nsplayr

My squadron had a heritage patch that was more or less exactly like the original worn by our predecessors. We would rock it every Friday and never heard anything but compliments from other people on base including members of other squadrons, other squadron/group leadership, retirees, etc. We were told no mas about 9 months ago from somewhere on high. Such a shame...glad other units are still able to rock their heritage.

Here's the thing I think might not be clear, I 100% agree. I don't want women in positions where they can't hack it, just like I don't want men in positions who can't hack it. Honest self assessment, I could not hack it as a SEAL or PJ or whatever. Based on the average athletic ability of my wife and myself, I'm about 90% sure there's no way my daughter could make it either. BUT, if for some reason she's an athletic freak and really is hard-up to kick some ass and take some names, I don't see any reason why she should be barred from giving it a shot. I'm not in favor of lowering standards of allowing women just to feel good, but I am in favor of everyone having a fair shot at qualifying if that's what they want to do. So the policy is right in my opinion, the execution is TBD obviously because it hasn't started, but the couple of examples of this being tried so far (Female Marine officers trying out for infantry and getting cut) seem to be working out just fine WRT upholding the standards. The other thing I like in these stories is that mil leaders are talking about how physical requirements should be based on job performance and not some arbitrary measure of pushups/pullups/situps/running. If the result of this is that all services move to a functional fitness test rather than seeing who's fast at running 1.5 miles, that's a win for everyone.

I think I've been over this before, I am serious in the opinions I hold. Are you guys telling me no one one here has daughters in the military? No one in here has sisters who are helo pilots? No one in here has female cousins who pulled convoy duty in Iraq/Afghanistan? No one has female relatives or friends serving on carriers, at FOBs, etc. etc.?? You never want your loved ones to be in danger, obviously, but if that's the career she wants then she'll be a great American for choosing to serve her country. Daddy will perhaps offer up the advantages to being an AF officer flying airplanes vs, say, an enlisted infantryman kicking down doors, but if she really can hack that she's tougher than me.

I have a daughter who's my precious little girl; thought about it and sold. Gotta practice what you preach and if she wants to volunteer when she's all grown up, good on her. And if we were having a draft again at this point in history we've got bigger problems to worry about than women serving in ground combat units...

I mean, I sorta understand the intellectual argument that for some people, gender identity and your god-given physical sex are not aligned but it's still weird, even for me as a liberal and big supporter of gay rights. Probably will take a lot more time for people to accept it but I have no doubt some day it will be...progress marches on even though I'm sure someday I'll be one of the old cranky white guys shaking my fist at all the weird sh*t kids are into "these days."

This has been said during every single sociological change ever implemented by the military and I'd argue exactly the opposite. In the military you have people who work closely together to achieve common goals under harsh and stressful situations. That's a pretty good place for people to see past their inherent biases and realize we're all underpinned by something shared and decent and good as human beings. That doesn't preclude problems, but I think it makes it easier to integrate "X" population in the military than it does in just a random group of Americans in some other average profession. This is hard to argue with, she seems truly awful.

Correcting pilot's obvious/lazy mistakes? Yes, navs are good at that from time to time. Disagree, it just doesn't keep me up at night because I'm aware of the political realities that face any attempt to institute a new AWB or high-cap magazine limit. I find the President's position, although I disagree with it, totally consistent with the Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled, in several cases and even recently, that the government can restrict and regulate some types of firearms. With that precedent established, now we're just arguing over where to draw the line and there are numerous opinions on where that should be. Credibility is unneeded and frankly I'm a rather amateur gun enthusiast compared to some of the pros around here. Feel free to tell me I'm full of shit when discussing which firearms are better than others of similar type, the ballistic merits of one caliber vs another, etc. I've enjoyed range reports in this thread and learned some things I didn't know before. I'm expressing my opinions on gun control (which line up with many people here, those who want to give civilians RPGs notwithstanding), and my credibility in particular on the political analysis that an AWB will not pass Congress I think has been established elsewhere. If any of the political geniuses who were recently predicting a significant Romney victory or that the GOP would retake the Senate want to educate me on why I should be scared of an AWB passing even though a full ~50% of Congress, including numerous Democrats, have an "A" rating from the NRA, I'm all ears...the votes are not there. Universal background checks might pass. Increasing funding to states and local governments to hire or train armed guards in schools might pass. Mental health reforms might pass. The high-cap magazine ban, maybe 5-10% chance of passing the Senate since some of the conservative, "A" rated Democrats have come out and said they don't know why people should have high-cap magazines, 0% chance in the GOP House. Feinstein's AWB - 0% chance of passing the Senate or the House. I'll bet my credibility on political analysis on that. Rog

