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Mystifying https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

I picture guys in sparkly tights,holding each other and sobbing uncontrollably

Best. Christmas present. Ever.

I'll just drop this off here: Air Force cancels 2016 season of Tops in Blue Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs / Published December 21, 2015 WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Air Force officials announced on Dec. 21 that Tops in Blue, the service-unique entertainment program, will cancel its 2016 season, allowing an extended review of the program. https://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/637595/air-force-cancels-2016-season-of-tops-in-blue.aspx Never thought I'd see it. Where will the Air Force turn for jazz hands in the future...

I picture guys going back to being real professionals; excelling in the roles Americans expect of them.

https://www.afforums.com/index.php?threads/rex-the-engineer.15323/ This stuff is pure gold. Here's a sample: THE ADVENTURES OF REX THE WONDER ENGINEER: REX and the BREAKAWAY It's a bold, bright sunny day out on AR 8A-B. The KC-10 and crew are finishing up their 3rd hour of straight receiver AR, hurtling around the two short tracks like it's a ing NASCAR oval, with no passing allowed. Rex, the Wonder Engineer, is on his 7th local in two weeks, and his nineteenth hour of receiver AR this month. Leading this perverted race is a wore-out E model, with the pride of the Raggedy-Ass Militia as crew. Rex stirs slowly from a sound sleep as Joe, the infamous numb-nuts boomer, former hero of SAC, pokes him with greasy, tobacco stained finger. Rex's eyes bolt open as he hears the IP, Capt Bank, yelling at him from the right seat. "Engineer! We don't have a ready light here, is there a problem?" "in' A right, there's a problem", blurts old Joe, "in' old wore out engineer boy is a-sleepin' on the goddamn job again." Rex stares blankly at the FE panel. Then he turns to Joe and pokes him in the upper layer of gut-fat, hard, with his 0.5 MM lead pencil. "OOOWWW!!, goddamn, Rex, you mother-er, I'll kick yer old wore out flow-bar ass, you......." "TIME OUT!!" Yells the PUP idiot in the left seat. "What are you guys doing back there?" The PUP, a typical jerk-off professional copilot with an attitude, thinks he's in charge, now that he's playing AC. His name is Capt Corn. Rex calls him the Great Cornholio. When Rex is awake. Like he is now, with two goddamn finger-pilots barking at him; he quickly assesses the situation, and takes the appropriate action. "HEY!, What the is all this yelling about?", Screams Rex, "Time-the- OUT!!" Rex violently punches the AR reset button and a "Ready" light appears magically on the windshield post. "There!, Goddammit, anyway, Jesus ing Christ! I been back here strapped into this ing seat for 3 mother-ing hours. Ain't even had a chance to PISS, and you bastards are yelling at me! What the , OVER??" Joe looks amused, kind of like a cow looks as it's shitting all over itself. Capt Bank, who a year ago was a new banked copilot, who's now the squadron's senior IP, is looking for his sunglasses. The Great Cornholio is unaware that he has established a rather high rate of closure with the wood-burning tanker, and Rex is unstrapping. "Hold everything, you sky warriors, I gotta go drop off a message to TACC." Rex jumps out of the seat and disappears into the cabin. Capt Corn sort of stabilizes the Extender in a position somewhere within a hundred feet of pre-contact, and then starts babbling like the idiot he is. "Dammit. This is ed. I've had with Rex's shit. When we get back, I'm going to bring up that bastard on charges. Insubordination. Dereliction of Duty. Sleeping on duty. Failure to shit prior to flight!......." Joe hocks up a tobacco glob into his paper cup, ejecting a little spittle over the rim to land on Capt Corn's helmet back, right onto his stupid ATC class patch. He speaks. "Cap'n, you ain't a-gonna do shit to Rex. The new Commander and him are best buddies, whiskey partners, see, and Rex saved the OG Commander's ass back in the 141, and the Wing Commander, well, him and Rex were runnin' partners back at Clark, and Rex got him treatment for the clap back in '82 afore the general's wife found out...and that ain't all...In fact,...." "OK, Joe, shut up! I got it. I'll get that bastard somehow......" Capt Corn is spitting all over his microphone..Capt Bank is looking for the sandwich that his dear wife made for him that morning, and once again the two aircraft are closing. Fast. As Joe searches his greasy helmet bag for more chew, and Capt Cornholio is blinded by tears of rage, whilst the mildly retarded Capt Bank is reading the sweet note his wife put in his Darth Vader character lunch-box, the KC-135 Boomer, who has just gotten done with his cigarette, and is stubbing out on the ashtray he's kept for 35 years of flying, sees approaching doom, and keys his mike: "HOLY SHIT BREAKAWAYBREAKAWAYBREAKAWAY!!!!" The Great Cornolio looks up from the INS and sees the words : HIGH SPEED BOOM less than a foot from the windscreen. And the boom is up as far as it will fly. Then comes the push. Capt Corn shoves the yoke eight inches forward in a half second, resulting, you might guess, in a less than text-book separation. A full negative 1G world now awaits them. Joe screams and pisses himself, and everything not tied town in the airplane, including Rex, is slammed against the ceiling. In an instant, the now-bent Extender shoots through the bottom of the block at 17,000 FPM, 18 degrees nose low. Panic ensues while the IP wastes time turning on the flight director switches, and farting around with the vert-speed wheel. He also remembers the beacon lights. Good monkey boy! As the abused and twisted wide-body slashes through 18,000 feet, Joe dutifully calls "Thousand to transition!" Capt Bank finally sees his sorry life flash before his eyes and realizes that they are over the Mt Shasta area, calls "I got the airplane" and loads the poor Douglas up like a shit-stained Saudi in his dad's new F-15. The Boeing Boomer later claims to have seen vapor trails from the wing and horizontal stabilizer tips. Fighter pilots are conditioned and accustomed to pulling multiple G loads on a daily basis. They are proud of their physical strength and ability to operate effectively under conditions of extreme loads. Too bad they're are such assholes. But no fighter pilot anywhere, ever, has pulled 5 Gs on plastic shitter seat. Rex did it, and survived. Aerospace Medical geeks from all over the world have studied his case, and all agreed that only an iron-ass engineer like Rex possessed the physical strength of ass, and the sheer power with the straining maneuver, to survive such an event. Rex's ass is permanently stained with blue shitter-water, not from the push-over, but the high-G pull, which caused his ass to actually stretch out all the way into the metal bowl, which naturally, was coated in blue water and shit. The following is the actual radio transmission between Travis Command Post and the ill-fated local, Spazz 61: Travis Command Post = TCP Spazz 61=61 61: Travis Command Post, Spazz 61 TCP: Go ahead, Spazz 61 61: We are inbound your station. Code 2, requesting ambulance and latrine service upon landing. TCP: State reason for ambulance, and pass on maintenance writeups, over. 61: Well, uh, we got an engineer that's all covered in latrine water, and....uh...stand by fer writeups......uh, we might should have a fire hose standing by....to wash off this here engineer, he's all covered in....uh...excrement and piss, over. TCP: Spazz 61, say again......did not copy...did not understand....Say again over...please pass writeups..... 61: Dang it! ain't anyone listening down there? Like I told ya afore, my engineer's all covered in shit, godammit, and if you want to know the in' whole story right here on the goddamn air, well, my gosh dang pilot boys are sittin' in bags of shit, and I done pissed in my dang drawers, too.....how copy command post..... TCP: Spazz 61 please pass writeups and any DVs on Board? Over.......... This was the last transmission. The airplane landed without incident after 16 touch and goes. The Great Cornholio did not bring up charges on Rex. Capt Bank found his sunglasses imbedded in his fat ass when he got home. Joe went to Crusty's, still in his pissed-stained coveralls, and awaited Rex, who was released from DGMC after ingesting 4 valiums and undergoing a thorough probing by the hobbyists at the flight surgeon's office. Rex did not utter a single word for over 6 days after the flight. NEXT: REX GOES TO THE FLIGHT SURGEON TO GET OFF DNIF.

