daynightindicator
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Posts posted by daynightindicator
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BFM is not a "lost art." If you are calling BFM art, the USAF air-to-air fighter communities are full Picassos.
As for the MAF to CAF transitions I had a FS/DO back in the day who came from the C-141...slightly above average DO with slightly below average hands.
I expect these crossovers will have a higher percentage of below average pilots who can hack the queep, be a bro, and have a great attitude. IMHO, in small numbers, those dudes are fine additions to the CAF. Not everyone can be God's gift to BFM like me (I kid, I kid)...but seriously, they can't.
Sorry, poor word choice on my part. Valid for a kill. Color me white.
Really I was wondering if you've seen any impact on readiness due to lack of sorties and/or flying hours. I know we have.
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1 hour ago, di1630 said:Man, I'll be honest, flying fighters isn't what you see in the movies. Hell, it's not even what it was 15 years ago and I'll tell you why.....Technology.
Don't get the idea that it's rolling in on a soviet tank in a 60 degree dive and pulling the trigger or saddling up on the 6 of a mig-29 with thrust vectoring to employ your gun.
It's just not like that. I won't say it could never happen but nowadays with bombs that can guide themselves to where you are looking with your helmet mounted sight or data linked missiles....you don't need to be chuck Yeager or robin olds reincarnated to be a good fighter pilot these days with the stick and rudder skills.
You will find however the successful fighter guys all have common attributes that allow them to work well as a team, problem solve, multi task, perform under pressure.
The biggest thing is you have to want it. A lot of dudes want to be fighter pilots but don't understand the reality of it. Hard work, long days, kicks in the junk by your IP's...but it all pays off.
It's an awesome job but again, not what you see on TV and 50 year old stories.
Out of curiosity, do you guys do things like "BFM Friday" or other things to practice the lost arts? Or are the sorties/hours/upgrade limitations bad enough that you have to focus 100% on current tech/tactics/weapons?
We had similar issues in the Bone...between the number of MQT and upgrade studs, and constantly evolving TTPs for new weapons and threats, we had little time left to just rage around low level building airmanship and stick/rudder skills. About the only thing that ever caught traction was doing a GPS-out day every week, but that had leadership buy-in due to projected contested environments.
Also, so as not to derail the thread too much...I think this projected MAF/CAF swap will have less detrimental affect on the bomber community. If you have the right attitude, you'll most likely succeed. We've had a few bad experiences with dudes straight out of T-1s but they weren't the norm, and the one constant among them was attitude. The herbivore, risk-adverse dude will have trouble, at least in the B-1. Even with good hands, you'll have problems with your peers when it comes to mission management and leadership.
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I think a major driver in this situation was the number of selects who punched/opted out. I was the 4/5 alternates from my wing to pick up a slot, and that was months ago. I'm sure the 5th dude also got picked up.
I haven't seen numbers but my gut tells me they were simply scrambling to fill seats.
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Kilo,
Totally agree, there will be no 2A repeal in our lifetime, if ever.
I guess the big-picture hypothetical question is, since our oath is to the constitution (whatever it may be amended to read, not just as we like it), at what point would changes to said document reach a tipping point where those who took the oath refuse to continue to support and defend? Obviously it's probably at different points for different folks, but it's an interesting question.
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I don't think the scenario will go down like this. They will eliminate gun rights via death by a thousand cuts. Massive tax increases on guns and ammo is the first step. Shut down shooting ranges because of "lead contamination". Repeal CCW. Etc. They certainly won't send police and military around to confiscate firearms. There's an easier way; once they have ownership lists (whether via registration, data mining, asking your kids at school, etc.), they simply make any interaction with the government contingent upon surrendering your firearms. Want to renew your license plates? Turn in your guns. Want to get a tax refund? Turn in your guns. Want to vote? Turn in your guns. Etc...
So, each situation you listed would certainly be challenged in court, and many would probably eventually lead to a SCOTUS ruling to determine the constitutionality of such laws, and possibly force SCOTUS to issue a more comprehensive interpretation of 2A. If that interpretation were to significantly change gun ownership rights, it would, despite anyone's personal opinions of the subject matter, be a lawful action by SCOTUS under the constitution.
The other, far less likely (IMO) situation would be a repeal or textual amendment of 2A. Again, regardless of anyone's position on the issue, it would be a legal action (no amendment is above repeal despite strong feelings about some) if the amendment was ratified IAW the constitution.
