Waingro

55% for Tampa is $1,980/mo for lodging, which is around the same as BAH for a single Captain at MacDill. Anything under that and the balance goes (went) into your pocket. Get a fellow deployed roommate to rent a townhouse; profit.

That's interesting. I'd be curious to see in what way they document that fact in your records going forward. Is it noted anywhere that your letter was explicitly what caused your non-selection? If I was in your shoes with $69,000 on the line, I'd at least make DFAS tell you no.

That means you just won the lottery, congrats. You're now authorized involuntary separation pay. It's a percentage of your base pay, I don't remember if it's 75% or 100%, it should be google-able though. Also I believe you get TAMP (6 months Tricare) for being involuntarily separated too. It's federal law, so they'd be wise to pay out.

It's not binary. I've strafed and dropped bombs in troops-in-contact situations. I've given numerous "cleared hot" calls from the ground. I've spent many nights far removed from the FOB, and enjoyed that "first hot meal" after a few weeks that you reference. Happy to do it. None of that changes the takeaway here. How many RPA orbits have you seen pissed away by the Army SPC sitting at the S2 desk on the TOC floor who doesn't have a real task, so tells the MQ-1 crew to just start cycling through the target deck looking for "suspicious activity"? (Rhetorical, but I saw it nightly for the better part of a year). Big Army asked the Air Force to go all-in to throw resources at a problem that the Army maneuver elements didn't have, and nobody on the ground knew what to do with any of it. Your argument can be distilled down to "you haven't seen the ground truth, but the USAF focus on supporting US Army COIN actions over the last decade saved American lives and killed some bad guys." To that I say "noted." We stopped F-22 production, TAMId a bulk of our talent, extended deployments to 180 days, and deployed weapons officers / test pilots / instructor pilots to do non-flying jobs that could be done either stateside or by an A1C with no training. We RIF'd a bunch of experience, and then grounded half the fleet in 2013 for "sequester" because we wanted to fall on our sword rather than playing the budget shell game we finally started playing in sequestration every year since then. RPAs are cool, they do good work, they're far superior than a Hawg, Viper, Buff, or Strike Eagle for a persistent ISR tasking. No disagreement. That doesn't change the fact that we hollowed our entire force and culture, perhaps irreparably, to fight a war against enemies equipped with little more than small arms, rocks, cell phones, and motorcycles.

The main reason top leadership got leg-swept in 2008 was because they weren't playing nice with the Army and CENTCOM's insatiable desire for RPA orbits, and wouldn't back down on 5th-Gen at a time when we were committing 150,000+ soldiers at a stretch to fight a counter-insurgency against the stone age. They replaced CSAF with a yes-man who would play ball, thus setting the service back a decade while throwing our remaining resources at the Army's insatiable appetite for ISR feeds in exchange for a GWOT participation trophy. There are a lot of separate issues that factor into the black hole we're in right now, with respect to manning, experience, and morale. But if you wanted to pick a single point along the timeline where the wheels came off, it was firing CSAF in 2008 for ignoring illiterate enemies on mopeds in order to focus on a 5th-gen war. The Minot nuke fiasco, while unsat and hugely embarrassing, made for an easy way to sell the firing, but ultimately wasn't the main driver. Hell, the pilot-in-command of the B-52 continued on her HPO track after the deal.

Only downvoting a post that just says "This!", as one might find on a 15-year-old girl's Twitter account. The original post stating that it'd be good to hear which senator redlined someone's BTZ to O-5 is spot on. Not sure if there's a way to track specific actions, but all current promotion lists with the senate are here:: Lists in committee: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nom_cmten.htm Lists confirmed: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/noms_confn.htm

1. Not a statistically significant sample size, less than 20 for either. 2. MXG and MSG O4s usually meet their IPZ board on their first, or sometimes second squadron command. Any flyer is, at most, an ADO in this window. 3. MX and support organizations absolutely dominate flying organizations in terms of OPRs, awards, decs, and PRFs. Unfortunate but true. 4. The USAF promotes (or claims to) based on potential to serve in the next higher grade. Viewed through that lens, strafing a Taliban stronghold and saving an Army platoon carries less weight than leading a squadron of 200 Airmen. Unfortunate, but true. The USAF doesn't make this a secret though, yet we (aircrew) still suck at writing for success.

The irony... I remember when Huge was the Mayor at a certain flying training squadron at Moody. Those roll calls were some of the rowdiest I've been to, even 15 years later. I wonder what 2002 Huge would say to 2017 Huge.

I use Google Fi. No contract, $20/mo flat for service, plus $0.01/MB of data ($10/GB). Pay for what you use. Works in most countries on earth without any change to billing. Placing calls while abroad costs a few pennies, depending if you're on the local network or wifi, but it's negligible, and the data rate never changes. Free SMS anywhere it connects. Land in Afghanistan (or Somalia, Iraq, Cambodia), fire up the phone, it's the same as if you're in Dallas. In the US it toggles behind the scenes to whatever carrier has the best reception, between Sprint, T-Mo, and US Cellular. Cons: Gets expensive if you're a data whore. I use about 1GB/mo so it's perfect for me, with a $30 phone bill. If you want to stream whole seasons of TV shows on it though, it would get expensive. Also I think it's exclusive to the Nexus 5, 6, and Google Pixel phones right now. Finally, if you're abroad and someone wants to call you, it's still an international call to the US for them (but free for you).

Not sure if it matters for prior-e short tours, but if possible, recommend getting your short-tour return date updated. I've seen two separate guys get tagged for 365s, then shut back off when they updated their short tour data. Paid travel voucher, LOE, end of tour decoration, just gather what you can and take it to MPF.

Or maybe it's a nod to the mission where we lost 16 aircraft and the lives of 7 men to attack Japan. Sorry, but your community doesn't have the lock on airmen making the ultimate sacrifice.

That's like celebrating a secession of NY from the United States on account of Alabama and Mississippi's shortcomings. This will be disastrous for England, and quite possibly the beginning of the end for the U.K. I'd bet money that Scotland is independent by the end of the decade, quite possibly N Ireland as well. This is truly their Donald Trump moment.

Just going off of 11-401. "Only qualified aircrew members will log primary time." I don't have a dog in the fight, but for the guys getting boned with the 3-year PIT ADSC, I'd be looking high and low for ways to get out of it. Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

I'm sure they "fixed the glitch..." I received primary time for IFF and all the post-grad landing currency flights at UPT. You're not allowed to log primary time unless qualified on the aircraft. Maybe they've changed it, but I always thought I was qualified in the T-38 post-UPT. Does AFPC think differently?

I'm 1APZ and about to get passed over for O5 the second time. I'm expecting to be offered continuation. I'm considering declining it, understanding that I will not get involuntary sep pay. My question is with regards to the GI Bill transfer ADSC and the bonus. I'll have about a year left on the GI bill ADSC and two years left on the bonus. Do I keep the GI bill benefits if I decline continuation before the ADSC is up? Will they recoup any of the bonus outside of prorated unearned portions? Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk