one1

The military objective was to dismantle AQ in Afghanistan and deny the opportunity to use Afghanistan as a safehaven for attack planning against the homeland. We won the war in a few months. The problem is when politicians decided that democracy and a strong central government was important in Afghanistan. That is not an objective that can be achieved with warfare alone. Any general that thinks that is a reasonable objective is more politician than military leader.

I've read every piece of the FOIA and listened to all of the OSI audio as a part of an effort to outline what happened for a non-profit I support. To me, the clemency package didn't illustrate anything other than Wilkerson had many friends. What I took note from the trial were the people that wouldn't have any reason to be for or against Wilkerson that made statements against his character. This includes the emails and testimony of a Colonel and Captain that both observed Wilkerson doing questionable things that bothered them. They had contemporaneous notes that documented some of this. One of those things being Wilkerson peeping on a subordinate's wife in the bathroom. Multiple people, even one person that wrote a letter to support Wilkerson's clemency package confirmed that he did do this. I am not sure if that is normal to you or not, but I find that to be very indicative of someone who has questionable judgment. I know that the clemency letters try to explain away the incident, but did you read Wilkerson's own recollection of the incident or the other people that were questioned? I support an organization called Protect our Defenders and helped put this together... https://www.protectourdefenders.com/point-by-point-rebuttal-of-gen-franklins-18-reasons-for-overturning-col-wilkersons-sexual-assault-conviction/ Christensen is a member of the non-profit along with Col Jensen. I don't know either of them personally but I promise you that their goal isn't to frame innocent officers of heinous sex crimes. If you can read the above link knowing that Wilkerson repeatedly lied under oath, lied on his SF86, didn't support his son, and had a history of misconduct... and still believe that Wilkerson was in your own terms, railroaded... I don't know how to reason with you. On top of everything, the jury actually in the court found him guilty. Maybe you would believe the victim if you knew her or actually sat on the jury yourself. At the simplest level, you can either believe a proven liar's testimony or the victim's.

The fact that so many people, after so much information about this case has been released, still feel this way is incomprehensible to me. Wilkerson had been 100% proven to lie under oath on numerous occasions before and after the trial. He was a proven liar with serious character flaws. I understand doubting the victim in certain circumstances, especially with inconsistencies with the story, but at some point logic dictates that the victim's narrative has more weight than Wilkerson's. Now, with all the additional information that has surfaced about Wilkerson's history of lying under oath, him secretly having another family that he apparently didn't support, once looking into the stall to watch a subordinate's wife urinate in a restroom, and multiple Air Force officers testifying under oath that Wilkerson had serious character flaw... how can you still think that the Air Force was trying to "railroad" Wilkerson? You say the Air Force couldn't prove that Wilkerson was guilty, yet a jury of his peers found him guilty. Do you understand a victim's testimony is evidence? I get that sometimes people naturally want to give me the benefit of the doubt, but this is too far unless if you think there is some type of conspiracy. Then, to double down and say that Gen. Franklin did the right thing by overturning a conviction and letting a lying sex offender out on the streets shows a lack of understanding on why Congress had to get involved (which only made matters worse). I understand being on Wilkerson's side at the beginning, but now that all the facts are surfaced, it is a shame that anyone in the Air Force still support this guy. Azimuth, You have often been a great resource on this forum. When I was enlisted trying to commission you even gave me some great advice that I think helped me get on track... I don't want to get personal, but you bring up your situation often on the forum. Bottom line, if you have a relationship with a subordinate Airman when you are a SNCO or commit adultery, you shouldn't be surprised if the Air Force kicks you out. You are not a victim. I honestly believe your narrative and you very well could have been falsely accused. It doesn't help your narrative when every time there is a headline in the news about sexual assault in the Air Force, your automatic position is the victim is lying and the Air Force is conspiring. This is especially troubling in very clear cases like the Wilkerson case. Full disclosure, this is a topic that is personal to me and I maybe somewhat biased. I had an Airman that I supervised that was raped and I went through the process trying to be an advocate to her as much as I could. When she told me and we had to make the report, it left a lasting impact on me. Then I had to watch her deal with people in the Squadron whispering. Even after the rapist apologized in the court 18 months later, certain people in our community still spread rumors about her lying. It has been almost 15 years later and this situation is always in the back of my mind when situations like this get public attention.