"I disagree with you, therefore I must question your credentials!" It's the same story with Obama...that boy must not be from 'round here... Jebus...yes, I am a proud member of the United States Air Force. I am personal friends with two other fine members of BO.net and know of several others, who also know of me out in the real world. Hell, HeloDude has my name and squadron and an offer to have a beer on me based on our debates about the election, why don't you ask him? Do any of these facts change my views? Have you literally not ever met a single liberal military aviator or someone who supports the Democratic party? Open your eyes dude, not everyone shares the same set of political views or values, surprising as that may be.

That's your prerogative, I can't say I'm a one-issue voter on anything and the whole package (sts) matters more than specific issues, even ones that are very important to me. As long as you're willing to realize you're in the about 5% of the population that does not support any, gun control measures of any kind (automatics, RPGs, tanks, etc.), then cool, vote as you please. I'm not sure there will be a lot of viable candidates that are able to meet your litmus test. Even the most conservative justices of a fairly conservative Supreme Court have interpreted the Constitution differently than you have. Yep, his views were clear and should not have been a surprise to anyone. The fact that I disagreed on that one issue did not change the overall calculus of who to vote for, Obama vs Romney. And it does come down to values, and the values expressed by President Obama and the Democratic Party generally are in much better alignment with my own than those express by Romey et. al. Republicans. FIFY. And yea, I'm almost positive I'd vote for Cuomo over Jindhal if they were the nominees. Although I like Cuomo significantly less than Obama and would support someone else in the primary over him, his values are much better aligned with my own than Jindal. Jindal isn't my least-favorite Republican, but then again neither was Romney by a long-shot. Then don't feel sorry for me, I don't shoot a ton anyways so it's not cramping my style too bad. Feel sorry for those people out there paying insane $$$ for guns and ammo out of fearful, emotional reactions to legislation that is not going to be come law. Many people on BO.net (not sure if you specifically, don't remember) frequently accuse liberals of acting emotionally and in knee-jerk ways. Care to explain the current state of the gun industry any differently? I'm saying everyone, especially gun enthusiasts would be better served by toning down the fear to at least start to alleviate the panic buying that's driving up prices and doing nothing but line the pocketbooks of those in the industry who are profiting greatly while providing no new or different or improved product or service to consumers. Maybe that will come down the road...all that increase in profits can lead to some new and awesome shit at SHOT Show 2014 or 2015...one can hope right? Do you get it that my support for him is already a forgone conclusion and that his victory in the last election of his life is as well? Like, there's virtually nothing that's factual you could bring up about Obama that would surprise me or make me recant my support and also that other than impeachment, there is no way for him not to be the President for another 4 years? My values align well with his and most of the policies he's enacted as President have been ones I supported, wouldn't you strongly support someone with whom you had that kind of agreement? Ok, with that cleared up, is anything he said in that video untrue? Does Feinstein's bill actually confiscate any guns that you already own? It says right in the text at the link above that any firearms legally possessed before the enactment of the bill are exempt. Has President Obama signed any executive orders that confiscate guns of any kind? Thought not...he supports an AWB and high-cap magazine ban, I do not. I'm also about 99% sure these proposals will not pass Congress. So I sleep well at night and am unwavering in my overall support despite disagreeing on this one issue. That's a quality most conservatives used to possess.

