pawnman

How about bomber WSOs...do they need any of those?

Except they were bound for South Korea, and the whole thing was legit. Leave it to the media to blow things out of proportion.

This is the problem with the prissy, popular model-types. They have no concept of how to deal with failure.

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/15/the_annals_of_chickenshit_they_do_it_to_get_a_sense_of_control_over_the_situation Another take on reflective belts and other queep. Essentially, senior leaders are realizing they can't actually do anything useful, so they start doing something dumb to feel a sense of control over the war environment.

I guess because you kind of expect that sort of religious faith to carry over into other areas of a guy's life. If he is only putting on these displays in front of the cameras on Sunday, one has to wonder if it is due to his faith, or because he wants to be seen as a good guy. It doesn't bother me either way. I'd much rather he pray after each touchdown, even if it is just a show, than behave like some of the other douchebags in the NFL. Finally, the touchdown dance doesn't come under scrutiny because it's expected. It's normal. This kind of public prayer is, like it or not, out of the norm for most Americans, even the devoutly religious ones.

One does wonder how much God really cares about the outcome of this play of a football game.

I see this all the time on the Air Force OTS boards. The board doesn't care about how many rated positions you put down. If you apply for any rated position, they look at your scores, decide if you make the cut, then look at what jobs you applied for. No one on the board is going to say "This guy is really qualified to be a pilot, but he applied pilot only so we'll give the slot to this guy who applied for CSO as well". If you want to be a pilot, apply for pilot. If you are willing to be a CSO too, put that on your application. Do not apply for both if you are going to turn down your CSO slot.

Well, I can believe the score given the categories. "People you work with", "Work you do", and "Person you work for", are rarely the things we complain about here.

I sure hope any other federal agencies tasked with this do a better job. I can't say I'm that familiar with the process...is the Air Force the only service that has this job? I know the other services do funerals and such, but do they also have a large processing facility similar to Dover? Maybe that's what he meant by "There's not another federal agency in this town"...they are the only federal agency that does it. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of institutions that understand you don't throw the remains of soldiers in the dump. I could introduce him to a few...the VFW is only a few blocks from my house.

I think the difference is "appropriate disposition". I wouldn't view a landfill as appropriate disposition of any remains, let alone remains that we are willing to spend countless time and effort to recover. Seriously, would it have taken that much more time and effort to, say, scatter the ashes to the wind, bury them at sea from a US Navy vessel, or put them at Arlington?

Jesus...I don't even have the words. One of the themes driven home in all kinds of training and pre-deployment briefings is that the US will bring you home. It may take a long time, but the US will bring you home. To casually discard the remains of people who have given their lives in service is a huge betrayal of that promise. I sincerely hope that those who made these decisions are held responsible...but I think the best we can hope for is that the WG/CC will be forced to retire with full benefits.

You are. A year with my family where I won't be deployed, TDY, or even in the tower until 1am. Don't get me wrong...I love my job, I have fun flying, and I've enjoyed my deployments. But an entire year where I see my wife and kid for breakfast, potentially lunch, and dinner, and I don't work weekends? Sign me up. I wouldn't want to instruct there, or PCS there for more than a year. ACSC does sound like a nice break from the current mad rush of deployment, ORE, ORI, Flag, then another deployment, and then you can go back to your job. Or you could look to do one of the joint or coalition schools. NWC is in Rhode Island. AWC is in Pennsylvania. The NATO school is in Germany...a year in Germany, with my family, and a 9-5 job? Almost sounds like a vacation, doesn't it?

Cold war? No problem. Especially if we can get some of our funding back.

We already have the one standard for everyone...get an online MBA through TUI/Embry-Riddle/Insert-diploma-mill-here. In an age of cost cutting, if the Air Force has a way to provide a Master's without spending the money on TA, and without doubling up on MBA and SOS work...I say full steam ahead. Do I think it will be a valuable degree? Nope. But neither is the one I'm already getting, and SOS in correspondence was a joke. The guys that follow me can accomplish two box-checks at the same time and minimize the pain.

Well, if it keeps them from doing SOS AND a Master's...and it reduces the amount spent on TA...I say do it.

Well, you are acting as a member of a government agency....so I think you're OK.

And why there is no shampoo or soap in the BX.

What's an AEF? (Sarcasm...I've never been part of an AEF cycle and odds are good I never will be.) It is always fun to watch 3 separate AEF rotations during my six months at the Deid. One in place when I get there, one rotation at the two month point, and another rotation just before I go home.

Anyone else in the Jan 9 class?

B-1: Expect 6-9 months. Again, classes, and sims with contract guys (all retired B-1 guys), followed by hitting the flightline. You don't do too much in they way of sims after getting on the flightline. Overall, the academic phase is fairly easy, short days with time for self-study and such. I encourage you to use the CPT ("cockpit familiarization trainer", or stripped down sim) early and often to figure out where the buttons are and what they do. After you go to your gaining squadron, MQT is advertised as 6 rides, each with its own focus (defensive tactics, guided weapons, stand-off weapons, flex targeting, unguided weapons, and dissimiliar air combat training). The pace for an MQT student will be reasonably laid back as long as you keep the snack bar stocked and the taps filled with beer. MQT culminates in a verification, where you get a day one scenario, spend a week planning for it (both the B-1 mission and the package assets), and execute in the sim. The grand finale is debriefing the scenario to the squadron, including WG/CC, OG/CC, SQ/CC, and the rest of your bros. Study hard, ask questions when you have them. Its rare to have an instructor tell you "go look it up" instead of helping with a question. Even when someone told me to look it up, they came with me to show me which TO it was in, and to translate the engineer-speak so much of our TO seems to be written in.

Ah. Not ski mask pulled over the eyes?

If you're a B-1 type, expect at least 2 years in the squadron as a minimum. One deployment will get you to the required hours to upgrade to insructor...after that, it's impressing the instructor corps and leadership enough to get upgraded. I can't speak for the Master's handicapping you...I'd guess not, since the last two people we sent to Edwards didn't have any Master's at all.

You mean having a master's doesn't increase our combat capability? Does Schwartz know about this?

Exactly. I think Netflix will be able to recover from this mis-step. They were leaning way out there because they don't want to end up as the next AOL, having built this awesome concept from the ground up then having some other company improve it and drive them out of business because they're still mailing DVDs. I just think they over-estimated how ready people were to part with the DVD portion of the service.

I don't know...now that they've changed their mind about splitting the services, they may be alright...although making that announcement probably cost them a few customers already.