about the Navy, fix that and our habit of gold plating our procurement and much external critique falls apart.

Just curious to the two cents of the forum on this, should they stay or should they go?

Wasn't it just awesome? Succinct and clear with no hesitation. Got one more badass to nominate for this week: http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/06/15/student-disarms-school-shooter-orig-vstan-dlewis.cnn

Dr. Farley again discussing his idea for abolishing the AF. More nuanced arguments with more historical references in this discussion than previous ones I have heard him make. He can pry my AF from my cold, dead hand but interesting none the less to hear the other side of an argument,

Freedom fights back... Global Warming Skeptic Receives Subpoena From Mass. Attorney General — and Sends Back Unsparing Three-Word Response

Yup Zetas were Mexican SOF and recruit ex and AWOL Mexican Marines using their training, contacts and intel. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-34-commandos-created-mexicos-most-brutal-drug-cartel-2015-3 Regular Mexican Army at individual unit levels are probably assisting smugglers, at their GO & SES level, the corruption / collusion is more subtle the pussies at DoS would piss their panties if anyone actually called them on it but if we get a President Donald J. Trump, maybe... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126977941 http://americanfreepress.net/html/mexican_military_escorting.html Coming sooner than we think:

That made the news: http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/10/sources-border-patrol-agent-attacked-illegal-alien-alien-shot-dead/ Thank God the agent is safe, the invader-criminal is dead and the press didn't bury the story. I am not sure if militarization is the exact word for what must be done on the border but massive fortification and patrol along with vigorous internal enforcement, legal sanctions and prosecution for any official or government agency or body that does not immediately report the presence of an illegal alien when it becomes known and severe financial punishment for any private citizen who employs illegal aliens is the only thing stem the tide. Who knows how many times this has happened and hasn't made the news or was purposely suppressed? This is a national security threat, a criminal threat, an economic threat and an assault on our sovereignty http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/30/pakistanis-terrorist-connections-nabbed-us-border/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/2/smuggling-network-guided-illegal-immigrants-from-m/

2 Not sure if it was on this forum or solving the world's problems over two beers at the Bra but the rationale to that I have heard is that once they have found the right guy they have to make sure he will be the right guy for the next promotion, select opportunity, recognition, etc... the attitude expressed to me, not one I accept mind you, is that the AF considers the sunk cost once it puts a person on the path to power and it is very reluctant to cut loose that investment even when evidence to the contrary that said person was a good pick comes up... F'd up reasoning in my humble opinion, good coaches and investors cut their losses if they see problem that is perennial, not fixable, getting worse and or all them. They don't wait to see if the problem will just go away on its own, they cut it out... not saying at the first problem a leader at any level should get his/her walking papers but as an institution if it is apparent that they have gone as far as they can go or should, then for the good of the team take necessary but likely unpleasant action. In reference to the second boldface point, they don't (big shocker) - from the attitude of you are replaceable from the CSAF himself, the detachment from the mission / day to day environment is incredible. To some degree I think this is unfortunately probably an unavoidable trait of air forces in general not just the USAF. We have lots of people, the vast majority are not in operations and of those in operations, only a small percentage participate in direct combat, combat support or other operations in a tactical environment where there is an appreciable amount of risk which has a tendency to keep the mind focused on that which is truly important. The other members, God bless them, just may not realize this on an intuitive and conscious level and hence you get shoe clerks who believe some meaningless CBT, whose training has no real world value, is the most important weapon we wield. It would really be a cultural shock but greatly limiting the rank available to certain sections of the AF might be a feasible solution, not easy as the entrenched shoe clerks would fight like hell to keep the status quo, but keeping their ranks high enough to manage their people but low enough to not cause trouble with make work projects could be done.

Copy - cleared hot Just two cents worth of opinion but of all the problems with the AF, that we have an X type of general for decades running it is the problem, in reality as we are a large organization with a diverse set of missions, we need a leadership cadre with a diverse career / operational background. Generalists not specialists in charge. I doubt we need dudes who spent the majority of their careers in the CAF, MAF, SOF or Strategic parts attaining the highest levels of qualification, we need smart, fast learners to gain experience and insight, then move to another major section of the AF to gain experience and insight there as they move towards upper leadership. Being a 4 ship flight lead is a good indicator of a smart guy but those particular smarts may not make him/her a great GO, same would apply to a formation air drop qual'd MAF pilot. Leadership has to have the strategic ability not necessarily the tactical ability. Can't agree more on the failure of CAF leadership on the epic fail to not acquire a low cost COIN / permissive environment platform and the MAF dropped the ball too by its epic fail on a light intra theatre mobility platform. A prestige thing I believe, CAF generals think it is beneath the AF to fly an A-29 and MAF generals didn't want the Army to get a C-27 and then they shit canned it for spite, but I'm not cynical, not one bit...