So you're saying I should have changed my vote for a person who I agree with politically and policy-wise on most issues, because of this one issue (high prices/low supply of guns and ammo)? Changed my vote to Mitt Romney because gee, now it's frustrating to try to find 9mm ammo? Really? Do you swing your vote because of one issue from someone you agree with the vast majority of the time to someone you totally disagree with except on that one issue? I doubt it. Dude, I'm perfectly willing to accept a 90% solution, I would advise that conservatives learn to do the same once again. And you're right, Obama has been the country's leading gun salesman, 5 years running. He should get an industry award or something. I'm sure that the manufactures and distributors, in the strict pocketbook sense, were fairly pleased with his reelection because it (along with, ya know, numerous mass shootings and the reactions to them) have been driving sales through the f-ing roof.

So all you had to do to greatly strengthen your argument, which I agree with BTW, was a 6-9 second google search to find something, anything with a little more cred than reddit, yet you failed to do so? Got it. Do I? Can't say I remember that, feel free to show me where.

Thank you, that is a significantly better source. Citing reddit just made me lol a little bit, as well as the whole "not sure if this is true, but I'm sharing anyways!" attitude. I'm pretty sure I agree with almost everyone here that this bill is ridiculous but what I also think is that it's na-gu, na-gu, not gonna pass, so my level of fear about the whole thing is near zero. If other people started to catch on to that attitude then maybe I could find some damn ammo again.

Great source. Spread the fear!!! Like you said, a new AWB is 100% not gonna get through Congress, so can we agree to tamp down the fear just a little bit so firearm and ammo availability/prices can slowly, someday, fall back to something resembling reasonable?

I certainly hope so. I uphold the same standards regardless of gender or whatever else when I'm instructing students, hopefully the ground combat dudes at the various pipelines schools will continue to be empowered to do the same. If that's not the case at some point down the road it's bad implementation of an otherwise good policy. I agree with you that men will try to protect women, but are you really saying that gay men are somehow different and don't protect women in the same ways as straight men? You must know different gay guys than I do...what's your basis for that claim? 100% agree there are problems caused by this, that's obvious. But the problems are worth getting the values question right and at least in my experience the benefit of having some ass-kicking chicks flying with me has far outweighed the costs of a little gender-based friction from time to time. YMMV.

Cool, my views are so fantastical and unrealistic that they're now official policy. Congratulations on your dissent, the DOD will march on.

Seems like it depends on who owns the meters, is it the city or the company or the homeowner? Unless it's the third option (which the story implies that the county owns the equipment), tough luck even if it's attached to your house.

Unlike all those clown-show communities that just go out when the WX is good and fly some acro in the MOA, ya know, for fun Seriously...get over yourself.

You're right, but it should factor in values. I don't think this was really a hot-button, emotional, knee-jerk reaction issue...it came as a pretty big surprise when the story broke. Apparently they'd been working on it at the Pentagon for a while. Great example chief...that totally negates your point. There is no rule that prohibits women from playing in the NFL. None. You're right that no woman has played in the NFL nor would one playing be very likely, but they're banned by performance, not by policy. That's exactly what the new DOD rules will be, limits based on performance, not on arbitrary policy. It's exactly what I think there should be; its not that I think there should be or in reality will be a bunch of female SEALs running around anytime soon, but if someone wants to try by God let them and see if they measure up. The Marines just tried this, failed out the women who didn't make it, and looks like no butts were hurt anymore so then when dudes fail out. That's the ideal model so let's make that happen. Yes, combat, I'm aware of what we're talking about. If you wanna throw spears for putting this into place talk to the Joint Chiefs who recommended this to SECDEF apparently without any newsworthy fanfare (unlike the DADT debate). But I guess those guys don't know WTF they're talking about either WRT combat... Valid criticism and I share your dream. It's really a Dr. King-type dream, that one day my children and their children can serve honorably in a military like that of Starship Troopers, where tits and ass flop around freely while covered in hot water and soap