My question is, since both situations would involve a legal action under the constitution, is what would you do? Nothing in the constitution puts any amendment above repeal. The Bill of Rights don't have any legal status above the other amendments (not a lawyer so if I'm wrong please let me know).
I've asked some friends of mine what they would do if 2A was repealed, and it's a pretty interesting point to ponder.
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Thanks, Spoo. Right now my SURF doesn't show any JPME credit, although it does show IDE non-res complete. I'm planning on calling AU tomorrow about it, and I'm definitely going to talk to my service advisor here.
It's not a huge deal but my main concern is that I would be taking up a JPME slot that someone else could benefit from.
To your question, I think the answer is no, especially now that you can't even sign up for correspondence until your third look.
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Well, using the civil war as an example, the Union army was the United States Army. Any insurrection, no matter how big, would have to form an opposing force. I would imagine that anyone serving in the active duty or reserves would face heavy penalties (treason, I would imagine) if they fought for/with any opposing force. National Guard units would be an interesting case (since this hypothetical insurrection would most likely break down along state lines in many cases).
There's another good article out there about a "Texit" and how seceding is an illegal act in itself, of course if you're seceding you probably don't recognize the authority of the system anyway.
However, the government is within its legal bounds to act militarily to squash any secession or insurrection.
Interesting debate topic for sure.
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Bump for a question...
I'm currently at IDE (NIU) and have been put into a JPME concentration. However, I completed the AF OLMP a few years ago with a joint warfare concentration, which I was told at the time would get me JPME phase 1 credit.
I don't want to eat up a JPME slot here if there's someone else who can benefit from it, and I don't want to relearn the same things either. Did anyone else do the OLMP and receive JPME phase 1 credit?
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Concur with all above. See flight doc immediately. Expect to be DNIF until 90-120 days post-surgery if you go that route.
Waiver is easy to get (had it for 8ish years now) and shouldn't DQ you from ejection seats/fighters. I'm a B-1 guy, but have flown in Vipers and Hornets since the surgery with no issues.
Doc may suggest PT prior to surgery. I did about a month of it, told them it wasn't working, so they sent me under the knife. Surgery wasn't too bad. Outpatient, about a week of being laid up, back to normal within a month, however the minimum DNIF period was like 90 days per the reg.
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1 hour ago, brabus said:
I've only seen one fighter patch be an exec. I'm sure it's happened more than that one guy, but it's safe to say such a thing is extremely rare. That is insane 1/2 of the execs you've seen have been patches, what a colossal waste of expertise/knowledge.
The ass-backwards thing is "leadership" is usually trying to hook those guys up with school slots, etc. by making them the wing/group exec. We've had a few WG/CCs of late who have been very forward in telling their rated officers that they don't stack up well against the support officers around base. My issue with that is that it's the WG/CC who decides which criteria to use in the rack'n'stack process! Stop using volunteering and other useless BS as a criteria for promotion/school competition! Stop telling instructor/evaluator/patch-wearers working 12-hr/day ADO gigs that some shoe has a better record because he's a "DO" of the FSS or other similar non-rate unit!
I had a WG/CC once tell me that being MCC for a large force employment (both combat mission or flag) wasn't "real leadership" and that unless you're in charge of dozens of airmen on a daily basis, that the non-rated O's would always have a leg up. That right there is probably the issue.
Afterthought...one issue that differs from the fighter patch world is that since our WIC is a GSU, it's an uphill battle for our WIC instructors to compete in the 57th WG. That drives some of the game where they try to get a guy a school slot prior to sending him/her to instruct at WIC.
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97E. It already exists.
Is it an additional AFSC or sub-AFSC like 91/92?
My point was to make it a no shitter career field.
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2 hours ago, HU&W said:
1. Bring back the orderly room AFSC. And it needs to be an AFSC, not an additional duty for some other afsc.
2. Train the folks in that AFSC on the basics of ALL common unit additional duties and admin support. Ops addl duties like stan eval, weapons, etc would obviously stay with the guys doing it. Same with mx specific addl duties, along with other squadrons where it relates to the primary duty.
3. Staff EVERY unit with a 3-6 person orderly room.
4. Profit.
Step 1a. Create "Executive Officer" AFSC. I'm pretty sure the personal assistant to Google's CEO is not some up and coming programmer who is "career broadening" on their way to the top.
BTW, I've met a few support officers who actually really enjoyed doing exec-style work. They were good at it, and they all said if they could have stayed in doing that as a primary duty, they wouldn't have left the USAF after their 4/5 year ADSC.
