FourFans

What are your long term goals? Screw the 5/10/15 year plan crap, what do you want to do in life? Do you want to be the best fighter pilot that's ever lived? Do you want to be a pilot that makes a difference in peoples lives? Does it not matter at all what you fly? This is important: don't hold back or logic eliminate something. What's your dream? You want to fly Marine One someday? You want to be the first man to step on Mars? What is it? All the numbers and all the rest need to be secondary to the driving force. When a measure becomes a target (such as the AFOQT), it's no longer an effective measure. What's your real target?

That's nice and all, but the platforms need to change with the environment. Permissive environment allows CAS, and I think we should keep the capability to do that, but specialization that doesn't take into account the evolution of new technologies is doomed to specialize perfectly to fight the last war. If there's something the US is great at, it's fighting the last war. I think the A-10 should say, but with an evolved role. Likewise the AC-130. I think we still definitely need them, but not as they were. Neither of those platforms are going into the shit on week one of a high intensity fight with China. Imagine an AC-130 over Ukraine right now...in YEAR TWO of that conflict. Any Gunship guys here care to speculate how that would go? I'm genuinely curious. I thought that was interdiction? Do you think we stealth platform could do that properly? F-35 simply doesn't carry the right load to make that worth it.

But, Gotta call a spade a spade: that sound's pretty pessimistic. If financial security and work-life balance were your known goals when you started...why the hell did you join the military? Let's be honest, we all made some rash quick decisions with long reaching consequences when were in our 20's. But I'd say you're doing yourself a disservice with that hind-sight 2020 type of analysis where you say you hated it but imagine that you didn't have a poor attitude. Being miserable is 90% perspective and attitude, and 10% situation. What you choose to focus on is what you focus on. If you focus on the suck, yeah, you'll be hate it. So say that mil flying was only worth it to get to your civilian job is really, really, jaded. If you were so unhappy, trust me, your peers knew it regardless of how much optimism you painted over it. We've all known that guy. I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it. I was there too, and yeah, there was a LOT of suck. But no amount of wallowing in misery ever improved it, so most of us chose to enjoy what we could enjoy, missed birthdays and holidays included. Frankly, dudes with the "get me out of here" attitude were the ones that poisoned the well and tended to bring morale down. I've worked with enough of them to know that invariably it's something else going on in life. Whatever it is or was, you're not alone.

It's all perspective. Most of us here are either in or past our mil experience, and it's always easy to poke holes after you've seen behind the curtain and understand all the mis-steps and mistakes that you did see until you were inside. In the end though, I think recruiting for the military will always be difficult. It should be. "If it were easy, everyone would do it" and we don't want everyone. In the same right, the US military has routinely produced men and women with strong character and solid teamwork skills. It has to do with volunteering to do for other what they won't or can't do for themselves. That take nobility. It always will. What is concerning is this line, which is ABSOLUTELY true. The quality of the members of the military will continue to be of noble character simply because it requires volunteering. The effectiveness of the force, however, can only get betrayed by it's political leaders...as happened in AFG and is still happening with the social woke experimentation bullshit. If someone is joining solely for the benefits, yeah, they're gunna be sorely disappointed that it's not as benefit rich as working for Apple, Google, or Starbucks. Frankly, it shouldn't be. Baristas and coders are in the business of service and providing a product for the prime purpose of getting paid to do so. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are in the business of visiting death and destruction on our nation's enemies. Hardly a comparison there. As to who someone becomes after serving even one four year stint, the results are undeniable. Sure, not all job skills transfer. But self confidence, decision making skills, and the ability to work in a team always do. At the heart of all this is that people need significance in their professional lives for them to care about what they do and who they are becoming. I've definitely seen that need in people I work with in my civilian job. Men and women want to know their work has made a difference. Military operators rarely come out the other end of their service with that problem. What we do matters and THAT is what will ultimately keep younger generation continuing to volunteer. There will always be bad leaders, politicians messing things up, and GO's that are completely worthless. That's what makes the good leaders stand out so much. The work will continue to be awesome and unique in ways that you simply can't get outside the military. I've been completely honest with my kids. They're not at decision time yet, but my 14 year old son has already expressed interest in the cool things about the military, and even expressed that he'd love to fly the A-10. I'm all about it, but I refuse to push him either way. The best any of us can do is be honest and transparent. The job will sell itself to those who we need. It always has, and always will. Hopefully, our political leaders will unass themselves, continue to fight for benefit improvement, and work for their people, instead of expecting their people to work for them.

Somehow, @BQZip01's mom was involved.

