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People like this piss me off in any profession. "I'm getting more than I deserve so let's look at everybody else and assume they feel the same way." Fuck this guy.

If you're taking care of your people and there's the persistent 5% that aren't meeting the minimum expectations then work as hard as you can to A) keep them engaged and B) get them off your team. Obviously not as easy in the AF as the private sector. 7 PT failures and retained by the WG/CC...must have been quite the guy! No way! In the story I told, my squadron had a DUI and another ARI within like a month of each other...the CC kept his job and rightfully so. If it's a long-term trend item and you're not able to take care of your people enough to keep them out of significant trouble then that's where you're failing as a leader. If I'm in charge of 169 airmen under age 30 there's gonna be some shit that happens, that's just a fact. At some point repeated failure of subordinates is the fault of the leadership, but that's not the case on incident #1. Way too often we see a zero mistake AF where one minor incident is cause for career-ending punishment...it leads to CYA and more bad leadership.

I have always hated the "one person shits, so everyone wears diapers" method... How about a good ole fashion wall to wall ball kicking of the person that screwed up....crush him...hold him responsible for his actions. Novel concept...I know. Cap-10 Edit for me spellun goodly. Posted from the NEW Baseops.net iOS App!

And I'm calling BS. There were quite a few missions actioned on "active intel" (I shouldn't have to go into what that is on here) not just OPs set out or random patrols. I'm talking the same complex air assaults and ground assaults stuff you would see for any other HVT mission. This whole "SF commander refused to send his people after a deserter" is crap to sell a story in the 24 hour news cycle.

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I am well past it now. Just the ORF who, when not yelling at damn kids to get off my lawn, realizes that politicians, for the most part and especially in this Administration, don't give a rat's ass about folks in uniform. Great props for showing how tough they are when a crisis erupts; or for paying lip service to on two holidays a year; but mostly alien and unfathomable. Hence this Bergdahl episode blew up in this Administration's face. I actually believe they wish they'd never done it now. But it did get the VA buffoonery off the front pages, so there's that.

Poor wording on my part. What I meant is, as the CC I would address my people, explain the situation/punishment and reiterate my expectations. I would treat my people like adults. Ah yes...because if you don't do something visible, you have done nothing at all, line of thinking. I particularly love this leadership style...it usually goes hand-in-hand with the everyone wears diapers method. I'll default to nsplayrs post for forms of punishment. If questioned by leadership what I have done, I would have plenty (public shaming, paperwork, stripped of IP/FL/etc...) to show them. Is this not enough? Let me be clear, I have no problem using it as punishment...for the individual, but not the whole group/squadron. I've never worn my blues, when I wasn't forced. As far as the blues monday...the last time that rule was put in place, our OG didn't require us to wear blues, as we could always be thrown on the schedule. So no, I probably wouldn't bitch that much.

Coffee. If popcorn and coffee aren't made, you're doing it wrong.

So wait...is the wearing of one particular uniform or another a punishment or not? Do you wear blues because it's a uniform like any other that represents pride in your country and your service to it or is it basically a diaper that you're only supposed to put on when you've shit your pants? Because it can't really be both. Ball kicking, paperwork, losing previously earned positions of trust, checking IDs at the gate, terrible hours, etc. Commanders have so many tools available to adequately educate the guilty on the error of their ways that don't involve added BS to the 98.69% of people who have done nothing wrong. A guy in my former squadron got a DUI as an LT...got an article 15, didn't make Captain when he was supposed to, and likely will not make AC anytime soon. Around the same time, another ARI happened involving multiple people from our squadron and our sister squadron, prompting a stand-down day in our community to discuss risk management and decision making. As someone who did nothing wrong I was not affected in any way other than having to participate in the stand down day, and after that our community returned to the mean and let some other poor bastards make the next inevitable ARI-linked mistake. Set your expectations and clearly communicate the rules of the road, take care of your people and trust them to get the mission done. When bad things happen, give special attention to those who need it (and those responsible for them i.e. immediate supervisors and subordinate commanders) and let the rest of your otherwise high-quality force carry on. A great leader will know how to solve issues like this with his people while avoiding taking actions that just give the appearance of action but which produce little real progress. So it sounds like if that's what you believe then the Commander (along with the guilty obviously) should be punished, not the whole squadron or group.

It certainly seems like punishment in this case. If the uniform of the day was flight suits, but suddenly was changed to blues after a DUI...then, yes I would consider it punishment. Why do I, someone who did nothing wrong, need a refocus on professionalism? Yes. I've seen an officer in service dress at the front gate holding a sign after a DUI. This is nothing new...it's always pissed me off when leadership applied the, "one person shits, everyone wears diapers," leadership style. How about you just hold the person who committed the act accountable? Explain the situation, the punishment and reemphasize your expectations to your people (not via a fucking e-mail). Don't make them feel like they've done something wrong (if they have not), just because of a few dumbasses! What a crazy idea!!