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Some PRF-related wisdom from the inbox
This is a great read and extremely accurate. Young guys should take heed.
I'll add (from my position as an on-time non-HPO guy myself) a few of my personal observations...
In my little corner of the CAF, in the past few years I've noticed a possible pendulum swing in a favorable direction. I know a few on-timers currently serving as OG/CCs, and just recently have seen a few on-time dudes get hired as SQ/CCs over some BTZers. These were seen as surprising moves and in each case the dude chosen has a great rep as a solid bro who is well respected in the jet. None were career CCEs and in one case not even a school guy. On the other hand, the BTZers that were not hired had crappy reps as careerists and were not respected in the jet. I think this is a sign of leadership possibly realizing that performance, reputation, and demonstrated combat leadership abilities outweigh the box-check/pedigree method that was always seen as the standard for advancement.
The best advice I ever received was from my flight commander when I showed up at my first ops squadron. "You should strive to be the guy that people want to be on the flight schedule with - to do that you need to be good in the jet. After that, be good at your ground job, and then be good in the bar - in that order."
My experience is that if you work hard to be respected by your peers and subordinates, good leaders will notice and build their impression of you from those actions. Crappy leaders may not see that and you'll probably have a few of those. Treat them like threats - avoid if possible, if not minimize time in their MEZ and move on, pressing the attack on priority targets.
Timing and luck are mostly out of your control, but if you keep your head down and press you'll maximize your chances of being in the right place at the right time when the phone rings at 2AM.
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Situation: A squadron needs help filling spots on a deployment, so you want to help. BUT, your wing is not tasked with filling that "spot." Is it an AFPC function to hand out "taskers" to Wings and can the squadron that needs help ask for these taskers to be filled by a specific wing? Bottom line, how do you help out another squadron as an X band guy (not currently on a CAF AEF), but get credit for that deployment so your Wing doesn't "lose a guy" on that band (i.e. there were 10 spots to fill, but you went on this random help a bro out deployment, so the wing really "lost" 11 individuals during that band) AND you get credit for deploying in that band (i.e. checked the "I filled a tasker" container during your X band). Hopefully this makes sense...anyone dealt with this / know how to make everyone play nice to make it work for all parties involved?
In the current climate (i.e. too many deployment taskers, not enough people), the wing you want to support will have to buy a deployment from your wing and essentially "trade" for you to deploy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially depending on what kinds of deployments tend to drop for your wing. Example - I'm in the 53rd Wing (Operational Test) and we get a lot of random deployments - everything from "expeditionary air base/DO" to "air defense liaison", etc. While it's not necessary to send a patch/senior IP to fill those slots, due to the nature of our wing that's usually who ends up going. However, we're usually able to have our dudes augment their communities for a traditional ops deployment, and those wings will accept the random deployments and give them to people who might actually benefit from them (CE or support officers).
Bottom line is you need buy-in from the wing you want to support, and they should be able to make it happen.
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Danny and Karl, I agree with nearly all of your points but I would point out a few areas where I disagree or have other thoughts. I'm short on time so this might be a little disjointed.
- B-1s are actually on a 1:1 right now (first sq just got back from theirs). This is temporary and partially due to some intra-community logistics, but the bottom line is a good portion of the B-1 ops crews either have done or will do a 1:1 within the next year or so. I do understand your basic point that other career fields have a higher tempo.
- This will sound very egotistical, but I do think that most rated dudes could transition easily to most non-rated fields and perform well. The same can't be said in reverse. After all, we don't send Finance B-Course washouts to UPT, but we do it the other way around. That right there says something about the difficulty level of the career fields. I'm not shitting on non-rated officers here - we all know some fantastic leaders outside of the ops world - but to say that a pilot/nav would not be "qualified" to go lead a SFS or FSS is, IMHO, not true.
- Why don't we have a career field for execs? Either make it an AFSC or hire a GS civ. The outside world has executive and personal assistants, so why not let people who WANT to do that job do it? A friend of mine finished her duty in the AF (4 year ROTC commitment, non-rated) as an OG exec. She loved it. She was good at it. Why not just offer people the opportunity to do it as a real job and stop taking dudes who would be better used flying and training others to fly?
- Although it might be difficult to explain or document flight/mission lead duties, we need to do a better job of capturing that performance. Being a mission commander at Red Flag, or especially in a real-world op, IS leadership. When done well it demonstrates exceptional decision-making abilities and highlights other characteristics we want to develop in our future leaders. That type of thing should absolutely be OPR/PRF material and should be right up there with leading a section, shop, or support squadron.
