tac airlifter

Flea, I appreciate your principled altruism…. sort of. But I do not want a convicted violent felon flying my family around the country when there are thousands of qualified alternate choices. I wouldn’t care if this guy was a sim instructor (which checks the meaningful employment box and societal integration you mention). Odd risk assessment that JetBlue would hire this dude but not an unvaccinated pilot without a criminal past.

Bro everything about the “official version” of that story smells like ass. Elon said what anybody with common sense was thinking.

Is this the origin of the mysterious framed poopy underwear in the Bagram TOC? I left a sticky note requesting the Taliban reach out with answers if they figure it out; nothing heard yet.

I had an awesome career that I’m very thankful for: met tons of great people, flew several aircraft, and got to hurt the enemy. Unfortunately it’s a broken organization led predominantly by petty losers and mini-tyrants. Having looked behind the curtain, it is as bad as the line flying captains think. ETA: I’m retiring in a few months after 21 years. Glad I stayed as long as I did, no regrets about leaving now.

Only if you ask.

This conversation proved my point: you immediately jumped to conclusions with the rules and laws why it cannot be done before even understanding the proposal. Turns out your assumptions were false and his point was 100% valid. I have seen that microcosm of interaction play out many times over the past 20 years of GWOT, which we lost, because we real time litigated every engagement in a fools errand of “near certainty.” How different might the outcome had been had we violently seized the initiative and exploited every target of opportunity with lower standards for perfection in an inherently, messy business? We will never know because lawyers shut it down, prolonged the conflict, and claimed a moral high ground for doing so. We are not a nation of barbarians who revel in innocent bloodshed (unlike many of our enemies), so don’t start by assuming the worst. However, academic definitions of “wartime atrocities” developed over coffee in Brussels have handcuffed us beyond the ability to win against true barbarians. “It doesn’t bother you in the slightest” to see it differently, a luxury provided you by tacticians who took moral risk to attain victory.

Flea, your concerns and logic are why the USA no longer wins wars. If we want to win, we must stop thinking about what we can’t do and stop pitting our lawyers against our tacticians.

Bro WTF

Julia Powell dead of heart attack at 49. But yea guys, this is totally normal.

Liberals champion censorship this negating your proposed solution. You cannot ban people from Twitter & college campus speaking engagements while simultaneously blaming them for not engaging in conversation.

DRACO definitely had many type 2 commanders. Great Americans; the plank holders built a mission focused culture, so well done. You’d be crazy proud of how the younger teammates made it better.

This is a valid point. 20 years ago. Nowadays Democrats are the party of prosecuting parents who do not want “doctors” chopping off their 13–year-olds genitals without their knowledge. These are not people who love the country as I do & we can find a way to meet in the middle. These are people who literally want to abolish the white race (among other dangerous positions). Has any population peacefully coexisted with such disparity in morality? “Live and let live” has been usurped by “obey or be punished” for Democrats. The peaceful solution is fully embracing our founding principals of limited and representative government which exists to enable life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness bounded by the constitution.

Many wonderful memories indeed. Informative to watch peers bifurcate into two broad command types: 1. Extreme focus on minutia of irrelevant things, especially uniform regulations, while excluding core topics like mission execution or individual competence in primary job. These are the “mission takes care of itself” types. 2. Extreme focus on team, mission and people but uninterested in “hands in pockets” or “sleeves rolled up” non-lethality impacting nuance. Type 1 is the dominant breed, although type 2 does exist. I am naïvely hoping for a collective moment of clarity by senior leaders acknowledging we suffered a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan and maybe that means we should change something about ourselves. Maybe we should focus on winning instead of fashion since the Taliban won wearing a non-uniform collection of sheets, rugs and shitty white Nikes.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-medals-afghan-airlift/ AMC awarding an additional 96 DFCs for action in Kabul.

Bro, I agree on all points. But violence is a funny thing. It’s a risk/reward calculation between using too little or too much. I think we use too little in Africa to achieve our objectives. And using too little is worse than none at all, it hardens enemy resolve and dilutes partner trust when it takes 45 min & 4FWIA to get a single hellfire on tgt. Philosophically, when using violence I’d prefer we start with too much then throttle back if required. We do the opposite because it’s better politics, but it’s worked precisely no where.

You missed out. Had you become a pilot you could baselessly speculate with the rest of us, instead you actually know WTF you’re talking about.

Good article, important subject. I’ve fought in in WA, Sahel and EA and offer 2 relevant observations: 1. Impossible to have serious impact on the enemy given high threshold for kinetic strikes (even those supporting partner TICs). Things that would be O4/O5 level TEA in the IZ/AFG heyday are GCC, DoS main and ambassador level. Lost strike opportunities and loss of partner trust are the norm. 2. We are fighting cross-border VEOs using a “strategy” restricted by borders. For example, AQIM moves freely between Niger, Mali, Algeria (and others) but authorities are drastically different in those 3 countries, and matched to the task in none. Unless we can fix those issues we’ll lose out there, but not before spending more blood and treasure.

I think Biden will run in 24; it’ll be another locked-in-the-basement campaign and our cowardly partisan media will play along. However, if Newsom is the D candidate I’ll be excited to watch the equity folx contort themselves justifying a white male overtaking our historic VP.

Wow, I’m surprised to hear that about the T1. We’ve been curtailing assignments to them for a while, if the platform is not divested I’m sure manning is weird.

Except the government leaned on those companies to act that way. Just like the government curtailed free-speech by leaning on social media companies to stay for debate or questions about vaccine efficacy.

Right.. unless they wanted to work a normal job, or travel to a big city, or visit their kids in school, or see their dying father in hospice, or take a cruise, or visit the doctor, or apply to college, etc. Democrats mandated this ineffective vaccine and colluded with big tech to censor scientific questions. I took it when ordered to and don’t like it but am not complaining; just like anthrax and all the other shit, it’s the cost of my chosen profession. Copy. I am complaining about my wife being forced to take it or be fired from her teaching job, and I am complaining that the hospital wouldn’t let my unvaxed son visit his grandad one last time before I pulled life support. Utter disgrace what was forced on this country, and disingenuous for anyone to pretend it wasn’t a democrat mandate. ETA: it’s gotten better now, especially in FL. But things went full retard for 2 years and democrats should be held accountable.

Worthwhile analysis of the bridge strike; I did not realize it was detonated via suicide truck bomb: Link This and NS2 sabotage are potentially pivotal incidents shaping the next few months. And nobody is taking credit and it’s not obvious who did it. Very strange.

Having the original shots (or single J&J) is considered fully vaccinated. Boosters remain under EUA and are not required per DOD policy. However it gets weird when it comes to deployments, because some countries have boosters or a shot within the past 180 days as entry requirements, which turns into unenforceable job requirements. I have a lot of visibility on this in my current role; suffice to say we are turning ourselves in knots for something that is useless.

I will be very interested to see if this policy is sustainable the next few years. Almost none of the kids starting fall 2023 freshman year of college with my son are vaccinated. As colleges are rapidly dropping their mandates, the incentive for a fit 18-year-old in peak shape to take something which provides zero protection and potentially damages his heart forever just isn’t there. This policy reduces the pool of available candidates, which ultimately is detrimental to national security