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I'll agree with you on the ABU portion, but not be being offended when non-flying AFSC badges look like some sort of wings...YGTBFSM! No, a set wings doesn't make me a man or define who I am, but it's a huge part of our heritage as a flying community. You know, heritage, that thing that some of our senior leaders and especially the uniform boards trample all over in their efforts to create our "unique identity." IMNSHO, it does sully the meaning of our wings and the pain we all go through to get them. Wings are the singular symbol pilots/navs/aircrew across all services worldwide wear. That symbol says that we're in the business of operating complicated pieces of iron whether that be sitting up front tugging on the yoke, flying the boom, or operating a multitude of systems in the back. I think it speaks volumes as to what a set of USAF pilot wings mean when I've met foreign grads of USAF pilot training who chose to wear them instead of those of their own nation. Now we're going to take that symbol and also say it represents flying trons through air and fiber optic cables while sitting at a desk. Absolutely not, it means we crew and fly aircraft. So yeah, thanks Mr AFSC Badge Designer for chipping away a little more from what it means to bust your ass to get a legitimate set of wings. I'll caveat my little rant by saying that those guys do bring a sh!t ton of capability to the fight that makes our jobs easier. They're an essential part of the toolkit wherever we go, just don't like the badge.

"It is true, the cyber guys are doing some good stuff..." WTF? Have all you guys grown vaginas or something? AF Comm is the biggest bunch of shoeclerk tools currently suckling at the government teet. They treat every threat with the same tactic -- shut-r-down. Memory stick threat...quit using them. Bluetooth threat...shut off the capability. Imagine if we all ran for cover the way comm does. Threat off the end of RWY 12 at Balad...close the runway forever.

As gay as this is, it is not something that is being pushed for at the "operator" level. Trust me, I can't stand the fact that space operators wear leather jackets, scarves, and the same flightsuits as aircrew. There are a lot of other folks that share my opinion. However, it is not something we asked for, it is something a General (and pilot) pushed to show how forward of a thinker he was. Seriously, it's like we are the community college kids who are the state school's biggest fans. Always trying to copy and gain acceptance from our cooler peers. It's freaking gay. I think it is perfectly reasonable to disagree with these fake wings, and everything else, but you need to blame the decision makers, and not label the folks that do what they're told. Back when we had blue flightsuits, we were nerds, but at least we weren't nerds trying to be fliers. Cyber and Space have some cool shit going on, and there's a lot to be proud of in doing this job. The last thing we need is to try to copy the flying world and look like a bunch of wannabe pukes that worship pilots. Nobody wants that. In conclusion, cyber and space are very much part of today's fight, but we should have our own identity and let the aircrew keep their heritage and traditions in tact.

Take into account that C-130s do not fly like F-16s because they aren't designed to do so. Likewise, I imagine an offensive/defensive capability would be the SR-71 while the rest of us are stuck in Cessna 172s to do office work... As for the rest of your rant, it shows both some common sense and a lack of knowledge on your part: 0. I too don't give a **** about whether they have wings or not. I think it is a misplaced idea, but could really care less. Everyone knows who the flyers are. However, you should care quite a bit about some info that is on SIPR. It would help to alleviate some of your ignorance. 1. Air Force e-mail does not suck and is quite secure. If you have issues with slow e-mail, it is likely a localized problem. A 75MB limit?!? Must be nice! I'm only allotted a mere 30 MB. The solution is for people to clean out their mailboxes. These are not a place for you to store everything indefinitely. Every time you log into a different computer, it has to load 75MB of e-mails into your machine. What do you think that does to network performance? While we could each chip in 50 cents and they could double your storage capacity, the basic problem would remain. The solution is to archive your e-mails in a .pst file and regularly back those up to an external drive somewhere. 2. The Air Force portal indeed sucks, but the search function is rapidly getting better (certainly not past a 60% solution, but it is significantly better than even last year) 3. Wow, an amazing lack of knowledge there. Do you have any idea why they've changed all of the desktop side of the house first? It's because of idiots like you who have no CLUE about the network architecture. Yeah, your desk units and the last 20 feet of the network are all up to that capacity, but I'll wager serious money that you will not see better service until the links to your servers, the base servers/between buildings is upgraded. If they upgraded that first, you would see no improvement until they upgraded your local systems, but as soon as they upgraded it, they would get requests from all over, "Amn Snuffy has high speed. Fix mine!!!" Instead, as money comes in for upgrades, you will see a marked improvement suddenly, but will not have any recent upgrades that you have seen=less whining from the "customer". 4. Air Force computer support sucks, no question, but they are also stretched quite thin. At my last assignment, we had 7 people for the entire 1500-member Group. That isn't even close to enough. As for your ADPE issues, AETC should have ordered the computers preconfigured with the proper software. As long as that was done properly, all you should need to do is literally plug them in and turn on the power. If you can't handle that, perhaps you should step away from the keyboard... I couldn't agree more that the bureaucracy indeed sucks mightily, but we do not behave like a corporate entity because our secrets are vital to national interests. If AT&T screws up and lets some information go, there might be a lawsuit. If the AF lets some information go, we could be in serious trouble as a nation. We face more attacks in a day than all corporations worldwide do in a year. If we wait until our office networks are "where [they] should be (as good as Google's, Apple's, or Microsoft's), [and only] then...start working on our offensive 'cyber' capabilities," we will only be further behind the power curve than we already are. Imagine a nest of Stingers at end of RWY 12 at Balad...one that we cannot get rid of and that we lose planes every time we use it. Guess what, we WON'T use RWY 12 at Balad and (don't BS me) you wouldn't fly it either until we could mitigate/defeat the threat! A minor inconvenience isn't worth the risk to our entire network.