Gotta run but I'll write more later. This is a good discussion.
Edited due to double post.
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And AF Assistance Fund, AF Ball/Holiday Party Planning, SOS DG, Change of Command POC, fraud/waste/abuse online AAD, insert-whatever-additional-duty-bullshit-here bullets/box checking demonstrates that someone can coordinate the killing of a-holes?
How about the OPR, as a reflection of your primary duty, actually allow you to talk about your primary duty? You shouldn't have to "hide" that on some Air Medal in order to backdoor its way onto your PRF. Ugh.
How would I fix it? At a minimum, separate promotions by AFSC up to the O-4 level. Allow each individual AFSC to determine what's important for promotion. Perhaps bullshit and box checking and a valid AAD are important to, say, 17Ds. Then let their promotions reflect that. Perhaps deployments and combat missions/weapons employed/etc are important for a 12B. Let their promotions reflect that.
Retention in a particular AFSC sucks? Combine this with targeted incentives- most likely monetary since we all know that QOL isn't improving in this never-ending "do more with less" environment. You already see this a bit- missileers getting money thrown at them to make them less miserable, 11Fs getting expanded bonus options (though it's still just 18k/year after taxes, the same since the late 1990s...), etc. 11Ms bailing left and right as the airlines hire thousands a year? Adjust the career field accordingly, and/or throw more money at them.
No large civilian organization lumps all of their junior to mid-level employees together into one big pile, regardless of specialty, and then has them compete for promotion. An 11F's CGO experience could not be more different than a 17D, a finance guy, PA, Security Forces, MX, etc. Yet we treat them as equals. It doesn't make any ######ing sense. So why does the AF do it this way?
Because leadership is hard and time consuming. It's easier to just come up with a ridiculous one-size-fits-all career path, and pretend that all career fields are equal- "officer first!!!!1". Shifting from macro LAF promotions to micro AFSC promotions would require the AF to acknowledge that some career fields are more equal than others. And the AF absolutely HATES that fact.
Dude, great answer.
And for the record, the party-planning, fundraising, SOS-DG stuff is complete horseshit and should not be considered.
I totally agree with AFSC-segregated promotions, even if stats prove that would be detrimental to rated dudes. I don't care about an advantage. Give me fair, and I will win through hard work and performance.
I wasn't trying to justify the system at all - my only point is that if we go "combat only" with our bullets, we won't really win the game since most of us rated guys have done nothing but fight the good fight for 10+ years. There has to be a way to establish your promotion rates and priorities. Your examples are great ideas and I can only hope our "leaders" (and that's in parentheses for a god damned reason) take notice.
I am just as frustrated as anyone on this board. But we need to offer concrete examples of improvement, just like you did, in order to effect any change.
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Well, I've certainly learned something today. I always thought the air medal citations for twenty combat missions were cookie-cutter (mine all are, and so are 95% of the ones for guys I deployed with). I thought it was standard, pre-approved verbiage, not individually broken out statistics.
I'll file that knowledge away for future deployments.
Dude, I'm in the same boat, but really do you think #enemy killed, etc, really tells the board whether you are able to command at the next level? Lt-mid-level captain, those are good bullets. Above that, you need to demonstrate that you can coordinate the killing of a-holes. And believe me, as a dude with 10 AMs, I really wish they would carry me on the promotion board, but being a "leader" these days requires more than just putting bombs on target. I say that half-sarcastically, but at the same time, you know most of your bros have the same exact stats, so if you were in charge, how would you choose your promotion rates/leaders? Honest question...
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Apologies in advance for slight thread derail, but I'll try to bring it back at the end...
They told us how Gucci the new CITS would be (that, for example, it would have common codes pre-programmed so you wouldn't have to type in a 20 digit alpha-numeric, that it would display 8 lines of data, etc). I'm not in the test squadron, so I haven't seen the new one yet, but I'll be a little disappointed if it really is just the same three lines we currently have.
The new CITS can display 19 PMCs at one time, can access PMCs via selecting an aircraft subsystem, converts volts and hex code into English values, and provides expanded CMC info (a "real" English message) when something flags. You can save code lists to a card and load it in the jet to avoid hand-jamming all your codes. It's far from perfect but it's a huge step forward, which is how I would describe SB-16 as a whole. Huge leap forward with some potholes that we'll have to deal with.