@HuggyU2 or @Scooter14

Had an interesting discussion with an Army 19D (scout) recently. He said they are quickly becoming of the opinion that they want to do their own organic "CAS" with mini drones and switchblade type munitions that are not reliant on GPS or any other agency. Makes sense for a scout to think that way. It spurs an interesting conversation: When do we decide that man-portable tech has advanced far enough that CAS is no longer a USAF fixed wing requirement? Look at Ukraine. Lots of videos of drones dropping small/accurate munitions and getting it done in a contested environment without CAS.

You should know: General Chang is actually James "Don't Call Me Jimmy" Slife

Got nothing to add, just wanna say that I admire you guys in what is a a sincere, intellectually honest, and thought provoking discussion. So refreshing

Sadly, you both arrive: intellectually dissonant and unable to answer a straight question. Were this a formation debrief: You're both weak souls who don't even deserve the honor of a backhand. Weak Dick. Oh, did that offend you? You both claim to be USAF aircrew members from the combat arms, yet you get touchy about political issues? Really? Get sack and man up you bitches. I've read much of what both of you have spoken here, while neither of your have even once asked about my values. Both of you value family. Sincerely and in ways that I admire. Both of you purport to stand stanchly by what you believe, which I also admire. I gather that neither of you would leave your children alone with any Biden, Trump, or Clinton male family member, yet you shrug when one of those same 'men' refuse to acknowledge their own offspring. Neither of you would do that. I have faith that both of your have stronger convictions then these individuals that lead our country, yet you defend your support of them. Why? Please, be intellectually honest. Why are you defending those asshats by denying a clear response here? You @nsplayr claim that you have good in-person relationships with people you disagree with when you are physically with them, yet when you are have no skin in the game, you cannot overcome differences. That's not some relational virtue, that's being a coward about your real beliefs when physically present. If you cannot see the cognitive dissonance there, you are either emotionally or cognitively impaired. All men are reduced to their lowest form of maturity when allowed to be anonymous. It used to be while driving. Now it's on the internet. You both were asked a very simple, direct question. No one will come after you physically for your answer, yet you dodge like you might be mugged for what you say. You claim you'll be bludgeoned. Seriously? Are you so emotionally weak that you can't express your true believes in a venue where NOTHING WILL HAPPEN YOU YOU? Your maturity is thus exposed. I'm guessing at least one of you (if not both of you) is a captain at a major airline, and I find it sincerely sad that someone with such broad exposure and high responsibility would be so emotionally and mentally frail. Be men. Do Better.

That's why he's our favorite troll.

Kinda what I was hoping for @Prozac. If you haven't noticed, I'm one of the guys over here that routinely tries to toss softball questions to help you solidify the legitimacy and rationality of your positions. That helps humanize you and helps all of us understand your arguments better. It's a forum. It's a place for questions, answers, and hopefully, mutual understanding.

So @Prozac and @nsplayr: What are your thoughts on how the president you voted for is addressing his family?

Adam. @congressman You are now part of the ex-congress and now-politic elect crowd. Please don’t quit on we, the crowd who got you there. are you there, or did you quit?

Had this waited until I read further, it would have been “High Calorie Bonus Hole”

In other news, Hunter Biden has agreed to assist in the investigation with the stipulation that he be allowed to examine the evidence in private.

Because he's a Bonus Hole

...and all the students of Russian history collectively said "oh shit"

I was born a yankee...now I live in Florida, but I don't follow the SEC. I'm a man without a country.

Another climate prediction based on computer modeling. The same computer modeling that can't even predict where a hurricane will land inside 48 hours of landfall. Yeah, we trust you. https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

@Negatory Curious: What do you do for a living?

Clearly you're not a herk crew member

If you think that's bad, wait till you meet some of our navigators and WSOs...

I've got a lot of thoughts here, but two quick ones: To answer your question about the nuclear family: Anti-family policies surrounding welfare (dads in low income families are incentivized to make children and leave the home), divorces has never been easier so families are split more often, abortion couldn't be more contentious and there is currently no policy that incentivizes men to have accountability in the baby-making process, in several states 'the state' in the form of schools and teachers unions are effectively trying to take over the moral instruction of children...to include the legal prosecution of parents if they 'mis-gender' their own 12 year old, there's a lot more. In short, the federal government should have absolutely no hand inside a family unit, yet they currently do. All of those policies are not tolerated or accepted, but celebrated and in some cases enforced by our current administration. Second: go to your stat source there: https://realtimeinequality.org/ and play around. You'll find that the Times did a wonderful job of zooming in on a very specific data set to tell a story that simply isn't true. Moreover, if you want to compare data, use the same time frame. You compare Jan 2021 to EOY 2022 directly to Trump's entire term. Not an apples to apples comparison. With stats like these, a long view of at least a decade, usually more, is the only way to get a real picture of the impact of policies.