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Pope wing commander removed from duty


HercDude

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Guest DillWeed

I had the unique "pleasure" of having to serve under "another future Foglef*ck." During the Kosovo operation in support Task Force Hawk, our CC briefed us up when we rolled into Ramstein and said that during this operation it was going to be crew rest-fly, repeat. If the pilots got tired, he volunteered himself and the other MC pilots to fill in. And to quote, one I will never forget, "and for my navs, maybe the DO might fly for you." When he showed up at Devil Central, I read his bio....hmmm 1600 hours and a Lt Col......me a Captain and 2500 hours..... apparently I missed the bus he was on. "Another future Foglef*ck" walked across the street to command and they crashed a plane...Teflon continued on his path.

Very interesting!

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Huh? How much longer is he there? I've heard rumors that things aren't going so well.

God I hope so.

If you check out his bio you'll se an interesting coorelation to Doc. He comes from 130s, but despite the fact he's served during 4 wars and a half-dozen other major contingencies, he has but one Aeriel Achievement Medal to show for it.

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Guest Hueypilot812

Oh, did Col. "Fun Burgler" finally break the 2,000 hour mark? Amazing. He was the OG/CC at OKAS while I was deployed there...the stories I have from that place, including his multi-paged "sock manifesto" where he went into detail how you should wear your socks (plus color, thickness, height, etc), how much overhang your PT shirt could have, among other things. He came up with the line that if any of our crewmembers was caught not wearing a reflective belt or not wearing their seatbelt, we (the Aircraft/CC) would be downgraded to copilot. There was talk briefly of all of the crews purposely having our folks not wear reflective belts so that his entire Ops Group would be full of copilots but no ACs, but we couldn't get everyone to buy in on that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You beat me to it...I'm glad to see guys like this get fired. We had a similar situation with one of our group commanders recently. I have a question for anyone serving under him. Did you guys fill out climate assessment surveys before his firing? I hear those things can carry significant weight when talking about a firing at that level.

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Pope wing commander removed from duty

Staff report

Posted : Friday Jun 12, 2009 16:29:27 EDT

A wing commander lost his job Friday.

Col. John W. McDonald, commander of the 43rd Airlift Wing at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., was removed because he no longer had the confidence of his chain of command, according to a spokesman for Air Mobility Command.

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz approved the firing.

Taking over the 43rd is Col. James C. Johnson, who had been serving as vice commander of the 19th Airlift Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark.

Both wings fly C-130 Hercules and both officers flew as navigators.

McDonald does not face additional disciplinary action, the AMC spokesman said. He is reassigned as a special assistant to the commander of the 18th Air Force at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

An AMC statement did not explain what actions led to McDonald’s dismissal.

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Got nothing right now, besides that the guy was hated universally across the Wing. We have Captains and Lt's who have more flying hours than their O-6 Wing Commander.

I'd call him a Penguin since he flew about as often as those birds do.....but then I'd be insulting a really pretty bird that lives in the Antarctic.

Here's what I'll be doing along with the rest of the Operators around here this weekend.... :beer: :beer: :beer:

Edited by capt4fans
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Guest Form 8
Anyone care to elaborate on the clownishness?

I worked for "Mac" in 2005 when he was the 386 EOG/CC at Salem. His antics include:

- Having a full out retreat ceremony everyday. If you weren't flying/in crew rest you were at this ceremony every day.

- During Ramadan ordering people to only wear their uniform or PT pants/PT jacket during hours of day light. And you were ordered to not eat outside or drink in front of the TCN's.

- The chow hall at Salem back then sucked horribly. He got pissed that everyone was going to the Army LSA (KBR ran) side. So he ordered everyone in the EOG to not go, minus himself. He went daily.

The guy never flew. Like ever. If you ever read his bio he was all about taking staff jobs, USAFA job (he wasn't a grad), and not flying. I think he only had like 1,800 hours total. He was the typical stereotype of a shitty Nav Commander in the Slick world.

Here's to you Mac :beer:

a3jm0y.jpg

http://www.pope.af.mil/library/biographies/bio.asp?id=11369

Edited by Form 8
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Rule #3 needs to be reevaluated! Apparently there IS occasional justice. Im not a herk dude, nor did I know this guy, but after reading all this I am once again ready to mis-place my faith in the system!

Beers all around for the Herk dudes!

Lesson learned, SAASS grads and DGs get fired too...

Chuck

Edited by Chuck17
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Guest Hueypilot812

I was at Salem while he was EOG/CC as well...among his other rules:

- If you weren't flying or in crew rest, you had to show up every Saturday morning for the camp clean-up, "to show the other people on Salem that aircrew actually works". Even if you just returned from a 14 hour duty-day flight, you were expected to do camp clean-up before you could eat and/or collapse on your bed (happened to my crew more than once...got back from flying, all sweaty and tired, and the boss said "you guys need to hurry so you can make camp clean-up").