As for the radar display, that's a Northrop Grumman product (vice Boeing) so it's a separate upgrade (RMIP phase II/III). Still fighting for funding on that one and there are several COAs to include a possible but financially unlikely AESA. I'm actually going to get a look at the prototype RDU replacement next month at the Northrop facility in Baltimore - I'm looking forward to seeing what they've come up with.
The reason these systems are upgraded in the manner that they are is because it is increasingly difficult - nearly impossible, really - to ask for modifications and enhancements that bring new capabilities to 3rd and 4th gen aircraft. The F-22, F-35, and LRSB are sucking up all the acquisition money, so all that's really left is money for sustainment. They key for the ops/test communities in the old-school jets is to leverage sustainment funds in smart ways that will enhance capability.
Let's say you own a video game console - we'll say it's an Atari - and receive "sustainment" money every year to keep your capability of playing video games. Since Atari's and their components aren't being manufactured anymore, you would try to sell the gov't on the fact that to "sustain the capability," you need to purchase a new system (PS4). Obviously with a PS4 comes enhanced performance, but this request still falls under "sustainment." You make this argument by saying that life cycle costs will be reduced because now, instead of taking your broken Atari to some guy in his mom's basement who charges a million bucks to fix it, you can take your PS4 (which since it is new should have fewer problems anyway) to Best Buy if it craps out, or buy much cheaper replacement parts since they're still being manufactured on the open market.
We have to do the same thing with the jets/radars/etc. since there's very little money for true "upgrades" unless you're 5th-gen.
To bring this all the way around - if the USAF can't get costs for poorly negotiated acquisition programs under control, we'll abolish ourselves. It's mind-blowing how poorly we do acquisitions. Almost criminal from a taxpayer point of view.
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I believe that the Senate could modify it and send it back to the house.
Agree 100% - here's hoping that happens, although it's probably a long shot.
You really think that this will keep "flying hour cuts, no TDYs, cancelled Red Flags/WIC classes, and other serious cuts to O&M accounts" from happening again? The roughly $6B proposed savings is a mere drop in the bucket. If we take this with no pushback do you really think that a further erosion of our benefits will not continue? This one is just the tip of the iceberg if it passes.
The way I understand it, the budget deal restores the ~$63B in sequester cuts to this year's budget and whatever the cuts would have been for FY15 as well (not sure of the amount). I understand the $6B saved by the COLA adjustment will not be reinvested directly (it was just a part of making the overall deal) but I have been lead to believe we will definitely see relief from last year's battle-axe-style cuts that forced cancelled LFEs, WIC, and TDYs. The big win here is eliminating sequester for at least two years.
So, to answer your question I think flying hours will be cut, but minimally (i.e., no "tiered readiness" garbage), and that the purse strings will loosen slightly re: TDYs and LFEs.
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out of curiousity, how many people on here are actually advocating scrapping the entire budget deal because of the COLA reduction?
i'm not happy about it either, and i totally understand the outrage/feeling that there are many other ways to drum up the cash that it will save, but do you really want to go through another year or more of reduced (or "tiered") readiness, flying hour cuts, no TDYs, cancelled Red Flags/WIC classes, and other serious cuts to O&M accounts?
i would love to see the Senate amend the proposal but if it comes down to yes/no on this, i will take what i consider to be a relatively minor hit to ensure our readiness.
it sucks, but life's not fair. i will certainly ask my representatives to modify this at a later date and try to restore the funding, but i'm not willing to fall on a sword that's going to cut DEEP into readiness b/c of a 1% COLA cut to a pension i won't see for another 10 years, if i even stay that long.
just curious how the rest feel...
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I've been at both bases and flying-wise it will be the same at both bases.
Disagree. Sortie durations (with the exclusion of the hysterical sequestration-induced flying hours binge-purge) will typically be longer at Dyess due to the lack of nearby airspace to facilitate all training requirements. A 2.0 to PRT at Ellsworth can get you just about every currency bean, whereas Dyess requires either hitting multiple MOAs/IR routes or flying farther away to a better range.
The mission sets are pretty much the same, however, so it's not like the Dyess and Ellsworth crews train much differently. Ellsworth just has access to better airspace and the MX rates are higher.
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A few puts on the different aspects of this topic.
First, I think arguing for a shake-up in the promotion process (as far as multiple looks IPZ, etc) is not what we should be focusing on. I'd rather see senior raters receive better guidance from their superiors - i.e., "do not use X/Y/Z as discriminators for stratification." I don't want to handcuff them too much, but multiple stories in this thread have proven that many SRs just don't get it and are making bad decisions.
Second, Big Blue needs to make a final decision on if and when they want their officers to have an AAD. No more "highly recommended" or "implied through promotion stats" or any of that BS. Just come out and say whether it is a requirement or not and for what rank. I would assume that most senior leaders want their O-4s to have an AAD. The merits of that can be debated but I'd rather just have a definitive answer.
My compromise on the whole thing would be...(assuming the "majors should have an AAD" would be the policy)...
- Make it mandatory for all rated and select non-rated officers to finish the Air University Online Masters in order to be selected for promotion to O-4. Benefits to this would be that the Air Force controls the curriculum and can adjust it as conflicts and doctrine evolve. The course content is applicable to all rated officers (better understanding of joint organization, command and control, leadership and history). It's free, no ADSC is incurred, and doing this might help run the diploma mills out of business (who take about $700M tax dollars from the American public per year in TA/GI Bill money).
- Open the eligibility for the program to O-3 pin on date. This gives members 4 years or so to finish the program prior to the O-4 board. It's only 11 8-week classes (88 weeks of class but you have 208 weeks to complete). This allows plenty of time to take a class, take a break for a deployment or high-tempo time period, then pick it up again later. The classes honestly don't take up too much time, and occasionally you even learn something useful.
- Let SRs know that they cannot use GPA or date of completion during stratification. Allow the board to see only whether or not the member has completed the program.
- Eliminate SOS and ACSC corr since the program teaches all this anyway.
Again, this is a COMPROMISE. I hate AADs as much as the next guy but I think this is a fair meeting point that would satisfy Big Blue's desires while minimizing negative impact to the average rated officer.
That's my .02, I know some will disagree.
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I'm pretty confident they will tell me to do the most painful one possible. I'm not asking if I CAN sign up for it...I'm asking if there's any additional value added for a guy who already has a Master's, or is this only for dudes who do not have a Master's degree prior to meeting their major/school boards?
I think the intent is for guys who have no masters and want to combine it with in-corr IDE. I am just about done with it and I would NOT do it if you already have a masters. There is significantly more asspain involved than if you just do the correspondence IDE course. Best case it takes about 64 weeks so you're looking at over a year even if you max perform it, longer if you miss a course here or there for PFAs. It's not a difficult program but it's extremely annoying.
I can't see value added unless you really think two AADs will make a difference down the road, but of course if you go to school you'll get a second AAD anyway (third if you do SAAS).
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I'm about to complete the academic courses for the AU OLMP. Anyone taken their Research Electives and do you really need to have a topic selected prior to enrolling in the first one?
I just started the research electives 1 class - the professor is much more intense than any of the other courses and you need to have a good hack at your topic in week 1. The course is front loaded (multiple assignments due each week for the first half). The professor is very critical of most topic suggestions, and it's difficult to find something interesting since you're limited to open-source/unclass stuff. I would have three topic ideas when you start so you can get one "approved" and narrowed down quickly.
Where were you on September 11, 2001?
in Squadron Bar
Posted
I was a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park...woke up a little later than usual since I didn't have class until 1030. No TVs were on in the house, and my roommates were either in class or sleeping. I got a call from a roommate's sister who was frantically trying to get in touch with her. I explained she was in class, and she said "With the bombing at the Pentagon I wanted to make sure she was all right." I turned on the TV in time to watch the second tower fall. I ran outside and saw the smoke billowing from the Pentagon (UMD-CP is only several miles from DC). Spent the rest of the morning trying to get a hold of my sister, who worked in DC, and my mom to let her know I was okay. I was glued to the TV and was in complete bewilderment as I read ticker headlines that included "fighter patrols established over all major US cities", "aircraft carriers patrolling both coasts", and "US borders locked down, armed forces on war footing", among other reports of additional attacks that were thankfully inaccurate.
Later that afternoon my roommates and I called different area hospitals to see if we could donate blood, but they already had more donors than they could handle.
In the weeks following, I saw National Guard checkpoints in downtown DC and patriot missile batteries on the national mall. It was a scene I never thought I would ever see in my country and one I hope we will never have to see again.
Although I had already signed my contract for the USAF, my catalyst for service immediately went from wanting an exciting adventure to a somber and concrete desire to get into the fight we all knew was coming. It took another 5 years before I would pitch into the fight in OEF, but I still remember that day as a stark dividing line between two distinctly separate worlds that have since defined our lives and service.