Distinction without a difference. Pick up a weapon against our guys and you are the bad guy. I am assuming you agree? Released Gitmo vacationers were held for more than a decade. Pretty severe disagreements within even this Administration about releasing them. The Marine is still in a Mexican jail. Not very effective if an 'ally' won't listen, so yeah, 'not a word. Especially a Rose Garden event, on a Saturday, when someone has been getting hammered for executive buffoonery for weeks on end. Captain Phillips and Ms. Buchanan were civilians that military forces were used to rescue. Kinda the job and good on 'em for doing it. Bergdahl is a solder yet, according to press reports, military forces were not used to rescue him because of the risk involved to the units and the cause for his captivity. And I don't blame the military. The Taliban didn't "grab him." He walked to them. He may have had second thoughts later, but that's a bit late after voluntarily leaving the wire without telling anyone. Prisoner exchanges during war in the military context have been 1) for like - a soldier for a soldier and 2) usually for some sort of humanitarian reason - severe injury will keep the exchanged out of any future fights so what's the harm? and nearly always were a 1 for 1. Got it. You like the deal. You want Gitmo closed. Congratulations, it appears you are getting your wish. I'd hate to be one of the dudes still scheduled to be in Afghanistan after the 'war' is over.

Bergdahl walked off post. The bad guys were captured. Bergdahl is a soldier wearing the uniform of his country. The bad guys are terrorists not wearing uniforms and not following the Laws of War, the Geneva Convention, or any recognized ROE. Therefore they aren't POWs. The 'enemy combatant' status was invented to fit the situation. Not civilian criminals who can be tried in civil court, but not military subject to, traditionally, military tribunals. The conflict/war is not over, therefore talk of exchanging of prisoner/enemy combatants are premature. The Administration has been getting hammered, even by the usually tame press on the left, by a loooong sequence of buffoonery - Ukraine/Crimea, VA scandal, etc, etc, etc. Gitmo's closure was the very first Executive Order issued by the current Administration. Opportunity for a 'feel good' while showing decisive executive action to, finally, accomplish that EO. Surprise - BOOM. Not a word from this Administration regarding the Marine with rifles and a wrong turn in Mexico. Or the civilian contractor (possibly CIA) imprisoned in Cuba for some years now. We do have more than a few convicted spies of Cuba's - including Americans convicted of such. Or the now three Americans being held in North Korea. I hear the little fat one likes food and oil, yet nary a peep for any sort of deal there. Sadly, we kid ourselves if we think the higher echelons of the USG won't write off a GI for their greater good - themselves. The bro network within the military won't, but those at the top of the slippery pyramid have and will.

The top 5? Lol. These guys were members of the Taliban and I'm sure hate us (wouldn't you after 10+ years of essentially illegal detention), but come on, this wasn't bin Laden, Zawahiri, Wuhayshi, Shekau and Joseph f'in Kony. One guy wasn't even high-level, 3 others were political guys more than field commanders or terrorist facilitators and not particularly radical as far as Taliban go, and one guy was a real hard core cock-sucker who surrendered to the NA and who probably should have just been killed rather than turned over to us in the first place. I don't know enough to make a 100% defensible judgement on whether or not these guys were super-valuable or not, but I'm guessing you don't know either, and frankly with the war winding down we kinda have to deal with these dudes one way or another. What's your alternate solution...summary execution? Trials in the US? Indefinite, illegal detention in Cuba? Not a lot of great options IMHO. I've been to many of those same memorials and to me the best thing to do that honors our dead brothers is to end the War in Afghanistan under the best circumstances possible and continue pounding these a-holes from afar whenever they pop their heads out of the sand. Releasing Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo was an inevitability in terms of actually ending the war, might as well get our guy back while we're at it even if he's not the most shining example of military discipline & bravery. Dude, probably not a great idea to be saying stuff like that out loud. You know, as an active duty officer beholden to the UCMJ. There's just no need to go down that path.

Better update my ISOPREP, my pre-briefed GTAS was a huge cock and balls pointing toward my hole-up site...

Black or red...

What a clown show. At least now everyone can stop focusing on the VA scandal and how well vets are really taken care of. This has nothing to do with rescuing our soldier; everything is political, scandalous, and deceitful. Don't think this is any different. To think about the amount of heros that died in this shithole trying to capture HVTs that would mass murder Americans in the blink of an eye. We just released the top five! My blood boils as I think about the countless memorials that I attended paying respects for real heroes that gave all to put these terrororist fuks away. Why are we still there? What a joke. We would've been much better off trading four cabinet members and the pres himself- that's a win win! Seriously!

