DirkDiggler

Basically what 11F said above. He (the general) was didn't really answer most of the questions posed to him directly so I don't have any other info to offer.

Chang is trolling people here, nothing more, nothing less. General Cox came and spoke at our wayward school by the river; he wasn't nearly as chipper about how the FY14 force management programs unfolded. The personnelist in my flight openly espouses that the planning, messaging, and execution of these programs was a complete goat rope. On the positive side, it seems like the involuntary drama is done and a decent amount of people that wanted to try a different path outside the AF are getting the chance.

This scenario is taking the question out of context. I don't think anyone on this board would resolutely condemn an individual for, in the heat of the moment based on intensely personal emotions, attempting to protect their children. This directly translates into heat of battle decisions In any war, you'd have to be completely naive to believe that prisoners are going to to be treated with kid gloves by the soldiers that initially capture them. Field interrogations discussed by other members of this board aka my buddy just got blown up by an IED, where's the next one or I'm kicking the shit out of you are going to happen with any military regardless of the level of discipline. Its a consequence of war and I'm not gonna judge guys for actions like that taken in the heat of battle. The difference here is that these enhanced interrogation techniques, torture, ass play, whatever you want to call it aren't being conducted by operators and soldiers in the field. They're being conducted by three letter agency personnel far removed from the battle field and combat. That's the equivalent, in Hannity's example above, of you capturing the guy who has your kids and then turning them over to the cops to get tortured. The government has screwed up my pay, travel arrangements and countless other things in my short 11 years in the military. Do you really want them given the authority to conduct these sort of actions, mostly without oversight from other parts of the government? I don't know about anybody else, but I sure as shit don't want to live in a country that officially sanctions shit like that. There's lots of countries across the globe where the government and police forces routinely torture and abuse both their own citizens and citizens from other countries. Countries like that make me glad I was born in America. There's a recent article on stripes that I'm too lazy to link that shows all the military JAGs that were consulted about enhanced interrogations had serious reservations or were downright against their use. McCrystal in Iraq was vehemently against stuff like that as well. If you want to say that terrorists aren't afforded the protections of the Geneva Convention that's fine, I'll buy your argument even though I strongly believe in continuing to kill them where we find them. Then we treat them like criminals and prosecute them. The last time I checked, even the worst criminals in our prison system aren't tortured. If these activities were so acceptable then why didn't we bring captured terrorists to Leavenworth and string them up by their arms there instead of doing it in countries like Poland, Romania, etc? The simple pendulum swings both ways. After 9/11, there was a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty; I personally believe some mistakes were made. I think we're good enough as a people and a country to admit when we've ed up. Continuing to argue that torture is a viable and justifiable method to get information is only going to hurt us as a country.

Just like the Katoy bathrooms in Thailand

The SAW selects at Maxwell have been notified, don't have any info on any of the others

Rest easy bro.

That lines up with what we're being told at Maxwell, supposedly first week of December.

Who is McDew, I'm not familiar?

The AAD elephant is institutional and its going to take a while to change people's way of thinking. Example, I recently did a career day where OTS cadets get to talk to someone in their AFSCs for a while about what their job will be like. A cadet asked whether he should start a masters degree now before he got to pilot training since "he had some time" (was going to be casual for several months). My answer was no way, the CSAF said that's not important and if you're worrying about a masters going through UPT your're ing up. All 3 O-5s in the room told him it was a good idea to get it started and his thinking was good. Its gonna take awhile, I just hope that Welsh can position a successor that has similar ideas to his about whats important in the AF.

Go with the mission and aircraft you think you're gonna love. Don't sweat anything else. Anywhere in AFSOC is gonna give you an awesome career puttin the hurt on bad guys, you'll be surrounded by some of the best people you'll end up meeting in your life.

Glad everyone ended up making it through, rule of threes had another mishap coming, happy that last two ended with code 1 personnel

You ever notice how every one of USAFPilot, PYB, Cannoncrashpad, whatever flavor he's calling himself this week's posting always ends up going personal (sometimes intensely so) when people on this forum don't listen and agree with his bizarre ranting. Its like watching someone with Alzheimer's forgetting that they already got in the same fight over and over. Funny, but also kinda sad.

I'm not even sure why we're having a discussion with USAFpilot. He preaches quite a bit from his soapbox yet a short while back he wrote a pages long dissertation in another thread (not sure which and don't feel like looking it up) blaming the Jews for every problem in America. Kinda lost most of his credibility back then (unless you're the tinfoil hat type).

We had an 11S in my last sq that was twice passed over and non-continued this year. He was offered TERA but declined.

I used Dixie back in 2009, the price wasn't bad and they were easy to work with. That said, the quality of the furniture was mid-low at best, worked for me as a single guy TDY for 6 months but may not be the best option if you have a wife and kids.

MC-130E is fully retired now. MC-130P isn't at RAF Mildenhall anymore, its been replaced by the MC-130J.

I thought PYB had been banned from here at least twice now? His persistence is impressive, and sorta sad.

Honestly could be either one; I just got back from two weeks of leave and am in the middle of a PCS. The guidance from the wing said to leave the PME section on their form blank, however the group's product did track PME, their product was used to develop the rack and stack sent to the wing (not the first instance of confused/incomplete guidance between them and the sq's). The record of performance lists PME completion on the SURF so its still available. Bottom line, you still need rank appropriate PME but in my small corner of the AF it appears that residence vs. correspondence PME completion and AAD isn't a major defining factor. I'm hoping the trend continues.

Our Wing is currently doing a rack & stack; guidance was given to not provide AAD and PME status because they were no longer going to be considered until the O-6 board. Maybe the CSAF's intent is starting to trickle down, one can always hope.

Best news that's come out of that shithole in a long time

They did one of these whole I was at LR. Cordoned off all roads from the front gate to the OSS, collected all cell phones, and made everyone stay until they pissed. Great way to start a checkride day.

Was in ROTC with Sean as well, he was good dude and will be missed, rest easy bros.

This issue has also impact the MC-130/SOF -130 community, several cases of rapid onset brain cancer over the last 6 years. Not an issue until lately as far as I know. Some guys think the time spent at K2 has something to do with it.

I would say this depends on what you fly in AFSOC. Based on what happens with the sequester, AFSOC may drawdown its legacy Herk fleet much faster than originally planned. If this happens there's a going to be a glut of pilots that will need to cross-train into MC-130J, CV-22, U-28 (or MC-12). If you're looking to get released in the next 2-3 fiscal years you're chances of getting released are probably better than they've been in the last 10 years.