Guess we just disagree then. "Violating societal norms" has been done several times in the past within the U.S. military and there has yet to be the "unit cohesion-pocalypse" that had been predicted before each change. Women, blacks, female pilots, women on submarines, open homosexuals, etc. There will be problems, as Mr. Smith points out, and we'll have to find ways to mitigate them. Hell, there are problems the AF is experiencing now with crating a "professional work atmosphere" and women have been in the military since 1948. Some of it is BS and some of the problems in the future will be raised by BSers who in reality can't hack it, no doubt. So while I don't dismiss Mr. Smith's example (that sounded like it was horrible BTW), in my view the problems that will arrise are not so great as to preclude equality of opportunity. Pretend you wanted to do a job in the military, you thought you could hack the requirements, but were barred from doing so because you were a man. Imagine that job is really 240,000 jobs, many of which are the best tickets to reaching the top (i.e. combat arms in the Army), assuming reaching the top is your goal or maybe you really just have a hard-on for that job. The Golden Rule applies...put yourself in the other person's shoes and tell me how you would feel.

I can only assume this is who you mean:

Good on the Marines for leading the way on this, they're ahead of the SECEDF's direction so are potentially better positioned to know what to expect compared with the Army or smaller Navy/AF ground components. If they fail out or can't hack it then thanks for playing and in that story it talks about how those women's feedback was that it was harder than they imagined. In practice it may be hard to uphold the standards yet keep everybody happy (and lawsuit free!) but in theory if someone can hack the standards there's no good enough reason to bar them simply because of their gender. I'm hopeful the services can figure out a way to make it work like they always have whenever stuff like this has come up in the past.

Blame the copilot, seems about right.

Story here. From the article:

With minor corrections kinda sounds like some of the gyms I've worked out at while deployed. Not that I minded.

I am a big fan of all three of the recommendations cited in the article (haven't read the book to get the full explanation, but they sounds good in the cliff notes version). 1. Commanders get hiring authority - I know several people who would love to do the job I'm doing right now. I would love to do several other jobs out there in the Big Blue world, some occupied by those same people who want to get where I am. Alas, "not releasable" from your functional on both ends means we either soldier on working a good or different deal down the road (possible if not always probable), or get out. I've known a couple who chose door #2 recently and I will strongly consider that when my commitment is up too. To me it's a desirable fix since the system we're used to is based on very long contracts where you sign away your balls to The Man, coersion to take OK jobs rather than roll the dice and get a really bad deal, etc, all things that are not particularly efficient or which lead to creativity being looked at as a positive attribute. Obviously not an easy fix, especially in the rated world but present in most career fields, due to expensive and time-consuming training pre-reqs to do many jobs and the limitations on the training pipelines where dudes often get bottlenecked even when there's a slightly above-level of accessions into a particular community. 2. Better evaluations - I don't know a single person who likes our current evaluations system, can't see why this is not an easy kill. I'd bet almost any alternate system we tried that incorporated even some components like peer evaluation, non-inflated strats, striking voodoo coding burried in push lines, masking things not related to job performance, etc. would be better than what we have now. 3. Lateral entry - I'm also totally for this; gives dudes an opportunity to take their talents to South Beach if they so choose but return to Big Blue if things don't work out or things change or especially if they gained new experiences that bring new value added to the service. Probably would need to be rid of year group promotions and 10-year commitments to make this happen but then again doing away with both of those things sounds good to me too. Promote guys when they are ready to promote (could be real fast, could be real slow, could be average), not when "their year group is up for a look." That's my bar napkin reasoning from some Capt in a flying squadron. Hopefully puzzle palace and White House types get some of this type of feedback and maybe I'll be surprised with some bold change for once! I don't think you got it quite right. Seems like in Army you need to be combat arms if you want to command at a high level, in the AF you need to fly, in the Navy you need to be a SWO if you want a ship, etc. That's the baseline and all others are exceptions to the rule. It's the same type of deal just a different flavor. Those with more wisdom on the other services feel free to chime in if I'm off base with those corrections.