Sounds great, let's bring them to the US and try them in federal court. Should have done that as soon as we rolled them up. Problem is that A) Enough people in Congress from both parties are against it to prevent it from happening, and B) We indefinitely detained these people without charges for 10+ years and likely tortured some of them...kinda makes a trial difficult after that. So while it seems like we agree trials would be best, what's your solution to dealing with these guys assuming you're not a fan of trading them for our guy? Well they weren't just released, they were traded. And I'm all for drawing down to our residual CT and embassy protection force as soon as practical. I'm hopeful that either of the next Presidents (Abdullah or Ghani) aren't as big of assholes as Karzi turned out to be but let's get dudes out of the FOBs as soon as we can, the COIN war and forward posture isn't worth the risk anymore. 1. Kony was supposed to be funny...#Kony2012. He's the meme of every bad guy we're going after. 2. Agreed, although there are some guys worth getting for their intelligence value that become a problem later if you can't try them or hand them over to a legit partner government. 3. What's your solution? The dudes that are Afghan Taliban absolutely should be charged or released at the conclusion of our combat operations in Afghanistan. If it's not clear I'm not a fan of indefinite detention without charges, even for guys who are huge assholes. Charge them, kill them rather than capture them in the first place, release them to a legit Afghan government that will continue to detain them (haha, unlikely), but keeping essentially POWs from the War in Afghanistan in Guantanamo forever isn't a good plan. 4. Again, what's your solution? At this point I don't know if there's a lot to salvage...hopefully Karzi will wind up meeting the pointy end of something sharp, maybe the next guy will be better, and we can keep some SOF dudes around to strike actual, no-shit AQ/HQN/TTP/etc. targets rather than trying to secure villages or chase our tail after the next "mid-level Taliban commander." 5. Totally agree...Bergdahl if our guy regardless of his alleged crimes and we get our guys back, period.

So you would have the member (in service blues maybe?) address everyone early Monday morning and the explain or tell the story to a early am CC call? I'm not sure what "next day" action you can really do. This individual at fault has a pretty packed schedule the following duty day after this shitstorm occurs. And don't forget, no action by CC's will make them look poorly. These guys have to protect their careers as well. But since you see it as a punishment Social, how many days do you wear your blues that you aren't forced to? We do this to ourselves. I'm assuming you'd bitch if blues Monday came back even if it wasn't a punishment. And I'll follow that up with I don't wear blues unless req'd. But its the status quo we've created. Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!

First off, I strongly disagree that the 5 who were released were the "Top 5." Whether you're talking top 5 high-value detainees, top 5 Taliban, etc., they don't meet that mark no matter how you measure it. That's point #1. One, or as your argue two, of these guys were real, hard-core assholes when we rolled them up; I say the case on the other 2-3 is murky at best, although they surely are more radicalized after spending 10+ years down there but in many ways that's to be expected based on our policies. To answer your question, I don't know the appropriate relative value of prisoners in our detention. I didn't take part in the negotiations, don't know the circumstances of how the deal unfolded, etc. So it's hard to say. That would be a nuanced position to take for anyone who wasn't privy to all the details. I'm glad we got our guy back first and foremost, and we'll have to let history judge whether releasing these guys was "worth it" or not if we're even able to judge that definitively. Not that that's reasonable...people who don't trust the President or the administration will throw spears and just intuitively think the deal was bad and people who support the President will generally feel oppositely. Neither position is logically defensible because frankly there aren't that many people who have access to all the right information to make a judgement, and truthfully pretty much everyone who does also has political leanings and/or an agenda. Military tribunals aren't ideal since they look like kangaroo courts, even if we take pains to make them as legitimate as possible. If a person is legitimately a war criminal and we have evidence proving that, try them in a "real" court, namely one that's legitimate in the eyes of the world. Our entire enterprise at Guantanamo, from the detentions to the tribunals, is tainted with illegitimacy and I can't disagree based on what we've done with the guys down there. I have little doubt most of those guys are bad dudes (and if they weren't before they certainly are now), but that doesn't mean we just throw out the law and international norms. My suggestion is real trials, real convictions, and real federal prisons for anyone we have legit evidence on, and release to third countries if we're unable to convict them. That's a decision that carries a decent amount of risk but at this point unless the whole population of the prison falls into a black hole we have to do something with them and close that place down as soon as practical. It's done nothing but hurt our moral standing in the world and if we have legit evidence on guys let's hear it so their crimes are known and their punishment is public.

I would have thought that in a forum like this we could do away with broad-brush distinctions like this that we know simply are not true. Do you honestly believe every person who fought against us in Iraq and Afghanistan (or elsewhere) is a terrorist? What's your definition of terrorist? Not much of a student of history eh? Exchanging prisoners before the conflict is over has happened very frequently in the past. Except when the Secretary of State raised the issue on a visit to Mexico...and except the 11 times he's been visited by US consular officials. Ya know, not a word. Could more be done? Probably. That's really more of a law enforcement case involving a close ally rather than some fighting group or tyrannical regime grabbing one of our dudes so it's a little more nuanced. We'll see, hopefully he'll be out of Mexican jail soon despite any mistake that might have been made. You also conveniently left out cases like the Current TV reports or even Captain Phillips and Jessica Buchanan. I think the perpetrators in those last two cases saw some pretty effective "negotiation" techniques being employed.

Dude, take your pick of sources and you'll get a different opinion.. https://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-taliban-prisoners-20140606-story.html#page=1 I stand by that none of us armchair quarterbacks here (myself included) know the true value of keeping these guys as detainees (forever?) vs the value of releasing them in order to get Bergdahl back. I'm inclined to believe it was worth it for various reasons I've discussed although it's hard to say for sure. Maybe you disagree. What would have been your alternate plan?