2. We don't do callsigns either - though some nicknames have definitely stuck - but remember that cliche BS about a thousand attaboys for one screwup. It's true. Especially when you FORGET TO PUT THE GEAR DOWN. Or try to fly a crappy Russian PAR(or whatever it was) to 50 ft and less vis. Been to Russia in the winter? Yeah. 100 ft cloud deck is generous. Bottom line, the jokes and ridicule, good natured or otherwise, are a reflection of the high standards to which we hold each other. It can be overspeeding the flaps by 50 knots or ramming a mountain in Albania, but the lightest penalty is a bad callsign. The worst is a smoking hole.

Seek validation much? As for the wings... it's sorta like calling yourself a doctor when you went to a podiatry or osteopathy school. Yeah, sure, you're a "doctor", but you're not an M.D. I appreciate the role that most AFSCs bring to the fight. Doesn't mean everyone needs wings.

Great retort, but you lose cool points when it takes three years for your comeback.

I am gonna caveat all of what I am about to type by making it clear that one I dont drive drunk and have never received a DUI..... Bold + Bold above does not compute to me. Driving drunk and sleeping it off in your car are not equal to one another. Even then I dont think Drinking and Driving in and of itself really should be a crime. Drunk is subjective and the BAC minimums are not a very accurate measure of impairment. If you want to be just adopt a response time based test that measures one ability to react and is field administrable. Not only would this be able to catch drunk, high, and other wise impaired drivers it may also get some of the bat shit crazy old people off the road. To me until you do something that breaks the law demonstrating impairment your BAC should not be a factor.

No quite sober at the moment just a big believer in civil liberties and the constitution you know the small things in life some take for granted.

+2 on that one.

I think you are totally wrong here if anything our DUI laws as a nation have gotten out of hand. When you are giving people DUI's for sleeping booze off in their car or getting shit out their trunk things have gone too far. I know quite a few people who got DUI's without ever starting and driving their vehicles. What we need to do is stop wasting time and resources on DUI Checkpoints infringing on citizens rights because MADD screamed at congress long and hard enough. If those same resources were used to patrol the roads and catch wreckless drivers we would be better off. When you commit a crime and alcohol is involved hammer them to the wall. If you are behind the wheel drunk and have yet to actually committ a crime or be observed committing one I dont feel it is just to charge someone. When you are driving wreckless, or breaking other laws I am all for it. IMO DUI checkpoints are unconstitutional harassment of citizens due to law makers willing to infringe on civil liberties to appease reactionalist constituents.

THANK YOU for saving me the time it would have taken to say/type that.

Sweet...so that's 5 beers? Good to see some things work as designed. Sucks that when you initially asked the question no one tried to look it up in the manual. Just keep an eye on all of this. Sometimes when they process the collection of the funds they dork it up. If they do, you have recourse to do it again. But let's hope USAFCENT Finance folks at Shaw know what to do. Let me add one more thing. DFAS has told them to process the "CC" collection after MM cutoff. MM cutoff is usually about the 5-6th day of the month. So they can enter the CC sometime after the 6th. Once they see the collection on your pay record that's when they need to reengage with DFAS so DFAS can pull the money. If they do not, then the collection posted to your pay will just pay it out to you again on the End of Month (EOM) Jan pay. The cutoff for EOM is usually around the 24-25th, so they have about a 20 day window to make this happen which is plenty of time, but as you can see, timing is critical along with good communication with DFAS. It's really a simple process but some just don't get it. Later HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

Sounds like he would know what they are doing better than you. Nice pred bashing though...real...classy.

