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It ain't one, it's most rescue guys. The default in rescue is "yes I can."

Or better yet, bring in polar bears with fricken laser beams attached to their foreheads. Imagine the carnage that would happen then!!!

Standing by for the "Not Posing with Enemy Body Parts" CBT with 15 sections and an associated classroom component. Maybe they can tie it in with the "Not contesting your Hooker bill in the hallway" CBT.

Shit, I'm a Space guy and I don't even know everything space does. Skip to the last line if you really don't want some rant. Here's the rift - and this is all assumption because my ass has spent all its time firmly in an office chair: aircrew has community. It doesn't matter the type or mission, there are very core tenants to your world. Lift, grav, drag, thrust. Stay between the spacy and earthy parts of air. 2 gets the fat one. At least from the flyers I've met, they all have a pretty good, if not functioning, understanding of what each other do. From that, you build identity, history, and comradeship. Sure. The next CSAF or whomever gets crap for the type of mission he flew, but as long as its someone who's been there and done that as an operator, he might not be immediately dismissed. Look what would happen if a Logistics guy got the glance at the job - doubt galore. Why? He doesn't have that common thread available to the rest of the (still most visible) Air Force - aircrew. Space isn't like that. In my impressively short time in this AF, experiencing nothing other than the Alcohol Sex and Booze Course, I was given a ten week course containing only three weeks of information about the rest of the Space world. It was barely in the secret level, and my instructors all deferred to ignorance for all details not contained in the lesson plan. I get to my first assignment and am promptly cut off from the entire space community at a geographically separated unit, like the vast majority of my and other wings. No Flags, no higher education unless you claw for it, and a four year tour doing something of questionable relevance to the last twenty years of war. If I stepped on Schriever for a little while and tried to shoot the shit with my 'peers' in Space, the disjunct between their ops world and mine would be difficult to bridge, what little information we could exchange for security or understanding reasons. So, foul on the 13S guys for not being able to know ourselves enough to have that community. Without community, you can't build a heritage, for ourselves or as a part of the larger Air Force. Very few, without being burnt out by a few isolated tours and some bullshit staff work, really seem to have that span and connection to the rest of the field to have that community build - I'm thinking the Weapons officers and some of the really good bros that are here to get the job done (also, the only reasons I'm considering staying in). Its easy to drop into the trap of office days/crew shifts and not see the reason for doing all of it. Operators become checklist monkeys, myopic to the ripples that they could induce. If we can't even get our shit straight, how can we expect you guys, an established community and force, with real and tangible results in your work, to follow our occasional frustration? Most of our guys couldn't care about getting praised for their day-to-day work, so making our efforts known is a low priority to the operators. Our photos and stories are the best and latest in Christmas Party planning, poorly coordinated exercises, and DWI abatement efforts. Our CGOCs are active as hell. In other words, the only parts of our work that most people see, to include many of us "on the inside", are the parts we hate the most. It's epidemic of the AF as a whole, but seemingly all the worse in our little part of the force. Others do the same thing, keeping the Silent Professional card close to the chest, but these people also know the connection and difference they make to the world. That's not an easy jump for some wearing the Space Insignia (I refuse to call them Space Wings or Spings). I'm lucky. I had good mentors that have crossed my path and really set me straight. They got me to apply to WIC, to hunt down the best and most training I could outside of my lane, and recognize that shitty leadership comes and goes, but the bros get shit done because that's what we're here for. Space has a future, both in mission and community. Gravedigger, I'll guess you've got more time and experience than me, so call me out if this is bullshit to you - it's what I see. I'll be heading to the Springs in the future, so maybe that will change my tune. Don't mean to step on your toes, man, but we've got to work on ourselves before anything else gets better. Unappreciated? Maybe. Sometimes. But all I could give a ###### about is that somehow, somewhere, some ripple that I started in the process is helping some 18 y/o kid with a rifle lay waste to some stone-age ###### in the most expedient way possible. They don't (always) assume room temperature themselves. Rant off.

Bingo. Besides, I used to think I knew what space does and had no problem throwing hate their way until I went to the weapons school. Now I know It's pretty myopic to think we can fight and win a war with China, Russia, Iran, et al without the space guys.

It is never ok to post man-ass. My ivory tower does not approve.

She wouldn't be the first pilot on a double secret probation status in a squadron that always ends up flying with IP's. Everyone thinks they are the ace of the base. In reality I generally find that most pilots think of themselves as being above average when it comes to there skills and knowledge in the airplane. When in reality half of all pilots are in the bottom 50% of their given aircraft, its just a fact. A wise man may or may not have once said....... "There are pilots and there are pilots; with the good ones, it is inborn. You can't teach it."

Can we split this off into a bullying thread? You guys are really fucking up the mojo of the WTF thread.

If you've made it to this point in life without having any tattoos, you owe yourself a pat on the back. If, however, you're not so lucky, don't bother trying to convince anyone else of your tattoo's special significance (kids names, family "crests", AF insignia, barbed wire, or whatever tribal BS you picked out for your bicep)...that's what photographs & memories are for, FYI. Like it or not, there is a large segment of the population that simply dismiss your tattoo as an indicator of lacking judgement, regardless of the sincere thought & significance you've placed on it - right or wrong, that's a fact. And those people, by the way, are your present/future employers, spouses, kids, in-laws, etc...essentially the people who's opinion of you matters most. In today's world, having no tattoos is the new version of having a tattoo. It's a good thing mullets & parachute pants weren't permanent...I'm sure as hell glad the expressions of individualism I made 20 years ago aren't looking me in the mirror every morning.