2 minutes ago, Jaded said:

You are way too old to be that good with memes. 

That is an animated gif not a meme you n00b. 

This is hard to figure. If you wanted flexibility, why not just have the President agree to the EO but not sign it until it was needed. If they are trying to be proactive in case of a crisis (like NK) what good will it do to start recalling guys once we are already at war?

Phase one, voluntary recalls. Phase two, stop loss. Phase three, involuntary recalls.

This move makes phase one look more thoroughly applied and paves the way for an inevitable phase two.

1 hour ago, Jaded said:

You are way too old to be that good with memes. 

You sir, lose the internet today.

59 minutes ago, MooseAg03 said:

This is hard to figure. If you wanted flexibility, why not just have the President agree to the EO but not sign it until it was needed. If they are trying to be proactive in case of a crisis (like NK) what good will it do to start recalling guys once we are already at war?

Maybe they know that “in case of” is on a more defined timeline than anyone of us know...(tinfoil hat)

5 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

USAF in full damage control mode...CSAF twitter has a link to a statement released earlier today saying they don't "intend" to recall retired pilots. 

Something does not add up here.  Is SECDEF pushing CSAF to do something he'd rather not?

USAF didn't even know this policy was going to drop. It was SECDEF acting alone. 

10 hours ago, Jaded said:

Ok internet lawyers, what are the loopholes for this? In what situations can you not be recalled?

Conscientious objection?  "Although I've recently enjoyed killing people and/or supporting those who do, I've had a serious change of heart and feel that the use of military force/powerpoint is wrong in any way, shape, or form".  You're welcome.

26 minutes ago, Mikey Donuts said:

Conscientious objection?  "Although I've recently enjoyed killing people and/or supporting those who do, I've had a serious change of heart and feel that the use of military force/powerpoint is wrong in any way, shape, or form".  You're welcome.

Girl tried that after she decided RPAs weren’t for her, I think there is more back story/motive that I really don’t care to remember, but the story ends with the AF saying ok sweet, here’s your Global Hawk, no killing there, here’s your sweet PCS to the frozen tundra, here’s a waiver making you non deployble. Thanks for your next 6 years of service. 

 

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

Something does not add up here.  Is SECDEF pushing CSAF to do something he'd rather not?

Here's what I think just went down. 

AF: "We have this massive problem! We can't fix it!"

Mattis: "Of course you can, it's called leadership. Get some."

AF: "But it's a bigger problem than that! <insert AF talking points b.s.>"

Mattis/Trump: "Okay, if it's such a critical problem, here's a tool that can fix it overnight. Recall 1,000 pilots, voluntary or not."

AF: "But we can't do that!"

Mattis/Trump: "Then I guess it's not such a big f**king problem then. STFU and do your jobs."

Is anyone else seeing this as preparatory fire? 

A bunch of 15-17 year pilots start considering retirement or separation because it will provide better money, quality of life, stability...better everything...so they consider hopping the fence to the airlines.

USAF targets retirement with every weapon possible to make retirement look less attractive. (this is where we are now)

Fast forward 1-3 years - If the pilot stays, USAF says 'good choice, enjoy this critical yet entirely purposeless useless staff job'.  If he leaves, they say 'I told you so' and involuntarily recall him...to that same useless staff job.  All the while the USAF gets to continue complaining it has a shortage of pilots...only now it's a shortage of pilots actually in cockpits. 

This is another step in fixing the hole in the damn before they fix the source of the pilots. 

Shrewd.  Completely vacant of integrity or morale leadership, but shrewd.  No way the SECDEF would simply drop this on the CSAF without a backroom discussion first.  CSAF is simply damage controlling to maintain the image that he's on the side of the pilots.  This was no surprise.

9 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

That is an animated gif not a meme you n00b. 

Dang, you even threw out the hate without using punctuation. True Millenial internet kung fu, right there.

I have a question for the group. An often refrain is "get rid of the pointless staff jobs."  Are we sure they haven't done that?  If not, why?  That would seem like the first, easiest fix.  

24 minutes ago, Termy said:

I have a question for the group. An often refrain is "get rid of the pointless staff jobs."  Are we sure they haven't done that?  If not, why?  That would seem like the first, easiest fix.  