I call BS on that 75 MB limit being ok. If google can provide e-mail to a larger audience than the AF (probably somewhere around 10 times the audience) with mailbox sizes that exceed 5 GB, then the AF ought to be able to provide something similar. I change workstations often (part of the job, I use one main one and I have finally created an offline PST for it) and would like to access my e-mail from any one of those workstations. As far as loading 75 MBs of e-mails everytime... I don't know why it does that. Just load the headers! That 75 MB becomes less that 1 MB, even when you're looking at 1000 emails. You got right to the heart of my point. My mother in has a FTTH (Fiber to the home) (Fios) from verizon. If she can get a fiber connection into her house in 2008, the air force should AT LEAST have fiber interconnects between buildings in 2010. Now you're right, I don't know much about AF network topology, but they should also have a separate internet backbone, similar to Internet2 used by universities. Lots of my griping I think would be solved by such a solution. It's not that I cannot do it. I do it. I enjoy doing it. But here's where its frustrating, COMM is so thin they don't have the folks to help us. So I go and install my buddy's machine and there's something wrong with it. Despite my ability to troubleshoot what it is, it will still take at least 24 hrs for someone to fix it. In this day and age of COMM stretched thin (and the AF trying to stretch it even thinner with force shaping), we should have something like CSAs. My whole point is that its tough to tell your buddy, "Hey I know I'm the one who installed this machine, but I'm not the one who can support it." If someone brings you something, they should probably be able to fix it... I agree on the potential impact of losing secret information. However, by making sure our networks are state of the art, we will also be making sure our networks are secure. Also, "cyber offense" (I hate that term cyber, replace it with Network Security or something) shouldn't be our job. (this I suppose gets into a bigger argument, way way way above my paygrade). Cyber should be the domain of folks like the NSA or another organization DESIGNED to do it. Again, I could care less about the wings. It's not that. I just don't think COMM is doing a very good job. Is 1Lt or SSgt so and so doing a good job (comm bubbas), sure they are. But COMM / Computer Procurement as an organization has some learning to do, especially from providers like Google and Yahoo who service more folks than the AF does and they do it faster than anyone. The AF can certainly learn from Google and Yahoo in that regard.

I guess that's why they call it "SPECIAL" Operations. Do they ride the shortbus to the GCS down in Clovis too?

I absolutely agree with you here, in this case. Just thinking to the future though, the system we have in place is clearly not a strong enough deterrent. The goal shouldn't be to say, ok as long as nobody dies, your DUI is not that bad. It should not be left up to luck in that you get to skate if you don't kill or hurt anyone. Maybe we need to have stated consequences in place that are much harsher than the "punishment" we have now. Honestly, how often do people get busted their very first time they drove drunk...not very often. Our weak ass stance on this issue fosters an attitude that you can survive a DUI. Fuck that, too many innocent people are killed every year because of drunk drivers. I say we make it very blunt, a DUI results in immediate separation and loss of all pay and benefits; in addition to the normal course of civilian law that will be carried out. I have friends that have gotten DUIs, and a lot of them don't really give a shit because the outcome really wasn't all that bad. Well...let's make the outcome that bad, and see if people actually start caring.

I'm a big believer in people not infringing on my right to, you know, live. Don't drive drunk, you won't get a DUI. Maybe instead of sleeping it off in your car, you can plan ahead and have a ride home.

Your little rant here makes you sound like the ugly girl at the prom talking about what "bitches" the pretty girls are...don't stop, though - it's entertaining. Anywho, I imagine there are plenty of post-1950 airplanes out there whose newfangled "computers" and "avionics" are MEL items. But hey, I get it...you're the Herk guy.

Honestly who gives a shit about what badges we wear in the AF? Do your pilot wings make you man? Are you offended when you see a missile dude wearing a flight suit and having a checkride? I guess I don't define myself by my airplane or my pilot wings. Are my pilot wings less shiny because the comm geeks now have wings? I don't care if everyone in the AF wears a flightsuit, at least then we wouldn't be wearing goofy digital ABUs.