Sua Sponte

The DAV was terrible for me as well. The VFW was great. I’ve a few claims myself. I started at 30% when I got out in 2017 and now I’m at 90%.

That’s what I never understood, how did the CEO of MD become the Boeing CEO after the merger when his company was the one that was acquired?

The merger with MD was the worst thing that happened to Boeing which has caused a negative cascading effect. With MCAS, they already had it in the KC-46, which is dual source input from both AOAs and allows the pilots to disengage it with yoke input. Since the technology already existed, why put a poorly designed version of it in the the 737 MAX?

I move to Navy Federal in 2019. They've been awesome, much like USAA was 20 years ago. Only items I have left with USAA is a credit card and insurance.

Worst MPRS jet of all time is Triple Cripple, 333.

Watched it last night. Those Boeing execs should've went to prison, however as to be expected the CEO received that $65M golden parachute when he was told to resign by the board. I see a lot of the same quality control problems that Boeing has with their commercial aircraft in the KC-46 (which also has a version of MCAS, but not like the shit design of the original MAX).

I had removed when I was at Altus. I think the DNIF was a week? This was back in 2013, so I don't know if it's changed.

Any KC-135 crewmember knows the stories, or flew on, 58-0050 aka Spook 50. I once convinced an MCT student to make sure the ghost of Spook was annotated on the Form F when we flew on her. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChilluminatiPod/comments/hi50qs/the_time_i_flew_on_spook_50_the_haunted_kc135/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.macdill.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2002055952/ Spook even has a book on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Spook-Short-Story-David-Joseph-ebook/dp/B00EK3443W/ref=nodl_

However, if you apply for an increase, that disability could be reduced if the VA determines you’ve improved.

The VA also announced today they're proposing amending the rating disabilities for mental health, tinnitus, and sleep apnea. Looks like being rated for sleep apnea and requiring a CPAP is not going to be an automatic 50% anymore. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/02/15/2022-02051/schedule-for-rating-disabilities-mental-disorders https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/02/15/2022-02049/schedule-for-rating-disabilities-ear-nose-throat-and-audiology-disabilities-special-provisions

There is, however you cannot be "concurrently paid" by the VA and AFRC. If you're entitled to VA compensation, then you have to make a decision to only take one of the pays (obviously the higher one).

I wouldn’t say most counties. Most states waive a percentage of property tax, even at 100%. It’s rare to find one that waives all of it. This is especially a good deal in TX since their property tax rate is one of the highest in the US.

Texas waives all property tax for 100% disabled veterans FYI https://tax-office.traviscountytx.gov/properties/taxes/tax-breaks/disabled-vet-exempt

Neither does WY, TX, and NH.

Currently, WA and AK do not have state income tax.

Yes, it was in 2017 though. Took about 30 days to receive payment due to the final pay calculation DFAS has to do.

Spirit and Frontier are merging to become the fifth biggest airline. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/02/07/frontier-and-spirit-to-merge-creating-5th-largest-airline-in-us.html

I’ve also learned some VA hospitals will track your usage too, however YMMV.

CZ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-czelusta-5b143788 Whenever Herk bros talk shit about leadership from other communities, remind them theirs spawned CZ, DD, and the Fun Burglar.

Do you live in Colorado? I do and I like Polis. He left COVID up to the counties to deal with where they could deal with what restrictions, if any, they wanted to impose. When people here complain about Polis, I inform them about the idiot that runs Washington, Inslee.

Trump has a better chance of being Speaker if the GOP flips the House than Harris being nominated to the SCOTUS.

Don’t go long with Peloton.

Didn’t know you were involved in the -46 SGTO?

