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Seriously - take heed. Unless you have a riveting (combat) story, nobody wants to listen to you. Nobody is there for you - they are there for the kids about to walk across the stage, and if you use the opportunity to ramble about your own life and what you think they want to hear, you have lost. Stand up, say some amusing anecdotes, sit down, let the winging proceed. I've been to waaaaay to many graduations where the speaker had no sense of time and continue to talk well past everybody's time of useful consciousness.

Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out. Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth. But trust me on the sunscreen.

No kidding! It's not like he wore a Univ of Illinois morale tab or anything.

Considering the committee hearing was 3 hours long with 6 different witnesses and 60 pages of written statements, I think I was somewhat brief.

The AFCENT spokesman is Maj Faggard? High school must have been rough on that guy.

I've talked to 13Ns in the past and the "zero defect" assumption makes this sort of problem inevitable. There is no debrief concept in missiles. Unlike aircrew, if you made a mistake and no one caught it, you dodged a bullet. No learning occurs and problems continue to multiply until the errors are too gross to hide. There has to be some room for non-punitive feedback in order to grow and improve or things will continue to get worse. In my opinion, this defective culture is so ingrained from top to bottom that there is no way to come in and impose change that the crews will be able to believe. Everyone will continue to say what they think the boss wants to hear, while doing what they think they need to advance.

Make it short. They have better things to be doing.