Random act of good journalism on the actual opinions of Americans living in the border as to the need for a border wall. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a44782/donald-trump-the-wall/ http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/06/09/liberal-journalist-asked-people-living-along-the-border-what-they-want-trump-is-right-they-want-a-wall/ Long article but worth reading, not just a biased view one way or the other on why a physical barrier system (wall, fences or hybrid) is good/bad/necessary/unnecessary.

Damn - had not heard of that crash, very rough week. Canadian Snowbirds did a great line abreast missing man formation for Blue Angels #6 http://www.avgeekery.com/no-greater-friend-canadian-snowbirds-fly-missing-man-formation-honor-fallen-blue-angels-6/ One other addition: Fat Albert flew him home with a fly over of P-Cola and down the beach with #5 on the wing, Godspeed... http://www.pnj.com/story/news/military/2016/06/07/blue-angels-fat-albert-fly-pilots-body-home/85550446/

Rough week for demo teams. Related story, Russian Knight Su-27 crashed and the pilot did not survive https://theaviationist.com/2016/06/09/su-27-flanker-of-the-russian-knights-aerobatic-team-crashes-in-russia-pilot-killed/

Said spreadsheet is as real as a Potemkin Village So the fact that multiple x multiple airmen complain about the same things and in reference to RPAa some very particular QOL / career issues and in your mind that is not evidence those problems exist but instead that is evidence of poor attitudes ? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok.. I'm not sure if you are full of shit, if you're just trying to poke the collective bear or you have yet to have that awakening moment when you realize that the AF is mostly made of good people that get treated badly in many cases by a few people who use rules, laws, policies, procedures and a self promotion system to keep themselves and like minded a-holes in leadership. You're right about living the Core Values and putting officership before being a pilot and a bro but you are implying that it is always exclusionary to those things, it's not usually and more often than not the Core Values and true officership are in opposition to the latest and greatest shoe clerkism that comes from on high if you believe that the purpose of the AF is to advance and defend the interests of the United States thru the projection of Air, Space and Cyberspace power. If you can't see or actually don't believe we are less a military organization than we used to be and are drifting towards becoming just another government agency by the evidence of the dearth of actual military activities in the daily duties / training of large numbers of members of the AF then you are lost.

Sounds good to me.

Yep, discussed earlier in the thread but that is a huge fly in the ointment, was that way also in AMC but was more obnoxious in my RPA assignment. Do you mean promotion boards restricted to a certain AFSC(s) so RPA pilots are only competing against other RPA guys? Lots of good ideas brought out lately in this thread that are feasible if the AF really wants to solve the RPA morale blackhole, it could act on them with Congressional approval, that will be the rub to tell Congress we want to go 180 out from where we have been going with this career field and get it approved. Better base locations and dispersed across way more time zones, manned aircraft companion program, career incentives for attracting fast swimmers, etc...

Fine by me. There has to be a reason for people to want to go RPAs, not just being forced too. RPA assignment = virtually automatic promotion is not bad. I have heard of the technique of career self-sabotage but didn't realize it was actually being practiced at an appreciable level and in the RPA world to shorten the time in by circumventing the ADSC, that is a helluva canary in the cole mine for how bad it is. ISR getting pulled out of ACC (sts) is the only way to actually fix the RPA enterprise, revise AF Intelligence Command and let RPA, JSTARS, AWACS and RIVET have their own treehouse to play by their own rules rather than keeping them in an abusive relationship with ACC.

Valid points. My solution that has negative 6.9% chance of ever being adopted would be to put these likely Captains and some Majors on a specific assignment profile and probably administratively assigned to a different squadron (OSS or the like) than the regular squadrons in the OG. This could prevent the potential problem at the squadron level and/or mitigate it as at the Wing level as they would eventually come into competition. Not perfect but something.

Why even have FAIPs? Nothing against them, most of the ones when in UPT were not that bad but it just screws up the primary intent of UPT, to supply pilots to the MWS community.. Offer droid drivers that were TAMI'd or re-cat'd a ticket out if they have paid the piper and want to go back to a manned platform - 3 years in RPAs sounds about right. AF pays the UPT bill, might save a pilot from becoming so embittered they want to punch at the end of their ADSC. I would rather them get a golden apple (MWS or base of preference) but instead of keeping them somewhere they don't want to be, solve two problems at once and give some hope to the 11U's there is a way out. Emerging from the shelter....

Herc History. L-100 in Delta colors and service. http://www.deltamuseum.org/exhibits/delta-history/aircraft-by-type/turbo-prop/lockheed-l-100 http://www.deltamuseum.org/docs/site/aircraft-pages/dl_lockheed_l-100_brochure_1966.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Yup - refining that idea, ACC truly doesn't give a shit about RPAs (crew force career, QOL, etc...) They won't let another branch or command have it but they don't want to do it in a way other than min run. This has come up before and I don't think another branch would do it better but another command maybe... who that is I don't know, a new command maybe that has 0.069% chance of happening. A new command to take in all the assets and people that ACC doesn't give enough love to, AWACS-JSTARS-RPA-RIVET, needs to happen or at least build out AFISRA with the assets shifted to it and assigned to another command.