I first met Rat when he PCS'd to Fairchild 2007-2008ish. Within his first day of checking in for MCT, he cussed out the civilian that ran MCT scheduling, refused to fly with an IP that wasn't a Lt Col (he was a Lt Col at the time), and was just a massive asshole. I was the only boom available, so I was scheduled to fly with him. For what he is as a terrible person, he's a great pilot (old -141 dude at McChord). We ended up refueling Reserve C-17s out of McChord and right before AR he tells the IP he's just going to check off and watch AR (we had another 1Lt Co with us to fill in). He goes back with me to do AR and starts talking to me about what I thought about refueling C-17s. I told them they usually were terrible, it's difficult to refuel them with a -135 because we have to fly it in contact unlike pussy -10 booms who have a computer do it (ALAS), and the reserve guys were usually the worst at doing AR since they're usually just traditionalists. He responds that he was a reserve -17 guy at McChord and starts ranting about how great the jet and community is and how much he hates the -135. He then became my Sq/CC a few months later. I worked in training flight and came back from lunch one day and a copilot I worked with told me that no one in the squadron can send squadron wide emails without removing Rat from the dristo list. I asked him why and he told me he sent out a 93 ARS/All email and Rat called him in the office, stood him at attention, and yelled at him for "spamming his inbox." He then pulled out a red pen, prints out said copilot's email, and proceeds to correct the grammar like a second grade teacher since he was an English major at USAFA and the speechwriter for the SECAF. I was on ONE Alpha Alert at Fairchild and we went out to the alert ramp to do the daily preflight. What was normally a 10-15 minutes daily alert preflight turned into hours because maintenance wanted to do tire rollover checks, service the APUs, etc. Finally, one of the crew chiefs said that all three of us didn't have to be out there and the AC looks at the copilot and I and said we can just go back to the alert facility. I was chilling in my room when the alert shack controller knocks on the door and has the following conversation with me: "Do you know where your AC is?" "Uh, he was with maintenance doing the daily preflight. Probably buttoned up the jet and went to lunch at the BX." "No, dude...he's being thrown in the back of a SF patrol car." I walk out from the alert shack with the controller and see my AC in handcuffs being pushed into the back of a patrol car. I look at the controller and ask him what I should do? He looks at me and says, "I dunno man, I've been in 25 years and have seen some shit, but nothing like this." I go to the copilot's room and tell her to stay in her room and that our AC got arrested. I went to the squadron and found the Chief Boom and was telling him what happened when all of a sudden Rat walks around the corner, stands in front of me and says, "Get the fuck back to that fucking jet and preflight it now!" I scurry off back to the alert shack and see my AC and ask him what happened as we're frantically preflighting the jet. He tells me that he called Rat from the brig, which then made Rat come over to the SFS, find the SFS Sq/CC, who was a Major, and proceed to stand him at attention in front of his own squadron and scream at him that his dipshit low ASVAB Airmen degraded ONE Alert. My AC was arrested because they were confused on how "pre-announcing" worked at alert aircraft and had erroneously arrested him. Rat was in his car with his wife (wife was driving) and she got pulled over for speeding on the base. The SF troop was doing the traffic stop and Rat apparently became unglued and threaten the dude's career, got out of the car, and only got back in the car when the SF troop was about to escalate the use of force with him. So, of course Rat makes up a big lie that the troop was being belligerent with his wife and "unprofessional," pressuring his Sq/CC to Art. 15 him. Rat hates facial hair and would used to get on the returning deployer aircraft and occasionally give out LOCs to pilots and booms who had deployed mustaches. The rule became to shave once you hit your RON from redeploying at Mildenhall/Ramstein and be clean shaven the next day when you landed back and saw Rat. Rat used to have schedulers and SARM print out currencies and schedules for people and hand it to them right after they landed from deploying to remind them that they had to log a P280 event right when they got back from post-deployment time off. I went to instructor upgrade with a pilot and before we both left for Altus we had to go meet with him. He started talking about flying in instructor upgrade in the -141 at Altus, how fun it was to teach, etc. to the pilot. He looked at me and said, "Oh yeah, good luck in whatever booms do in instructor upgrade." I responded, "Sir, you mean teach people how to refuel airplanes in the air?" He sorta picked up I wasn't amused and said, "Yeah, or you could've been a pilot, but I guess that would've required you to do better in high school." He made a copilot, who just had testicular cancer, talk about it in front of the squadron. He ordered a copilot in from his two weeks time off after a deployment with his family to have a formal promotion ceremony to Captain. It pissed Rat off that the guy was super pissed at him for coming in to have a promotion ceremony. Later on the guy was supposed to assume alpha alert early in the morning. The night prior he felt sorta ill, but thought he’d feel better in the morning. He woke up and felt worse, went to the flight doc and went DNIF. Rhatigan was so mad at him, he gave him an LOC/LOR for dereliction of duty since he thought the guy was trying to get out of alert duty (which was a god send to do, since you were away from the squadron and Rat). The guy is in the Guard now last I heard. I personally flew with Rat on a deployment sortie when he was my deployed Sq/CC. Since we had three pilots on board, I took my copilot back to the boom pod and let him refuel A-10’s and F-16’s all day. I felt bad for him since the cruise out to the AOR meant Rat was GKing him on all of the various Soviet era airfields between Manas and Bagram. Oh yeah, one more story. Guy that was a copilot/AC at Fairchild was in Rat’s squadron. He ended up going to Kadena and getting into some “TDY Shenanigans” while on a typhoon evac that got him an Art 15. He ended up deploying soon after when Rat was the new OG at the Deid. Rat sends out an email about his “vision” and about himself as the new OG. Guy in question responds with “Hey, maybe we should lunch sometime dude.” Why? Who the knows? He tells me the next day his crew shows up and the ADO tells him that his crew is off the schedule and that he has a personal meeting with Rat. So, he goes and see Rat in his office during meeting time and Rat says “Hey, ###, come on in. Haven’t seen you in a long time.” He walks in, not thinking defensively, and sits down and Rat immediately stands him at attention yelling at him about how he’s a Colonel and how dare he use lack of email professionalism, how he had the audacity to ask Rat to write him a character reference to the Wing King at Kadena when he got his Art 15, etc. The switches tones and says “yeah, we should do lunch with me and your crew sometime, just let me know!” When I was PCSing to Altus in 2010, I was leaving right before Fairchild had a Aircrew Standardization & Evaluation Visit (ASEV). Right after I left, so did Rat, and the other shitty Sq/CC from the other squadron (Sush R.). Our DO became the new Sq/CC and is a great dude. The AMC/A3V ASEV team comes in, finds out that a pilot in AC upgrade hooked a sim check on a Thursday, got corrective training on Friday and rechecked, then deployed Monday. However, his Form 8 didn't have the corrective training signed off, so they considered him unqualified. They then did a SARM review and found he had flown for six months technically unqualified. That then led them to dig a lot deeper and they found some other bad things. In the end the the entire base aircrew was decertified and couldn't fly unsupervised. Pilot and booms from the Washington Guard had to fly and get all pilot and booms in the OG requalified. The Wing King ended up firing the old DO, the guy who replaced Rat. Their reasoning is that he was in the seat longer than the other Sq DO and they wanted a head for the failure. I always blamed Rat for that because he had the wrong people in the wrong jobs solely for promotion potential, not because of their skillset and work ethic. Rat was never punished for that because he's an old General Selva boy, he's protected. Even when he fired off a majority of Sq/CC's at Little Rock, it took a long time for anyone to do anything to him and in the end he was just sorta told "you're not going anywhere, here's your Legion of Merit, you're retiring." I know to this day it burns Rat that he didn't get a star. Oh well. Oh yeah, he's a Mets fan. https://www.dvidshub.net/video/152055/col-patrick-rhatigan-mets-shout-out

Lol