pawnman

The main point he's making, which I think is correct, is that instead of bouncing every officer from assignment to assignment as if they will all need that breadth of experience, instead of taking stock of just how many staff jobs there are versus cockpits open, is hurting our retention, hurting our budgets, and hurting our continuity. What may be a decent solution is a preference-plus. How about if officers got the same "base of preference" options that the enlisted do after completing a 365 or a short-tour in Korea? How about if a guy states flat-out, "I'm not in the running for SQ/CC and above, I just want to keep flying airplanes...why don't you send the fast-burner over there to the staff job?", we actually listen? How about we pay attention to personal preferences instead of what leadership thinks will look good on the next board? All that requires leaders to know their people and their people's goals. Maybe one guy's goal is to provide some stability for his family, stay in one place for three more years while his kid finishes high school with his friends, while another guy's goal is to climb the ranks, no matter what base that takes, and another guys goal is to get an overseas assignment and see some of the world. Is it really so hard to give officers more of a voice in where they PCS? And if, as would likely happen, people don't go to Cannon, or Minot, or Laughlin...then you can non-vol people. But it should be a rare thing, not the normal operating procedure, to drop orders on an officer's desk every three years, using only the ADP as a guide to what the officer wants.

Hopefully the next round of notifications will go better than this one did. http://www.jqpublic-blog.com/youve-passed-merry-christmas-signed-anonymous-henchman/ In what world does a 1LT task a Major with a suspense over the holidays?

I think it's unfortunate that this gets painted wholly as race relations, when the police abuses are becoming ever more concerning across all of society. No-knock raids on the wrong houses, where people and dogs have been killed, and in one instance, a toddler burned so badly his family has over $1 million in medical bills...medical bills the SWAT team says they aren't responsible for because they were doing their jobs. Another no-knock raid on the wrong house ended with a 7-year-old girl dead from a gun shot wound in the head. The LAPD beat a white guy to death over the course of about 30 minutes...pretty sure he was done resisting well before that. Now, I don't think these rioters have the right answer. And I certainly will not argue that Michael Brown was a good person, nor that Eric Garner wasn't breaking the law. I'm also not arguing that every cop who shoots someone in the line of duty is a murderer and should be tried. On the other hand, we will clearly not reach any kind of solution as long as the police continue to view themselves as military units, going out to face hostiles every day, instead of PEACE officers, going out to serve and protect the people paying their salary. We keep hearing that it's a few bad apples that do this sort of thing...but I haven't seen very many police stand up and say "hey, that cop was a bad guy, I don't want him on the force anymore" when these abuses do happen. So no, I don't think the riots will solve anything. And no, I don't think one segment of the population is being oppressed. But I also don't think that every police officer is a saint and that all of them have only my well-being in mind.

So, with so many of us reporting close to a 10% drop in BAH rates, can anyone explain how the Pentagon released this blurb as an INCREASE in BAH for most service members?

Down 9% in sunny TX.

Yeah, Rule 34 can get ugly in a heartbeat.

I know SECAF says we're done...but we also have to cut another 4,000 people somewhere. Any insight on how we're going to cut 4,000 people with no VSP, TERA, or involuntary programs? Well, my community brought back a WSO after almost a decade due to WSO manning. He's an O-5 going back through initial qual. At the same time, we RIF'd three O-4 WSOs, including an evaluator with six deployments, qualified in the new glass cockpit aircraft. So...worked great, I guess.

And this is yet another reason not to friend anyone higher than you in the chain of command on social media.

Or how sad it is that we kill people we have in custody, or that we tortured two dozen innocent people. Totally worth it because someone ELSE, who is not the person we've been torturing for a decade, killed some people?

We being Americans.

Zero pay raise until retirement, you mean. Or have we taken that perk away as well? http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-01-26/military-officers-pensions/52939598/1

The more we are willing to torture people, the more the terrorists win. Their goal is to make us so afraid that we are willing to change our behavior. In this case, they've convinced us to discard the morals, treaties, and laws that we've taken decades to build. Face it guys...the terrorists are winning. All it takes is a tweet from a terrorist to the FBI to make our senior leadership warn us about our online presence. We're not only willing to torture people, we're now willing to scream that people opposed to torture are siding with the terrorists. We've spent the last decade trying to work with the Afghan people to craft a government, and yet we can't refer to them as anything other than savages. The terrorists have certainly gotten into our heads at this stage. We're so terrified of another attack that people shrug when we torture detainees, many of whom have no known ties to terrorism, and in spite of the fact that torture produces poor intel. We're so terrified of another attack that we sheepishly gather in long lines to remove our shoes, belts, and watches so that TSA can scan our junk in a high-end X-ray machine. We're so terrified of another attack that we believe the government is justified in scooping up all the data about every phone call, email, and text we send. The terrorists are winning, and unless we are willing to say that we are not going to change our way of life every time one of them puts out a video, that we are going to keep our moral compass no matter how angry or hurt or sad we are, then they will continue winning. Sure, we'll pile up the body count...but it's going to cost our soul.

So...any big news from the SECAF?

Which is fine, once we've cut the waste in other areas first. It just saddens me that our senior leaders essentially pushed for this cut, then fought when congress wanted to reduce the size of their entourages and take away other perks.

Something that personal, I'm 100% sure I have the guy? I'm probably not above torturing him if that's what it takes. The question is, are we willing to build national policy based on an emotional reaction to a worst-case scenario? Or would we rather build national policy in a more rational way?

And a 5% cut to BAH. Then Admiral Dempsey urged caution and measured analysis when the subject of GO/FO aides, staffs, and other benefits came up for cuts. My favorite is when they ask if I'm thinking about harming others. "What, exactly, do you believe we do here?"

Or what do I do if someone kidnaps my kids, but I'm not sure who? Just start waterboarding everyone who lives in the neighborhood, whether they are guilty or not, and hope I get lucky?

And if you happen to be swept up on accident and tortured anyway, then I guess it's all in the name of security. The records released say more than two dozen of the people held were completely innocent. No known terrorist ties. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. We're still holding them. Good thing we're a nation of laws, and not goddamn savages. So, how many of the detainees we tortured had intel on a nuke in LA?

If we have the means to verify it, then it isn't exactly new intel. There was this article detailing why the military should be the most pissed about the CIA torturing people. http://taskandpurpose.com/american-military-pissed-cia-torture-report/?utm_source=TP-Facebook&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=american-military-pissed-cia-torture-report

Probably just could have bought her sister a vibrator for Christmas and solved the time-sharing problem.

Separate board?

People also seem to forget that Billy Mitchell's reward was a court martial. One in which he was found guilty and suspended for five years without pay, which the convening authority declared was "lenient". You can't have a Billy Mitchell until you have someone willing to put their career and well-being on the line for what they believe.

Looks like he didn't answer a single question regarding the budget or cutting pay and benefits.

1. "Opportunities" and "cream". Funny. 2. Can't wait for folks who have never seen the inside of a cockpit to start tinkering with my RAP tasking memo, 11-202 evaluation criteria, hours requirements for upgrade, or a host of other flying-related guidance that comes out of these staff positions.

Interesting. In my community, if you aren't 2 below to O-5, you aren't getting command of a squadron. At least, not in the community. I have known guys pick up things like FSS/CC, or SQ/CC of an ASOS.