pawnman

So the service is just a job, and anyone can get out at any time? I can't possibly see how that would affect mission readiness when it comes time for deployments.

Falls under that pesky "take care of your people" heading.

But if a homosexual couple gets married, they now have access to all the benefits that a heterosexual couple has...PLUS 10 days of leave. I'm completely on-board with the idea that gays should have the SAME benefits as the rest of us. I can even see the argument that it is a larger hardship to execute on a marriage because, as I stated earlier, Amn Snuffy can marry his girlfriend at literally any base in the world, but Amn Jones needs to go to one of 13 states to do the same thing. I'm not against the idea of permissive TDY for that, with the idea that it will either go away once the whole US recognizes gay marriage, or every person gets 10 days of permissive to get married. And we dump family separation allowance and stop paying per diem and mileage when the spouse drives herself on the next PCS, right? Do we take away the health coverage for spouses, or do you plan to add a little something extra to the single paychecks to make up that discrepancy?

You think we have retention problems now, just wait until you see the retention problems when you revoke the dependent status for everyone in the military. No way I would stay if I couldn't cover my wife and daughter on the health insurance, get them moved every time I PCS, or transfer GI bill benefits to pay for my daughter's school. I'd be looking for a job that had health insurance that actually DID cover them, that didn't require me to relocate without assistance every 3-4 years, and that provided some matching in a 401(k) instead of an all-or-nothing retirement plan.

Works for me. May have to limit it...your leave turns into regular leave if you come back unmarried, you only get it every five years, etc. (gonna have to wait on that third marriage).

I'm going to go with Minot.

I agree that they shouldn't get extra leave, but I can see the argument. Amn Snuffy can marry his high school sweetheart at any base in the world. Homosexual couples do not have the same option.

Nah, they'd just be "forced" to retire.

I get that you have to pay back money when they overpay you...but some notice would be nice before they suddenly start deducting money from your paycheck.

Ah. I missed it and happened across the story on Wired. My bad. It seems like this was leadership's fault as much as the students. They threw it in there as the obvious bad option you include so the boss can satisfy his need to reject something. Instead, leadership approved it.

I'll just leave this right here. http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/08/air-force-my-little-pony/

Yeah, we have that huge glut of officers, right? Isn't manning the reason we only send the shiny pennies? Because we can't afford to lose the guys to send the medium-burners in addition to the fast-burners?

Got me there...although usually AFPC's policy ideas make things worse for the rank-and-file, not better. Like the VSP turnaround.

I can't see any possible way this will apply to 11x and 12x. I can't imagine a scenario where they would offer bonuses to keep people in while simultaneously giving them a very attractive out...but AFPC isn't known for their logical decision making.

Man steals ashes believing it is cocaine. As if it would have been better if he'd stolen cocaine instead of ashes.

http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/22881726/man-wants-jogger-to-stop-pooping-on-his-property Man demands female jogger stop crapping on his lawn.

How about this poor bastard? http://news.msn.com/us/how-the-pentagons-payroll-quagmire-traps-us-soldiers#tscptmf

I am less and less optimistic that our leadership notices anything other than manning numbers on a spreadsheet.

I knew a guy who was long-term DNIF for several years. He finally got re-cleared for flight, and in-processed into the training base to go through requal...at which time the finance guys doing the in-processing said "hey, this guy is a flyer, but he didn't get flight pay for the last 3-4 years. Let's pay him all of that right now". The guy had his TSP set up so all his flight pay would got to TSP, and he was just living off the base pay (pretty standard). So suddenly, something like $20K is dumped into TSP. Then finance realizes they screwed up, and tacks on a debt for the amount they paid him for the flight pay...but finance has no authority to take money back from TSP. So now the guy is essentially out the next 6-9 pyachecks while finance takes the money back...in the middle of a PCS...when he wasn't planning to have this kind of cash on hand and was sort of expecting paychecks to, you know, keep being deposited.

http://www.local12.com/news/local/story/Man-Caught-Having-Sex-With-Pool-Raft-Again/-BPHET7gyUaOjzsGvj3wfg.cspx Man Caught Having Sex With Pool Raft-Again

The sad truth is, we are about to have a significant drawdown. There is no upside for the Air Force to find a way to promote more people. In fact, the more people they can boot from the system for not getting promoted, the easier it is for the PR machine to work. After all, it is much easier to explain to the press why you are cutting the bottom 20% for not getting promoted than it is to explain why you are RIFing people after paying them a bonus. And if even more get out when the school slots dry up? Even better. Eventually we'll get somewhere the Air Force's accounting starts to look good again. Granted, we won't have anyone left to fight the next war...but that's OK, we're wrapping up this Afghanistan thing next year, and there won't ever be another conflict anyway, right?

I'm not enlisted. I'm just saying, we've seen high profile cases involving not only sexual shenanigans, but large dollar amounts of fraud, steering USAF business to buddies, and other misuses of authority. Maybe I'm just not privvy to how it impacts a guy's sense of self-worth to be forced to retire, but I do know that as a captain who has survived one RIF and had one promotion board cancelled, forcing a guy to retire doesn't seem like much of a punishment.

That, or sexual assault. I get that his sexual assault was set aside by the convening authority, I really do. One does wonder what chance a TSgt or even a Capt has of that happening. But realistically, even if he were to remain guilty, what would his punishment have been? Does anyone honestly believe that the punishment for a LtCol would be the same as that for a TSgt?

No, I get that. This isn't just about Wilkerson, he's just the latest in a long line. By rights, with the convening authority setting aside his conviction, it should be as if it never happened. My point is that very often we see senior leaders engaging in this sort of thing and getting "forced" to retire as a punishment, when a lower ranking individual would be absolutely crushed for it. How about the lady Gen Patreus was fooling around with? She's a LtCol in the Guard...any repercussions on her career?

Just ask, what would the Air Force do to a TSgt who made the same mistake? I'm pretty sure it isn't a retirement (which, correct me if I'm wrong, is automatically an honorable discharge). I don't really care what civilian companies do. Most of them aren't purging the ranks of all fun because a few guys screwed around. As long as our senior leaders keep telling us how important it is to prevent and punish sexual assault, while avoiding most of the consequences when they do it themselves, it will be hard to take them seriously.