You have to remember you are not losing 10% of your pension... you are losing 20%. People say this all the time and it doesn't sound that bad. Going to 40% from 50% is a loss of 20% of your military retirement pay.

This is great advice. The only thing I would add is that after certain admins start not agreeing with you, you will get your account "accidentally" deleted or they will "accidentally" lock you out of your account.

If it is just a job and a pay check to you, I promise you there are easier and more lucrative ways to make money.... Monster.com Indeed.com

Not really. Especially if you lump all rated slots together. I applied to the rated and non-rated boards. In my board, the rated board was around a 60% selection rate and a 100% rate for AD Air Force. The non-rated board was around a 3% selection rate. We had CSO selects at OTS that had 2.7 GPAs from degree mills. That isn't a knock on them, I just wouldn't call the process of them getting selected, and me getting selected for that matter as being very competitive. OTS is a different animal when it comes things being competitive. The last 7-10 years, most non-rated careers were harder to get selected for than rated careers.

Being an exec is not the same as being a secretary. If you are an exec and you are only performing duties a secretary would do, then your are doing it wrong. Someone in a position to have an exec usually has a secretary in the first place. If you are an exec doing secretary work, the boss either isn't utilizing you correctly, or doesn't trust you enough to do the job.

I know how we can get to the bottom of this. One by one, we can go through the huge fan base of PYB's Facebook page. We would only have to weed out the 25 people that follow his page. After we sort out the people who follow his page for the laughs at his expense and the people that are directly related to Rynearson, the only person left should be USAFPilot. On the other hand, if no one is left, USAFPilot is obviously PYB.

