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CoC Ceremony @ BAF?


war007afa

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I see guys like putznik and flyingrunt in every squadron/unit/organization. "Soldiers" or airmen who put more energy into complaining than getting the job done. These are the same folks who are in a profession they don't even believe in. You don't have to "drink the blue koolaid" and be a yes man at every opportunity, but at some point be proud to wear the uniform and be proud to serve.

I like Boobies!

Sorry, I just wanted to say boobies in a thread.

BOOBIES!

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These are the same folks who are in a profession they don't even believe in. You don't have to "drink the blue koolaid" and be a yes man at every opportunity, but at some point be proud to wear the uniform and be proud to serve.

I'll give you that, you're about 25% correct. It's not a uniform that matters to me, it's getting the job done. Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, CIA, Blackwater . . . I'll play for any team in the book, the goal is the mission/serving/etc. I'll wear a flightsuit, BDUs, a hawaiian shirt . . . it doesn't matter. I'll leave the garrison toy-soldiering to folks like you; I've checked that block.

By the way, all that crap you quote about Frederick the Great and all? Seeing how often you use the term "soldiers" in this thread, I'm assuming you have some sort of Army background. Ever notice how every single Army CoC has some different tradition they quote, tracing the exact same pass-the-guidon ceremony back to the freakin crusades or something? Yeah. Ever stop to think if any of it's actually true?

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Guest John Cocktosten

The AF is not the only service that pulls this. I'm at Camp Victory. You should've seen the crap that was layed out for the Corps RIP/TOA, at least they had the good sense to do it indoors at Al Faw. OBTW, the Army deploys with division bands. The 1st Cav Div band plays at the DFAC...

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These attention whores having CoC ceremonies with fucking static displays need to read this book.

2lasai8.jpg

Ceremonies like this to not belong in a deployed environment. A simple ceremony is a large room would have been just fine.

Edited by Butters
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230 Combat Hours, in the Operations he supported, is by no means something to brag about.

Kwast probably got about 50 of those combat hours in Desert Storm. Those were no-kidding hours in which most of it was spent over bad guy territory, and during which he was engaged by SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, Roland and all sorts of guided and unguided AAA.

More to the point, he was often the last guy to roll in on the target: he was the most junior guy in the squadron, straight out of the B-Course, and the first UPT guy to go to the F-15E. When he rolled in on his target on 17 January amid a flurry of AAA and SAMs, he had never even dropped a bomb in the F-15E.

He might not boast about it, but I think that his contribution in 1991 is undeserving of being casually dismissed as you suggest.

DESERT STORM: In nearly six weeks of air strikes we only destroyed two T-72 tanks in one unit of the Iraqi 12 Armored Division. The 2nd Armored Cavalry destroyed the remaining thirty-seven armored vehicles in less than six minutes! Guess if he killed both of them himself, he may have killed 6 guys. Other than that he was dropping bombs on a bunch of GP vehicles fleeing Kuwait. Might as well go club some baby seals.

See above.

Point of order: the Strike Eagles were not doing anything even vaguely comparable with clubbing baby seals. Try airfield attack as a starter.

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Kwast probably got about 50 of those combat hours in Desert Storm. Those were no-kidding hours in which most of it was spent over bad guy territory, and during which he was engaged by SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, Roland and all sorts of guided and unguided AAA.

More to the point, he was often the last guy to roll in on the target: he was the most junior guy in the squadron, straight out of the B-Course, and the first UPT guy to go to the F-15E. When he rolled in on his target on 17 January amid a flurry of AAA and SAMs, he had never even dropped a bomb in the F-15E.

He might not boast about it, but I think that his contribution in 1991 is undeserving of being casually dismissed as you suggest.

See above.

Point of order: the Strike Eagles were not doing anything even vaguely comparable with clubbing baby seals. Try airfield attack as a starter.

Well, then he should know better than to have a "Hey, look at me, I'm special" CoC in the middle of a war when his people and planes have better things to be doing.

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Trying to tie all these recent baseops.net threads together:

Was this guy, or any of the others you have named with these unnecessary over the top CoC ceremonies, ROTC, OTS, or USAFA?....All these things I said are very stereotypical, but let's get some data going to develop a real theory.

Stop....stop...stop.

Do not proceed with this analysis.

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I read the first 10 or so posts, and just went straight to "reply".

I don't know Col Kwast. But I met him a few years ago when he was OG/CC at Laughlin. Super high speed and very impressive based on my short 2 days on his base, and talking with him in the office. That was echoed by a number of the IP's I spoke to. Seems to be one of the those guys that picks up details quick, and sleeps 4 hours per night.

The first thing I noticed when I met him, he only had Senior Pilot wings on as an O-6. Although he didn't go to UPT directly after commissioning (he got delayed two years to go to Harvard), it kind of hit home that this guy was moving quick. His reputation is that he's a very good pilot and flight lead; his background is impressive; smart; charismatic maybe;... bottom line, he might actually be an O-6 that deserves to be there. Shocking. That said, I'm going to hold my opinion on his CoC. "The scoop" doesn't seem to fit this rising star. Let's see how his wing does over the next 12 months, and judge him based on that.

Again, didn't read the thread, but the CoC is an important event, and it's also there for the benefit of the troops. Yes, I dread standing in formation too. Certain "pain" will be endured by us, but so be it. I'm guessing a guy like Col Kwast minimized the BS and got down to business. Additional "fluff" is often the push from well-meaning (or brown-nosing) staff members.

Edited by Huggyu2
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This has the possibility to start yet another war. Take a look at the Coc picture, notice there are not any flight suits in the picture (yes a few may have put on their ABUs). My bet is they finally managed to find a use for all of the people who work 5 day weeks 8 hours per day. For those of you who have been there you know what I am talking about. By no means am I justifying this we got our buts chewed on more than one occasion for violating their ramp closures so that we could actually do our jobs.

Edited by Tex
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Guest DesertRat
I had him as a WG/CC, I would concur.

I flew Col Kwast's T-6 MQT rides at Laughlin back in the day, and I gotta tell not only is this guy a class act, but a dynamite stick (STS). Not only that, once the guy was mission ready he was flying student lines every day.

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Tex: There are no flight suits in the picture because they are not "really" a uniform, and therefore were not allowed in the formation. No s#it.

Somone noted the water in the foreground. This did little to stem the massive tide of formation fallout. That's right: early morning in mid-April, temps barely above 70, and we cannot find the ability...to stand.

I'm not sure if that disgusts me more than the fact that this event actually occured, or that it's being discussed at lenght on a public forum (or that I contributed for that matter).

My hope for the Col, is that in the midst of successful battle leadership (oh yes, we still have a fvcking job to do), that he is able to stem the tide of this asinine bulls#it. I can imagine that he didn't have the full picure of what was going on until he was standing there...

First step: half of the formation pictured should report to the pax terminal for manifest.

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Guest Jollygreen

Others have already hinted or tried to point this out but...

The CoC ceremony details are not determined by the incoming commander...often the incoming guy is lucky to get an input. The outgoing commander has the stick in making most decisions.

But the EP in the back ... from headquarters ... gets to trump all.

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I count 2 flight suits in the pic. Play a little Where's Waldo. Donk's not wearing his, either (only other person I can pick out). So obviously all who participated were told to wear ABUs, and those 2 other peeps I bet had really good reasons to be in flight suits. Whatever.

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