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You can contact the AF Museum and they will often let you display old artifacts in your bar; just ask!

I know a good resturant at the end of the universe!

Might just find out come Feb. Me thinks the Guard is low hanging fruit....I will be dusting of my resume and exploring my options! What's the number to that truck driving school?

What makes me qualified? How about our regs that say we need to be familiar with the approach to BACKUP the pilots up. Please refer to our MDS Vol 3, if you want to get educated on my job responsibilities. Have fun flying UAV's someday oh great one. And hard landings happen idiot, check my medical records. This thread is Boom Operator Q & A, not idiots with their 2 cents. STANDBY you are excused. Please find another forum and tell them how big your dick is. Maybe someone else will be impressed, because this old sarge isn't.

1 - "Donate" those jumper cables you bought to the SQ, for use by anyone else who needs but does not have/follow an After Parking/Shutdown checklist for their POV. 2 - Have a beer and let it go. Seriously.

It's not the flying rules and regulations that are bogging the AF down. I rarely think anything in the 11-202, 11-2MDS, etc etc are "in my way". As said above, we used to crash a lot of airplanes and now we have these regs to keep that from happening. Instead, it's the rules/regulations culture that we've imposed on ourselves for EVERYTHING else. Creativity is completely stifled in the Air Force today. As our "market" is changing from the Cold War era to post-9/11 challenges and rapidly reducing pots of money, we need innovation and our culture is killing it.

And that, right there gents, is our real heritage. From the beginning, we were people who thought differently than the establishment. We thought of better ways of doing things (operationally) and made them happen whether or not it bent the rules. We have always focused getting the mission done while accepting the inherent danger of hurtling through the air in a metal box while getting shot at and shooting back. We tolerate the associated bureaucracy that enables us to do that job, but we do not admire it. That is the bureacracy that says we must have heritage uniforms and goal cards to know what an Airman is. I say those things undermine the very essence that makes an Airman. I don't want a PT uniform, a reflective belt, hand-washing Nazis, Core Values, Combat Action Medals, AFSO 21, TQM, CBTs, DTS, or ORIs. If there's a job that needs doing, I want to get into my plane and do it. Sorry if I went over my duty day and didn't request a waiver. Sorry if I wasn't current for that event or if the WX was below mins or if that gauge was inoperative the whole time. I did it because somebody was counting on me to do it. And I'll do it again tomorrow. That, my fellow Airmen, is our heritage. Unfortunately, that doesn't play well with the brass, who want everyone to feel "included" and equally special. I know the names and the dates that form our history. I know Leon Vance's half-severed foot was stuck in the rudder pedals so he couldn't bail out and that Bernard Fisher pulled his buddy into the back seat after landing while under attack. I know there are plenty of dudes who have done amazing stuff that we have never heard about, which is probably a shame. Do I feel a kinship with the Doolittle Raiders, the 8th AF bombers, and the Air Recue Service? A little. Do I feel a kinship with the guy who was facing long odds but did his job anyway, because that's just the way we do things? Absolutely. I won't speak for everybody, but that's why shoe clerks are held in contempt. I don't feel a sense of loyalty so much to the Air Force, but to the people get the Air Force's job done. If that's too cynical or jaded, so be it. But you can't legislate a sense of heritage and make me feel it. So if someone wants to know about heritage, go ask a pilot how many times they think they've almost died, and listen closely.