nsplayr

Exactly...let's end the madness and go back to the way things were, what, 3 years ago? Less than that even... If people are cheating (the so-called reason we went to the FAC concept in the first place) kick them square in the balls and RIF them or whatever. Let the rest of us who follow the rules go on with our days.

Did it last week...among the best decisions of my career. I challenge a shoe to try to chief me on my...shoes.

Good point...isolationism + moral problem with war = leftist, isolationism + freedom of action for other = libertarian within the bounds of this argument. What a douche BTW.

Yea, this. Look, Dave Ramsey has some good advice for the vast majority of idiot Americans, but for those who are smart, there's absolutely no need to follow him like some kind of freaking cult. If you can borrow money at 2% interest, invest it at 3% interest, and pay everything back on time, guess what, you just made a profit! Why this makes people feel uncomfortable (oooo, the bank OWNS me) is beyond me. Just as pancake says here, this process is exactly what companies do when offering bonds...they are incuring debt commitments in order to receive cash up front, which they invest in something that will, by the end of the bond term, be more valuable to them than the money they lost in paying interest to bondholders. Finance 101. Caveat that as everyone said, if you're gonna buy dumb shit that decreases in value with your money, don't take on a penny of debt. However, if you can smartly invest money, debt, credit cards, etc. can be used as tools toward building greater wealth. To the direct question, take the loan, invest it somewhere where you will pull more interest than the rate on the loan, be done with it. Don't be irrationally scared that $500 is coming out of your paycheck because you know that money is going to work for you elsewhere as a lump sum.

Well great, that's a good model. My squadron has probably 10 non-ops folks (AFE, ARMS, 1x Comm) and IVO 140 pilots/CSOs...that will work out well...

I worked for the Department of the Interior several summers in college and I remember the transit benefits were loaded on your smartrip and you could use that for either metro or bus (as long as the bus you wanted to ride took smartrip). Is it not the same for mil in particular or was I just lucky that DOI let us do that? Either way it is expensive as balls after a while...I ended up riding my bike back and forth to work on the Capital Crescent Trail because no only was it faster but it was a hell of a lot more fun. Obviously that option isn't available to 69% of DC area workers though...

Looks like Nigeria is he next sunny destination for deployment. Boko Haram, watch yourselves. Unconfirmed as of yet but apparently the Nigerians are telling people we're coming down there.

Correct. The confusion may have been that Eid al-Adha was recently. November 6-9, no joke. I suspect the dumbness is due to nothing special, just Qataris being Qataris and some bureaucrat wanting to dick with the Americans.

I'll be curious to see if ours still exists on Monday...they were there on Thursday. I actually like the people at our FAC, especially the two hottie civilians who work there, but I'll be glad to be able to test my own folks again if that's gonna be the way it's done. I could talk to the DO, PEX out everyone due at the end of November, and test all 12 people at once on a day with nice weather and be done with it in one hour. What I fear is that they still won't let PTLs test their own squadrons but instead will make PTLs work at the FAC offices as a rotating week-long additional duty to test the rest of the base. That would be an absolute nightmare that no one has time to support...which is why my money is on that being the plan.

I have always wanted a tab patch that says "ILUA" for I Love Unnecessary Acronyms. Maybe we could staff the ASS Agency with FUDGE PACKERS...Federal United Degenerate Guys...ahh hell, I quit...

Seriously...there's a 5% COLA for Detroit, you gonna tell me Detroit is more expensive to live in than the DC area? Although how many mil members are stationed in Detroit versus the thousands in DC they'd have to start paying? It's all about the Benjamins, baby.

Dude...good find. It's heritage, and would drive shoes crazy...I say we do it.

Nice...speaking for myself, we'd be glad to have some of you guys. Those are all great options IMHO. FWIW, beware the PC-12 if you don't like change/uncertainty...that may or may not exist in the near future per RUMINT on the thinking of the AFSOC/CC; if you go that route you may need to transition to something else soonish after arriving at Cannon.

Man, that sounds like a real f*cking hardship right there All in good fun...running out of booze is a troubling development no matter what the circumstances.

That seems impossible the way the rules are written now. For now at least, you have to be a PTL to test someone, which involves being current on CPR as well as a half-day training course. The currencies are yearly. GL getting a whole squadron "trained" to that level and maintaining that long-term. Just let the PTLs/UFPMs test their own squadrons again and RIF anyone caught cheating; kills 2 birds with one stone.

Maybe saying these are the reasons we went to Afghanistan and Iraq is an exaggeration. We went to Afghanistan because they were housing the assholes who attacked us on 9/11. We went to Iraq because we thought Saddam had WMDs. Maybe better to say we're lingering in Afghanistan is to keep an eye on their neighbors. WRT to Iraq, I don't think we're either lingering much longer than necessary and we already had plenty of bases in the region (Turkey, Kuwait, UAE, etc.), so that one doesn't follow the logic quite as neatly.

You're right, what I should have said is that this is not what a fit soldier should be. Fitness in the military is not and should not be all about running, or all about any one thing. A single component test, especially one like a run-only or waist measurement-only test only further encourages people to be "skinny-fat" where they can run decently, have a 32" waist, and couldn't back squat their body weight to save their own lives (or the lives of their buddy). Multi-modal fitness that makes you string together all your major muscle groups and do something functional (and yes, running is functional to a point), that's what we should be testing. We had an outstanding Wing run on the taxiway this morning (the first of many to come I'm assured!) and it was hilarious to see all the people who fell out and finished behind the rest of their squadrons. Yes, we ran as squadrons and with guidons. Don't ask. Anyways, we said, man, there are your RIF candidates right there because we ran pretty damn slow and for less than 3 miles and people literally started falling out about 200 yards in...pathetic.

For a MA class I just read 7 Deadly Scenarios. Not bad read...not super academic and I don't agree with all the author's premises, but thought provoking. Loose Pakistani nukes was scenario #1; no good can come of it.

I think so, yes. May have been a cross-flow student though, I'm only about 75% on my info quality.

That's a problem with your people, not the test brother. Come take a test with me and you'll be judged fairly. We can even do hand-release pushups, that's fairly easy to judge Really...1 hour per year to assess our physical fitness is too much to ask? It seems like I spend more time training how to combat human trafficking and operate a fire extinguisher.

YGBFSM. If that were the case this would be probably the "fittest" person on the planet. Let's not worry about strength, power, flexibility, agility, coordination, etc. None of those are important WRT military/combat fitness... Don't get me wrong, dude's a beast at the marathon, but this is not what a "fit" soldier should look like IMHO. Just because a run is easy to measure and cuts out bias pretty easily doesn't make it suitable as a single-component fitness test. By your logic why don't we just have a waist measurement-only test? The tape measure doesn't lie either, and that way we could focus just on looking fit skinny rather than actually being fit!

View from my community: Don't DOR once you get to the FTU. Your wings will be taken away and you will have seriously F-ed your buddies. Enough said on that but it has happened recently so don't be that guy. I don't think the instructors over there are seeing much difference between P-cola grads vs RND grads. In terms of area, we're right down the road at Hurlburt so the area is pretty much the same, so bonus if you like the P-cola area.

Dupe, So you were picked up without a technical masters? Did you have a tech BA I'm assuming? What's the role of a test nav? Honestly I know nothing about the career field at all; interesting that AFSOC let you go and do that. Interested to hear more about it from your perspective.

Word...that's basically what I'm asking. In that case then yea, there's no reason not to put them at favorable locations other than to further dick with the operators.