Blue

Disclaimer: I hope that guy gets any kind of help he needs. But holy hell, he's been like a poster child of What Not To Do when leaving the military. Going off of memory from previous times he's been in the news: Believe he elected to separate just short of 20 years, and didn't get a retirement. Has worked a couple of random jobs, to include driving a delivery truck. Had a brief stint as a talking head for Fox or something. He seemed to portray his story as he singlehandedly walked into the compound and killed bin Laden, with no accounting for the huge team behind him. Got the impression he expected to walk out the front gate and just be showered with money and praise for the rest of his life, and that he was struggling with the fact that his expectations didn't meet reality.

Yes.

I don't want to interrupt anyone enjoying their daily dose of political rage-porn. But I've kind of taken to ignoring any "news story" that begins with the following: Recent polls say... Studies show... Experts say...

I'm old, and I also don't know much about AWACS. But weren't all of the "Air Battle Manager" jobs in the back of an AWACS held by NCOs at one point? And the mission was getting done with no issues. However, somewhere along the way (1990s maybe) they decided to make them all rated officer positions?

If I recall correctly, when folks are talking about an "Active Duty Flying Training Board," they're referring to a board to select current Air Force officers for flying training (pilot, Nav, ABM, UAV, etc). So, you have to be an active duty Air Force Officer in order to apply. If you're a prior-service O (now civilian), I'm not sure what the course would be. Obviously, ANG/AF Reserve is one path. Honestly, if you've recently separated from your previous service, I assume you're in the Inactive Ready Reserve, so if you got a unit to pick you up for a flying slot, I speculate they could just bring you in at your old rank. If the inter-service transfer program is shut down, I don't know of any other path to an active duty Air Force cockpit. If you had never been an O, I think the normal path would be to apply for a pilot slot via Air Force OTS, but I don't think you can apply to OTS with time served as an officer in another branch.

Regarding the "life in general" bucket, I'm going to assume you're a heterosexual single male. If those descriptors don't apply, then feel free to ignore. Be cautious about the woman you decide to attach yourself to. For sure, a lot of the common bar room wisdom is "never get married, stay single forever." But for most of us out there, you eventually find yourself wanting to put a ring on a woman's finger, for one reason or another. Be advised, women have changed in the last ~25 years or so. I feel like anyone in their mid-40s or older today has had a front row seat to it happening. The last couple of decades has seen an incredible rise in the number of women whose entire identity revolves around the following: Anything they succeed at in life is due to them overcoming the Powers of the Patriarchy. Anything they fail at in life is due to the interference of the Powers of the Patriarchy. It's frustrating and soul-sucking to be attached to these kinds of women. Whatever you do, don't put a ring on one of them.

Man, I'll go against the grain here...... Blues are military uniforms that you are required to maintain in serviceable condition. O's are required to maintain mess dress as well, I think the E's have something different (not required to own a mess dress, but "encouraged" for NCOs and above, as I recall). A quarterly inspection of a required uniform doesn't strike me as overly intrusive. Annoying, sure. But not a hill to die on. Like many of the annoying things that are unique to the military, the trick is in the implementation. A good boss will mandate the open ranks inspection on a Friday morning from 0900 - 0930. Designate a couple of sharp NCO's and O's to quickly go through the ranks, ding people appropriately for uniforms that aren't up to standards. Quick couple of words from the boss saying thanks for the effort, and everyone dismissed early to begin the weekend NLT 1000. Good bosses will do something inline with the above. Meet the requirements of the order from above, while still being reasonable about the implementation. Shitty bosses will have it be 0800 on a random Tuesday, with expectations for the rest of the duty day to continue uninterrupted, with no consideration for the underlying logistics (blues vs duty uniform, etc).

Man, that's a 56 minute video. Can you give us a high-level summary?