Ewww. Mud flaps

Below are my somewhat brief interpretations of the recent Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing on military retirement ( https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/recent-changes-to-the-us-military-retirement-system ). 25:30 - Chairman Levin appears fairly determined to repeal the COLA cut. 28:15 - Sen Inhofe is also dedicated to at least pursuing grandfathering if not repeal. 40:30 - ADM Winnefeld encourages grandfathering existing benefits at this time, and then pursuing curtailment/adjustments later after more study (COLA-cuts remaining an option). Essentially, he recommends not increasing any benefits for the indefinite future because our current compensation is well above the absolute minimum and money saved would be much better spent on equipment and training, because we're so darn good at spending that money efficiently. 47:30 - Dep SECDEF Fox also prefers essentially freezing benefits at current levels and then considering fundamental, radical changes. She recommends viewing AD compensation and retirement benefits as two separate halves that can have somewhat independent solutions. Changes to retirement benefits likely won't be pursued by the DoD until after the MCRM report is published. 52:00 - Conjecture of where to pay for repeal of COLA, which costs about $6B. Are you serious? Congress pulled benefits to pay for non-DoD programs and spending goals. Why do retirees need to find the money that Congress spent? Pull from DoD totals, but not other retiree programs. 1:00:00 - Dep SECDEF Fox nearly repeats the sentiments of ADM Winnefeld at 40:30. 1:03:00 Sen Manchin recommends actually performing the audit the DoD before cutting retirement benefits. The DoD has been required to perform an annual audit for the last decade, but it has never actually done one. We have no genuine, verified report of exactly how money is spent despite the congressional mandate to do it. Apparently the Marine Corps passed an audit recently, but they are the only ones to ever do it, and only just now. The DoD Comptroller actually doesn't anticipate we can complete an audit until 2017. Sen Manchin apparently is a fucking genious and deserves a damn medal. 1:05:00 - Dep SECDEF Fox & ADM winnefild cite Sen Inhofe's graphic that auditing and spending corrections would be a small portion of total spending and are dwarfed by personnel costs. I'm gonna call that bullshit, as the later testimonies by the lobbying groups prove. Also, nearly every contracting program in existence is specifically designed to bilk the budget. Until contracting is fixed, this is wasted time, which Sen Manchin also addresses. Christ, Sen Manchin is a goddamn brainiac. Lastly, Sen Manchin recommends further usage of the Guard to reduce AD budgeting. 1:10:00 - Sen McCain heavily stresses and promotes grandfathering existing personnel. God-bless that crotchety, old man. 1:15:00 - Putting it all together, TriCare will probably the main pressure point and will get some major cuts at some point in the future. 1:20:00 Sen Wicker correctly emphasizes the negative impact of COLA-cuts. He also does a good job at not getting more support from the DoD for not pushing for repealing the cuts for all personnel (not just medical-retirees, survivors, other exempt, etc.). This guy gets it and remembers the lies that were part of the sequestration and Affordable Care Act promises. 1:27:30 Sen Kaine again agrees to repeal COLA-cuts, then defends the BBA because its the first real budget weve had in four years. I see both sides of the argument, but it was still a bad rush job, and its fairly indefensible. He has some good bi-partisanship approaches, in that its really spineless rhetoric. 1:35:15 Sen Ayotte repeats that nobody in DoD, SASC, HASC, etc. were consulted, and totally disagrees with Sen Kaine. Shes usually pretty opinionated (remember the A-10 and SECAF James confirmation?), but I at least agree with her here. She then hammers the effect of a highly mobile military career and the difficulty in the post-service work career. Shes pretty on-point with the differences in retirement against a normal civilian life and why military benefits are justified. Also, she briefly mentions the O-7+ retirement plans that are astoundingly generous, but doesnt elaborate too much. GO pay should really be heavily scrutinized (and cut) in my opinion. 1:44:00 Sen Reed is pretty boring and doesnt say anything new or interesting. 1:52:15 Sen Fischer asks if the DoD has consulted any lobbying / consulting groups. ADM Winnefeld states they havent coordinated anything yet. Sen Fischer recommends coordination first. 1:56:00 - Dep SECDEF Fox states AD compensation freezes will be a part of FY2015. 2:04:00 - Sen Hagan favors grandfathering. 2:06:30 Sen Graham mirrors Sen Kaines sentiments of getting a budget done. He then pushes for coordination with interest groups. He keeps assuming personnel costs account for half of the total DoD Budget (something many groups dispute). 2:11:00 Sen Graham wants an assessment what percent of GDP is spent on DoD. He believes we need some version of heavy cost-cutting to DoD budget continue for the next 10 years (or so). His approach is not terribly friendly to the DoD. 2:14:15 - Sen Blumenthal also supports immediate repeal. 2:21:45 - Sen Vitter highlights that only the military retirees had a cut to benefits and no other federal retirees (namely civilians) had any cuts. Good point. 2:23:30 - Sen King is split on whether the undebated budget was a good idea, as he opposes the COLA cuts, but is also surprised that a budget was indeed passed. 2:57:00 - The woman sitting behind Dr. Chu is astoundingly unattractive. I just needed to comment on that. 2:59:15 Sen Levin again urges for repeal. 3:00:00 - The interest groups state that they each have met with the MCRM at least once and are pleased with the membership of the commission. Sen Levin encourages that any organization which hasnt yet meet with the commission be given that chance. 3:06:00 - Sen Inhofe brings a quick unique discussion about prioritization of retirement pay/benefits and national defense priorities. I wont try to summarize it here, but if you are considering watching it, it is certainly worth a few minutes of your time. 3:15:30 - Sen Ayotte opens with the same comment as Sen Vitter, how only the military gets the cut and nobody else. The witnesses comment on the numerous other past and proposed cuts to benefits, primarily in medical care/TriCare. Good comments by Sen Ayotte. 3:26:00 - God, that woman is ugly. 3:28:00 Sen Graham comments on the value of e-mails and other communication to Congressmen heavily sways focus and opinions of those congressmen. He then defends the existing retirement benefits as a fair and that it should not be cut. He lastly asks the groups to meet with Senators not on the SASC to discuss the impacts of sequestration on personnel readiness. Continuation of above: The written statements below are heavily abridged as many of the arguments are repeated multiple times through other statements and testimony. You can read the full statements via the links below, but know that most are pretty long. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Fox-Winnefeld_01-28-141.pdf https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tilelli_01-28-14.pdf Holy shit, this is a great testimony. Anybody AD officer who isnt an MOAA isnt a member should be. This guy has certainly earned the support.

Absolutely. One of the best pieces of mentoring I ever got was a senior Warrant about to retire saying that as much as you love this job it ends. The family you have left at the end of that is what's important.

Family First - Dont fuck that up! Do the ordinary things extraordinarily well. In the absence of orders, figure out what the orders should have been and execute that! Remind them that they have two ears but only one mouth. This means they would be wise to listen twice as much as they speak. Cap-10