I was still in high school when I first started going to baseops. It was around 2005 that I started seriously looking into the military and baseops was a great resource. Baseops is a much better recruiting tool than any Air Force advertisement featuring fighters, General Welsh, TIB, etc. I was able to talk to guys like Hiflyer and Hacker online. I started reading Hacker’s blog when he was in UPT and he was awesome at getting information to those who asked. Hiflyer has probably been a more superior resource for guys trying to commission through OTS than most Air Force recruiters. You get a little desensitized to it once you are in the Air Force surrounded by pilots, but in high school and college, having a candid conversation with a retired U-2 pilot was a big deal. These are two people out of many that frequent Baseops that are all about providing knowledge and sharing experience to people. I am not the type of person that frequents 30 different forums, trolling, and stirring the pot like PYB. I am on this forum to read the perspectives from people relating to the Air Force. At training, I told multiple guys about Baseops and what a great resource it was. Many of them joined the forum. I kept in touch with a lot of friends on Baseops after training. Threads like “Squadron daily Pic” and “WTF” are entertaining but the ability communicate with multiple officers about Air Force related topics in an anonymous setting is why this forum is a valuable resource. I was one of the people that had their account deleted and have been blocked multiple times for long periods. My account has been “accidentally” deleted twice. After the second time it was deleted, I made another account to contact an admin to see if there was some type of accident with my account and he threatened to delete the new account I made because I was trying to get around the rules by making another account. After disagreeing with an Admin in one of the political forums, I was sent this… “You just earned a five-day ban for arguing with an admin on the forum. When the ban is over, your posts will require moderator approval before showing up on the forum. Any more arguing or trolling will result in an increased or even permanent ban.” A few weeks later I was still blocked. one1 Sent 25 April 2013 - 07:44 AM M2, You banned me last week. Can you please unlock my original account. I can understand that you disagreed with what I said but I didn't think you were going to ban me for it. I thought you were disagreeing with me as a normal BO user. As you said earlier, when you are communicating as an ADMIN you normally bold everything. I don't really want to post anymore. I especially don't want to post on the political/social related threads if I am going to get banned because I don't have the same views on social issues and political issues. On the other hand, I would still like to be able to post on the Air Force related threads. I would appreciate if you would unlock my last account. Thanks M2 Administrator Sent 25 April 2013 - 07:57 AM You received a one-week ban for negative comments on Moderator actions. It was noted in your warning status. It wasn't a matter of posting opposing viewpoints, but you have gained a reputation for being an instigator and that usually results in what is considered trolling. You should have not created a second account to get around it as that is also a banning offense, but I'll let this one go and will delete this account in a day or two. Do not post using this account or it will result in a permanent ban and your IP address, email and/or user name being blocked from returning to this forum. You will be able to log into your regular account when the ban expires. I will not remove it beforehand, and be aware that any similar offenses will result in more and longer bans. one1 Super User Sent 25 April 2013 - 09:41 AM Okay, thanks. I thought you banned me permanently. one1 Super User Sent 29 April 2013 - 05:39 PM It has been 12 days and I can't log on. Is it supposed to automatically unlock my account after a week? M2 Administrator Sent 29 April 2013 - 06:53 PM I just did a search for your profile via the admin section but it is not showing up. I don't know why, but I can tell you I didn't delete it. That doesn't mean another moderator or admin didn't. Permanently banned accounts will still show up, deleted ones will not. The last copy of your profile I can locate using a different search was dated 22 Mar 13 with the following stats: Group Supreme User Active Posts 426 (0.86 per day) Most Active In Squadron Bar (229 posts) Profile Views 1,656 With a reputation of 53. I can restore your post count, status and reputation using the new account you created if for some reason I cannot recover your old account. Standby and I will get back to you. Until then, feel free to use the new account you set up. M2 Sent 01 May 2013 - 06:37 PM Sorry, but I cannot recover your old account. It is not showing up in the AdminCP software that runs the forum, not even under banned, locked or any of the other categories. I even searched on your IP address and email with no luck. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do beyond changing your Member Title and Post Count to reflect the last status I could find from 22 March stats. I'll see if any of the other administrators have any ideas, but I don't think the odds are good that anyone will be able to do anything more than I have. M2 Administrator Sent 01 May 2013 - 07:29 PM Well, got an explanation as to what may have happened... Quote Due to the overwhelming number of spammers that create accounts daily (usually hundreds), I have a daily routine of deleting anybody in the banned or spammer list. One of the forum experts will see if there is any way to recover your old account, but at this point it may just be gone. one1 Super User Sent 01 May 2013 - 10:47 PM Okay. Thank you. I am sure I am not the only person that has had their account “accidentally” deleted. I know on political and social issues I might be the minority here but I really never saw myself as saying anything inappropriate. People have said some pretty horrible things on this forum (rape, sexual assault, racial and sexist remarks towards military officers or government officials) on this website, but if you argue about something like gun control, you better choose your words wisely. I am not saying this to complain. I am more than happy just lurking on the forum. I am okay with someone calling me a fucking idiot about my point of views, but when admin start to change the content of user posts and constantly ban users, what is the point of logging in when you are better off reading the forum as a guest. When you start banning people left and right, tell every new member to STFU, and discourage opposing views, don’t be surprised when Baseops numbers slowly decrease. I don’t have anything against M2 or any of the other moderators. I am just surprised at how serious some of the moderators are on this site. If you met another military member in person and bullshitted with them at the bar and disagreed with them about something, you wouldn’t go on a crazy tirade and try to shut them up. You would laugh at them for being stupid, maybe make a joke or two at their expense, and then buy them a beer. Why are other down to earth individuals that are educated military members act like different people when they are communicating over the internet? It has already been said, but if you met the guy that proposed to the cheerleader, would you really have the balls to say the same shit to him in person at the bar? That isn’t some random, unknown dude. He is someone that you could be TDY or deployed with. I think that people get it in their head that they should treat this forum like one of the thousands of other forums that are found on the internet. Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t remember the forum being this way 5 years ago.

I heard that if you are within the first year of commissioning they waive the initiation fee. The initiation fee is between $1,000 and $27,000 depending on rank. A Lt can expect to pay a one time fee of $1,000 and monthly dues. They have 54 holes of golf and from what I have read, an Army Navy Country Club membership will also allow you to golf at other country clubs around the country and some places overseas. I saw the list of reciprocal clubs and they had some good golf courses on the list.

Has anyone paid the money to join the Army Navy Country Club in Virginia? Is it worth it? How is the golf course? http://www.ancc.org/Club/Scripts/Home/home.asp

There are horrible people that study their asses off and score 90s on both tests and get promoted. It really is a horrible system. Since everyone gets 5s on their EPR and everyone has relatively the same amount medals, the only way to get promoted is to do awesome on the tests, rack up TIG points, or by being a big enough kiss ass to get step promoted. The most fucked up part about step promotions, they usually go to someone that has been stuck at TSgt forever and doesn't do well at testing. They very rarely give it to people based solely on merit.