I could spend all day listening to the controlled chaos at Oshkosh. Turboprops and B-25s orbiting Warbird Island, traffic for Fisk extending back almost to Madison, runway closures due to disabled aircraft, controllers who never miss a beat, and the occasional old timer who feels the need to chime-in when he feels he's been wronged. Entertaining stuff. https://www.liveatc.net/search/?icao=KOSH

Not sure if this helps, but I was surprised to find out that some countries in the EU will give you a passport if your parents, grandparents, or in some cases, great-grandparents were from that country. I don't know all of the nuances of working in different countries in Europe, but if your spouse was somehow able to get a passport from a EU member, I'd assume it would make getting a job in Germany that much easier (certainly much easier than applying as an American passport holder).

These are valid opinions and good insight, but not really relevant, right? You're both pilots, and while opinions vary, being an Air Force pilot has to be one of the most sought after job in the military. There is no shortage of folks wanting to fly. When you hear of a "recruiting shortage," it's generally a shortage of high-school grads willing to sign up for a four year enlistment. A high school grad today was born in 2005. Think about all they've seen growing up (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc). More importantly, and as the WSJ article touches on, someone who thinks about enlisting is going to seek out someone they know who's been in the military. Say your Uncle Joe just retired from the Army. What kind of recommendation do you think old Joe is going to give after spending the last 20 years on an endless series of deployments to the Middle East?

From AP News: I'd always shake my head at the budget shenanigans in the military and the wider government. "Different colors of money," "fiscal year end dollars," all that bullshit. But I get that a lot of those gyrations had some larger purpose, however inefficient. Given the above quotes though, can't we all agree we're just fucking making it up at this point? Give Ukraine 1,000 tanks, 10,000 pieces of artillery, and a whole wing of F-16's, and tell the American people it was all worth $100, because we said so. It doesn't appear that anyone cares anymore.

It is kind of stunning when you look back at the last ~15 years. Progressive politics have co-opted nearly the entire Democrat Party. Meanwhile, the nation has faced incredible crises, that in years past might have seen people marching on DC with literal pitchforks and torches. Covid, Proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, rampant inflation, crushing wealth inequality, etc. Instead, in the face of those challenges, the national discussion is centered on an endless stream of increasingly fringe nonsense (I don't know how much further you can extend LGBTQQIP2SA, for example). It's incredible what's been done to this country, all in plain sight.

This is something that always got me - particularly when looking at the back at the evolution of the Air Force aircraft inventory from the 1950s to today. Ostensibly, the Air Force is supposed to be the nation's military experts in flying and fixing aircraft. By definition, we should have a lot of airplanes, and a lot of pilots. Yet, at every turn, we shun bringing on any fleet that is "different," or hasn't had the blessing of the larger defense establishment. We park C-27Js, we drag our feet with things like the AT-6 and the A-29 until the programs die a merciful death, and we strive to retire planes like the A-10. At the same time, we have the absurdly large "winner take all" competitions like the F-35 that lock us into one airframe for decades. There is always a lot of hand-waving that goes on about "efficiencies of scale," and "we need to retire this fleet in order to fund development of this new fleet," etc. I think the reality is that defense decisions are driven by what's best for defense companies. And with budget's being finite, the Lockheeds and Boeings of the world don't want to see the Air Force budget going towards feeding hundreds of C-27s, AT-6's, AT-29s, OV-10s, or anything else. When times are flush, those fleets would take away from the money available for their leviathan defense programs. When times are lean, someone in government might dare make an argument that maybe we could get by with a couple fewer F-35s, and instead plug the gap with AT-29s at a fraction of the cost. A lot of words to say I think "Inexpensive yet relevant platforms" are something the Air Force sorely needs, and used to have. But they're gone, and I don't think they're ever coming back.

The Air Heritage Museum C-123K "Thunder Pig" had an exciting landing at the Geneseo Airshow this past weekend. I believe it's the only flying C-123 on the airshow circuit (maybe the only one flying in the US). Got to tour it at Oshkosh several years ago. Neat airplane, and good people. Powered by two big radial engines, and has the pods for two J85 turbojets. Turbojets were normally used during takeoff and landing from what I understand, but are unfortunately no longer installed.