- Came up with the rule that if any member of your crew (whether you were around or not) was caught without their reflective belt, not wearing a seat belt, or out of uniform (particularly the PT uniform), YOU (the aircraft commander) were downgraded to a copilot.

- The closest he usually got to the aircraft was when he'd stand out on the flight line and try to look for aircraft and crews violating "the rules". Among the violations he found...a buddy of mine taxied "too close" to a power cart on Golf ramp (despite that it had been there for weeks, off the side of the ramp, and he was following the yellow line...and they didn't move the power cart afterwards either). He got downgraded to copilot. Fun Burglar also routinely busted crews for talking a leak on the airplanes and/or relieving themselves in the infield. There often were no restrooms on the ramps, and trans could take a half hour to bring a bus to you...so rather than takeoff late (we'd often halftime at OKAS), the crews would do their business out by the airplane. Fun Burglar gave paperwork for such things.

I'm glad that dude is gone. There's something very wrong with him. And I particularly remember the LSA bit...didn't happen while I was there, but people were furious when they found out he ate there as often as he could but wouldn't let anyone else eat there. Hopefully we have leadership that can recognize these idiots for once. Hopefully they'll figure that out about another terrible leader heading out to Hickam soon as their OG/CC...

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Guest Form 8

Oh yeah, I forgot about Camp Cleanup! My Mac story is one day he came in and thought that Ops Town had too much trash by the barbed wire that was around the ECP. So a TSgt and myself spent 12 hours that day cleaning up scrapes of paper/whatever was entangled in the barbed wire.

Mac was the 61 AS/CC when that Herk crashed at Kuwait years ago killing three people. Rumor has it he knew about the news for hours but didn't tell anyone till a day later.

Another Mac story is that some FE had his wife send him an alarm clock because his broke. Well she forgot to shut off the alarm so one day in the CSS this package on the mail rack starts beeping. Mac then orders everyone out, calls in EOD (who damages some of the building their their bomb robot), and after they find out it was just and alarm clock, gives the FE an LOR because, "he should of had better SA to tell his wife not to do that in a combat environment."

All the Little Rock guys were glad to be forward deploying to Balad later that year to setup the 777 EAS.

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Guest Form 8
Hopefully they'll figure that out about another terrible leader heading out to Hickam soon as their OG/CC...

And the future 317 AG/CC is another one.

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Huh? How much longer is he there? I've heard rumors that things aren't going so well.

Apparently, my rumor mill was sending me good info. I'll have to dig further to get the real scoop. If I find out any specifics, I'll post what I can.

All the things posted so far make for a shitty work environment but typically don't get a guy shit canned. Loss of confidence can mean a lot of things. I've disliked many a wing commander and most if not all of them have gone on to do bigger and better things.

Found this on the FayetteNam Observer website this morning (this is sending out a different message). There is a big difference between loss of confidence and being relieved for cause. Loss of confidence can mean anything. Last guy I know that was removed for cause broke the law, not saying that's what he did, but there's obviously more to the story, if this is true.

By Henry Cuningham

Military editor

Col. John W. McDonald was removed abruptly Friday from his post as commander of the 43rd Airlift Wing and Pope Air Force Base.

Maj. Gen. Winfield W. "Skip" Scott III made the decision. He is commander of the 18th Air Force, Pope's higher headquarters, at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

"Col. McDonald was removed for cause," said a statement from the 18th Air Force. "Gen. Scott decided his actions rendered him ineffective as the 43rd Airlift Wing commander."

Air Force officials declined to give details, citing privacy laws that limit the release of personal information about federal employees.

McDonald will be reassigned as a special assistant to the commander of the 18th Air Force. He declined to comment.

A spokeswoman said Scott was not available to answer questions.

Hopefully they'll figure that out about another terrible leader heading out to Hickam soon as their OG/CC...
Where is this guy moving from?

Edit: Agree with Beast 05 on the naming names, but there is more than one way to skin that cat.

Edited by Herk Driver
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Guest whyme?

Name their sorry asses. At least we can all look out for them. Tell your good stories too.

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Name their sorry asses. At least we can all look out for them. Tell your good stories too.

I agree with naming these guys, but that is walking a thin line IMHO. I think just naming position will suffice. It would be interesting to see how many of these people can get fired. Granted, subordinates simply bitching won't get anyone fired, but it could help. I know I always quote Boyd, but there is a very interesting passage in his book about the odd behavior patterns that senior officers begin to exhibit once higher in rank. I don't have the quote on me, but I'll try and get it on here.

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Lets hope that this firing sends the right kind of message to any other like-minded "leader."

Its also intersting to note that Skip Scott did the firing as he is a Pope alum (besides being his job too).

I guess I can put Pope back on the list for my PCS options. I specifically said I would not go there due to the recently fired leadership.

Out

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