A few months ago I was helping organize a car show at a recreational camp that was sponsored by the Air Force. The recreational area is owned by the Air Force but it is open to the public. You do not need an ID to get in. The day before the event the "anti-terrorism" representative told me the following. Anti-terrorism representative: Since you have so many vehicles coming on to the camp, you have to search every vehicles trunk coming to the car show. Me: This won't be possible because 6 volunteers are running the entire car show and a few thousand people are expected to show up. Anti-terrorism representative: In that case, just inspect the cars that are going to be participants in the car show so you only have to inspect around100 cars. Me: Do you think terrorists are going to enter a car in the car show? What are we even looking for in the trunks of muscle cars? Anti-terrorism representative: Illegal weapons, hidden bombs....that sort of thing. Me: How will my crack team of volunteer A1Cs and Junior ROTC cadets be able to know if the weapons are illegal? What does a hidden bomb look like? Anti-terrorism representative: If you don't search the trunks of the vehicles I can have security forces shut down the car show for not following regulations. Me: Can security forces search the vehicles? Anti-terrorism representative: They don't have time to waste at car shows. Me: Then how can they shut down the car show? We ended up searching the trunks. Not one participant had a single thing in their classic car. All the trunks were completely empty. I can't believe the Air Force is paying this guy to be an "Anti-terrorism" representative. He is a GS-13.

Ignorance. When I was enlisted, I would have never imagined all of the bullshit additional duties pilots and other aircrew are responsible for. Out of all of the squadrons I was assigned to while I was enlisted, I've never seen an officer higher ranking than a Lt get an additional duty they didn't volunteer for. At the first flying squadron I worked at, a Lt Col was the DTS monitor. That was the additional duty an A1C was responsible for at my last squadron.

And not a single fuck was given that day....I want to submit an EO complaint that they created a crew of all females intentionally leaving males out of this historic moment. I am sure the intel they collected over North Dakota is making waves on operations in Afghanistan. Who in the fuck keeps track of all these stupid "records" set by female Airmen? Interesting fact.... All female aircrews will eventually have their periods sync up. The women will sync to the menstrual cycle of the highest ranking female in the group. This isn't sexism...it is science.

How it works is... If you have ten months of Montgomery GI Bill you will have to use all of if and then you can switch to the post 9/11 GI Bill. If you switch before you use the Montgomery GI Bill is used up, then you will forfeit the 10 months but you will still get your 12 months of post 9/11 GI Bill. If you had 13 months of the Montgomery GI Bill, then you could switch to the post 9/11 and get 13 months of that. It would be stupid to do either of those options though because by maxing the Montgomery GI Bill, you get 48 total months of benefits including the additional 12 months of the post 9/11 GI Bill. Another fact that some of you may not know. If you only use the post 9/11 GI Bill but paid the $1200 for the Montgomery GI Bill, after you use all the post 9/11 GI Bill you get an extra $1200 refund from your Montgomery GI Bill. ETA: If you wanted to forfeit the 10 months, I think you have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and it has to be approved by the VA. Since it is not the best choice to make, it is probably never done. It the regulations, you technically have to exhaust the Montgomery GI Bill before getting the 12 bonus months of the post 9/11. This doesn't really make much sense because if you had 10 months left of the Montgomery GI Bill you could only get 10 months of the post 9/11 GI Bill.

My wife used it while I was an Lt. It only took her about 20 minutes to sign up online and talk to the MyCAA counselor and she was able to get $4,000 to pay for college. I know most of you are O-3 and above but it is good info to recommend to the new LTs and Airmen. I was really surprised with how easy it was to get.

I would let my wife use my GI Bill if I absolutely thought I wouldn't want to get a legit graduate degree in the future. There is also MyCAA which is a lot like TA for spouses. The crazy thing is, it is was easier for my wife to use MyCAA than it was for me to get approved for TA. Here is the MyCAA fact sheet in case you haven't heard about it... http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/Project%20Documents/MilitaryHOMEFRONT/MyCAA/FactSheet.pdf I personally wouldn't plan on giving my children my GI Bill unless if they were close to graduating high school. I do not trust that it will be around in 20 years. I especially do not believe that there is any chance that the GI Bill will be as great in 20 years as it is now. Have a separate college fund for the kids that you control 100%.