Im sure.  I'm in one.  If I told you what my job and actual workload is, you'd probably lose all hope in the air Force.  I have yet to hear of an effective way for individuals to call these positions out.  Right now, the only method is to convince their commander to let the slot go unfilled or (ideally) do the paperwork to lose the billet.  We all know no commander would do that in a million years.  Thus the pilot shortage and perpetual cycle of filling useless roles.

37 minutes ago, MDDieselPilot said:

Im sure.  I'm in one.  If I told you what my job and actual workload is, you'd probably lose all hope in the air Force.  I have yet to hear of an effective way for individuals to call these positions out.  Right now, the only method is to convince their commander to let the slot go unfilled or (ideally) do the paperwork to lose the billet.  We all know no commander would do that in a million years.  Thus the pilot shortage and perpetual cycle of filling useless roles.

 I'm in a similar position, my job should not exist and certainly not be filled by a rated officer.  I successfully lobbied to leave early and let the position go unfilled which was difficult but not impossible.  In lieu of an audit, there should be a mechanism to ID useless staff jobs.  But there isn't, so if you can leave, you should.  This organization doesn't want to be fixed.

1 minute ago, tac airlifter said:

This organization doesn't want to be fixed.

No government bureaucracy wishes to downsize in order to streamline.  It goes against the very nature of the bureaucracy.

1 hour ago, Termy said:

I have a question for the group. An often refrain is "get rid of the pointless staff jobs."  Are we sure they haven't done that?  If not, why?  That would seem like the first, easiest fix.  

Most people here know TAMI-21 as a sending young fighter wingman to RPA's, but another part of TAMI-21 was converting a lot of NAF and MAJCOM staff jobs from CGO/FGO billets to SNCO billets.  It didn't completely phase out the staff job, but it did alleviate some constrained rated officer manpower in staff jobs. 

Most people here know TAMI-21 as a sending young fighter wingman to RPA's, but another part of TAMI-21 was converting a lot of NAF and MAJCOM staff jobs from CGO/FGO billets to SNCO billets.  It didn't completely phase out the staff job, but it did alleviate some constrained rated officer manpower in staff jobs. 

And just like the officer pilot portion of the program, it didn’t work. So apparently they didn’t do enough or picked the wrong jobs.

Anyone hear anything from leadership? Are we or aren’t we calling dudes back?

No government bureaucracy wishes to downsize in order to streamline.  It goes against the very nature of the bureaucracy.

I read the same thing in ACSC!

2 hours ago, MDDieselPilot said:

Im sure.  I'm in one.  If I told you what my job and actual workload is, you'd probably lose all hope in the air Force.  I have yet to hear of an effective way for individuals to call these positions out.  Right now, the only method is to convince their commander to let the slot go unfilled or (ideally) do the paperwork to lose the billet.  We all know no commander would do that in a million years.  Thus the pilot shortage and perpetual cycle of filling useless roles.

2. I'm trying to do my part. I'm sitting in a logistics exchange position up in Canada. I recommended to my boss that it be switched to a loggie. Now, the rated position no longer exists and shows up as a 21R in AMS. Although small, I consider it a win. Let's see how it really plays out with the upcoming Summer VML. Granted, for staff, I don't think this is a bad gig.

Out of curiosity, I called the AFPC 800 number and asked them about the program.  After the 18 minute hold time, the person that answered had no clue what I was talking about, and thought I was referring to the program to bring back 25 officers.  

I was transferred to a rated recall office somewhere else in the building, but the SME was gone already (1532L in San Antonio). 

9 minutes ago, HuggyU2 said:

Out of curiosity, I called the AFPC 800 number and asked them about the program.  After the 18 minute hold time, the person that answered had no clue what I was talking about, and thought I was referring to the program to bring back 25 officers.  

I was transferred to a rated recall office somewhere else in the building, but the SME was gone already (1532L in San Antonio). 

Of course you did.

I called too. Just to see what the party line was.  Not much info. Maybe some updated HAF policy soon based on the new authorization. 

 

Best info: out of 25 slots sitting there for all this time only 15 people even applied and none (zero) of them accepted a return. 

I'm thinking the B52 alert and 1000 pilot recall are connected.  We're going to need SMEs from that era, like Huggy, to stand up SAC again.

Reminds me of a great movie.

 

Very small chess pieces being moved around the board, definitely intentional.