https://www.wpafb.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-150310-028.pdf

I seem to remember a "shall" in the Second Amendment to The Constitution...and that "shall" seems to get ignored quite a bit.

I'd like to believe that's true, but anyone who has such a lack of mission focus as to volunteer for that train wreck probably won't truly excel at much we actually expect of them.

Never said I WANTED to.

Why the in hell would you want to picture that?

Expect a whole new version soon for the iOS

In all fairness, GA is often painted into the corner of delivering a crap product. GA: hey we have this new capability we're developing that USAF: GREAT, FIELD IT NOW! GA: well, like, yeah, but we weren't quite finished with the GUI and USAF: don't care, need it now Ops: wft? GA SUCKS! Safety: [alarming mishap rate ensues] wtf? GA SUCKS! OGV: what is this, like 8 -1 changes in the last month? GA SUCKS! But in all fairness, GA sucks. But in a bigger sense, if weapons were developed by the same special olympics team that fielded this tech, troops would be hoofing around M-14s with picatinny rails. [braces for the resident gun nutz to post picatinny equipped M-14 pics...]

It isn't going away for a while. It's sick that we are choosing people because of the color of their skin or gender, I think MLK said the opposite.

I don't mind the top brass having all the jointness and schoolness in the world. They are bureaucrats, not operators anymore. An average operational background is probably good enough, but if they don't have a sound foundation of international relations, domestic policy, glad-handing, etc they're going to have a tough time as CSAF. Now operators on the other hand should be able to choose to stay in their chosen profession and become tactical experts without the up-or-out problems of the current day.

This question will not be answered on the internets.