Definitely not defending the email. I am pretty shocked that anyone would feel that it is necessary to condescend so maliciously. The leave nonsense is bullshit and he would have been better off just saying that having a pregnant wife doesn't automatically get you out of a deployment.

While I was working in the UDM office, in a 3 month time frame, three female NCOs got pregnant in the same office at the same time. This act was deliberately to get out of deploying. They all knew each other and joked about it while sitting on their asses for 9 months. Three other people (men) had to deploy short notice to do the mission. They were ill prepared and one of them had just got back from a deployment 5 months prior. One TSgt looked me in the eyes and told me he couldn't deploy because he just bought a puppy. He still went. Some people try hard to get out of deployments. When people do bullshit like this, you have to start sending people regardless of what their story is. Keep in mind, this happened to me during my short, three month stint as a UDM assistant.

That is what happens when you spend most of your career as an enlisted aide doing this for GOs. http://www.aetc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123029799 ETA: Not joking at all. He spent 13 years being an enlisted aide.

I don't disagree with you at all. I just think that she was breaking the rules due to being lazy and ignorant. There is a difference between being lazy and ignorant and actively going out of your way to disrespect our country. Being lazy and ignorant are easily correctable when you are dealing with a young airman or private. Her actions need to be corrected with a punishment that will solve her deficiency and make her a better soldier. I am not making excuses for her. There are many young military members that enlist with a lack of discipline and a lack of pride that doesn't get fixed by the time they finish basic training. It is the job of the front line supervisor to develop this soldier into someone that doesn't do something so stupid. It is not always possible. I don't think she would take a picture and post this on Instagram without being genuinely ignorant of the implications. Correct the soldier's actions and move on. If she does something similar again, escalate the corrective action. ETA: I wasn't talking about people waiting by the door for the music to be over. I was talking about people waiting at the door for the music to start and then end. I have seen this many times and people do it just to avoid having to salute during the National Anthem. I see CGOs and NCOs do this regularly.

I hope that everyone who is criticizing this soldier over the internet is willing to criticize and correct the line of people that wait by their office door before leaving for the day instead of walking outside and rendering a salute. This is such a common thing but people usually don't take pictures of it. I never understood why people are not willing to walk outside and salute for 20 or 30 seconds Many Army bases actually require the soldier get out of their car and salute. I have never been to an Air Force base with that rule but I might be wrong to say the Air Force doesn't follow this practice. I think it is lazy and immature to not follow the rules of your base but I do not think the soldier disrespected the flag by not getting out of her car and saluting. To say so would mean that every time I just pullover (like everyone else does at my base) instead of getting out of my car and saluting, I would also be disrespecting the flag. I am not defending the laziness and ignorance of this soldier, I just think that some of the responses by the public are a little extreme. People have equated her not saluting to treason. Some people are saying that they should give her an article 15 or kick her out of the military. That seems a little extreme. Fix her behavior by giving her the privilege to raise the flag on base for a few months or allowing her to solemnly present a flag to the loved one of a veteran at a military funeral. If she can present that flag to a crying widow and not be willing to take the 30 seconds to salute the flag each day, she is a lost cause.

This makes sense for a SrA because a CCAF has OJT and skill level requirements but I am not sure how this can be possible for a MSgt with a Master's degree. You only need 15 "real" college credits that are general education which would almost certainly be included from the MSgt's undergraduate general education. The CCAF has ridiculous requirements, so I guess it doesn't surprise me that much. You have to complete a speech class as a requirement to get your CCAF. I had two 400 level speech classes and a 500 level speech class at a good university. The 500 level class was a course that required you to lecture your thesis in front of a few hundred people. I sent in the syllabi of these courses to the CCAF and they said that I had to take a 101 level speech course. I enrolled in an online course taught by the prestigious Clovis Community College. That set me back $91 of my own hard earned money. I recorded three speeches and promptly received my CCAF diploma in the mail 7 months later. $91 is too much to pay for a CCAF degree.