You joined because you believe that it's the most amazing job in the history of jobs, that's true. Take time to enjoy that, seek the knowledge that makes you an expert in what you do, enjoy the walk to a dark aircraft on a dark field and the sunrise you see above the cloud deck while the masses below you curse the traffic on their drive to the desk job they've done for 30 years, realize that every person on that base you took off from is there to support you in your quest to slip the surely bounds and project that weapon in defense of freedom. Initially you will blindly follow, trusting that you are part of a well oiled, flawless machine. But slowly, one by one, you will all realize the stark truth that there is no Santa Claus: a few or maybe many of the very people and positions you put faith in to make smart decision, take care of you, and blindly follow will wreck that trust. It will become obvious to you that the very institution you initially placed on top of the high ivory tower is populated with many individuals only after self-interests, self-promotion, and self-gratification. Top cover for making tough decisions in a time sensitive environment will be reduced to witch hunting, adherence to 6900 pages of AFIs, and Monday morning quarterbacking by idiots that read about how to effectuate combat off a cereal box written by other idiots not adapt enough to make tough decisions in a time sensitive environment... You will become sully, you will realize the truth, and the dark pit in your stomach will make you ill. Realize you are not alone, your maturity is expected, & you will soon have to make a few of the biggest decisions in you life. Mainly, do you still believe you have the most amazing job in the history of jobs and is retaining that job worth the toil on your life, family, and other priorities in life? It sucks. When you do hang it up, you will miss it, because you will quickly forget the bad and only remember the good. You will realize that for every douchnozzle there are a dozen amazing Americans that you would gladly trust with your life. And regardless of what you hear, every American is indebted to you for your service regardless if they would rather reduce you to a number in a spreadsheet or an inexplicable cost that could better be used for steaks for those unwilling to earn it. But, the one thing you will always be able to control is your attitude, it will make all the difference in every situation you will face. Bloom where you are planted and don't let the bitterness of those around you affect the smile on your face when the gear comes up, the scarf whips back in the wind, and you leave the planet and all it's problems behind.

Never trust a fart, never waste a boner, and never pass up an opportunity to take a leak.

Short and funny is good for a graduation speech, in my mind. Maybe a good war story about keeping priorities straight, seeing the big picture, or enjoying life would be good.

1. Timing is everything 2. Better lucky then good 3. There is no justice 4. Always lawyer up

Does the application go to AFPC as soon as you click "finish" or not until your CC writes his BS comments? If it has to go through the CC first before AFPC gets it, that gives the CC a loophole in the process. "No need to rush this guys, just take your time, talk to your families and we'll work through it together. We have until May 1st to get 'your' wishes turned in. Oh, AFPC met their quota and you didn't get accepted? I didn't see that coming. You just didn't get selected. No one to blame but the big bureaucratic amoeba that is AFPC. Sorry, better luck next time. Now get back to the mission I have a star to make.”

For at least six months after you show up to your first squadron, think about what you are going to say, say it to yourself, then shut the fack up.

Take care of each other, deployed or in garrison. Take advantage of every flying opportunity afforded to you. Like my old squadron commander told me when I asked him as a young CGO what participation he wanted out of me in the office: "Son, I want you to fly fly FLY!". Min run the qweep. Understand you're already doing more for the Country than 90% do. Take control of your training. And lastly, have a plan-B always in hand because in the end timing and luck takes care the rest, assignments and retention included. Take chances, don't look back.These are the best years of your life. That's what I would say. Bonus points if you can keep yourself from uttering some bullshit about the one-way Core Values senior leadership is guilty of pandering with. Good luck with the firings, Bob.

They were EPIC responses!

It was actually spelled Blaise at first....even had the huge banner hung outside the main hangar. That lasted a week. Everyone read it as Blasé, as in unconcerned, nonchalant. The S was changed to a Z, huge ass banner was reprinted, and BLAZE was born. Cap-10 Edit: just saw day man's post...day late and a dollar short...story of my life.

Well..."the Rock" can definitely test one's faith at times.

Stop punching immovable objects (From experience)

Sure, that's how many of us who fly fighters felt about it in the days before we went to UPT. With that outlook I'd stick to heavies junior.

WhenTF did they start serving liquor at Bagram????

"Somewhat" brief?

I read the report. All allegations substantiated. This GO sounds like a complete asshole. DoD will show they are serious about fixing this unacceptable culture of toxic, entitled and morally bankrupt GOFOs only when they start firing their bosses for not knowing how shitty they really are. 360 degree feedback can't start soon enough.

Pics or it didn't happen.

So much for peace in the Middle East. The Black Crowes and a Flock of Seagulls had to ruin it for everyone.... Guess that's what it sounds like, when doves cry...

2Lt? A1C? You just outed yourself….

Some serious prom night, breakfast club tear jerking soliloquies up in here.