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I really enjoyed this movie. I liked that they made those call-backs to "A New Hope". I loved the FUN of it, something sorely lacking in the prequels. I didn't think they had one-dimensional characters...you have a stormtrooper who suddenly grows a conscience, a girl with severe abandonment issues, and the main bad guy has a severely out-of-control temper. My theory is that Rey is Luke's daughter...and, being the giant nerd that I am, I will remind everyone that both Anakin and Luke were highly skilled pilots despite a lack of training and experience. Every time Rey uses the force, it happens almost immediately following Kylo Ren using the force. She's learning from him, however indirectly. There is also a fan theory that she was trained, then had a memory block put in place to hide her from the First Order...why else would she see an island when she uses the force, having only lived on a desert planet? Why else would she get those impressions from the lightsaber if she never learned how to use those powers? Also, I really hated the new Star Trek movies, and the latest looks to be the worst. They turned Star Trek into nothing more than a backdrop for a poorly-scripted action movie. Star Trek was never about the action - it was about competent, smart people solving problems through the use of their intelligence and technology.

Here's an idea, instead of building an entirely new rank structure and providing less training and less pay for the same responsibility in the jet, why don't we bring in more airmen and GS-4's to do the office work that is driving said pilots away and removing their focus on flying, and stick with a system that's been working fine for the last 60 years? Pilots will *gasp* get to focus on flying and being better, smarter pilots. Congressmen get more jobs in their district. Big blue gets squadrons with tons of experience and less turnover, giving them better combat capability and allowing us to focus on getting better products out of UPT and trimming it down, eliminating possibly 1-2 UPT bases and returning all those white jet slots to the MAJCOMs to give us even better manning.

Things haven't changed much since the late 50's. Where would the Air Force get the positions from if they ever go back to the WO program? Historical USAF WO document (long); The In-Betweeners. https://warrantofficerhistory.org/PDF/AFA_1191tween.pdf Excerpt; In 1958, Congress created two new enlisted grades, E-8 and E-9. The rationale was that enlisted members were reaching the top NCO grades midway in their careers and had no place to go from there. The services did not want to use officer authorizations to make more warrant appointments, so the solution seemed to be to add another tier to the enlisted ranks. In 1959, the year that the Air Force promoted its first master sergeants to E-9, it also announced plans to phase out its warrant officer program. At the time, officials insisted there was no connection between the two moves, but the correlation is hard to ignore. The Air Force admitted that it had decided that warrant officers constituted an unnecessary layer of supervision between the commissioned and noncommissioned ranks. Some years later, officials concluded that the new senior noncoms were "capable of doing the same jobs as warrant officers." Unlike warrant officers, the new NCOs were charged against enlisted strengths, and the services could afford more of them. The law allowed only three percent of all enlisted members to be in grades E-8 and E-9, but that was more than four times the number of warrant officers the Air Force had at the time. Pentagon Foolishness; The advent of the supergrade NCO was not without its problems. In its first burst of enthusiasm, the Pentagon foolishly passed most of the new slots to major commands to fill as they saw fit. Many went to deserving master sergeants regardless of their specialties or positions. Commands again were using the appointments to reward individuals rather than to fill valid requirements. It took USAF several years to regain control over the supergrade program, define the superintendent slots, and begin to fill them by centralized promotions. Meanwhile, the Air Force had to make use of those several thousand warrant officers who were left in the system. Most were assigned to commissioned officer positions. The service encouraged early retirement and, in some cases, forced attrition.

BLUF: as stuckindayton wrote, he should get a cycloplegic assessment ASAP. I encourage you to provide those results to us, either here or in a PM. Refractive Surgery (PRK or LASIK) might be his best chance for pursuing a Pilot position. We can't give a good answer as the contacts prescription is not as comprehensive. Also, everybody's vision changes as they age. But guesstimating from the prescription you provided indicates he does not meet IFCI standards for a both Hyperopia (farsightedness) and Anisometropia (difference in vision for each eye). Again making assumptions, he would be eligible for a IFCI waiver for his Hyperopia but not for the Anisometropia, not to mention the very likely possibility he would have trouble passing depth perception. Also, this would be very borderline for a Navigator applicant.

If you're single your options will be the dorms on base or anywhere off base. Depending on when you show up they might be forcing all single dudes to live in the dorms, or allowing (or even encouraging) dudes to live off base if the dorms are full. If you want to have your pet with you, you will want to live off base since you can't have pets in the dorms and you won't live in the family housing on base since you're single. Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk

If you take him to any AF Optometrist and explain that you want a cycloplegic refraction and stereopsis measurement it would go a long ways to determining if he is pilot qualified. Again, it's no guarantee, but you'll have a better feeling where he stands.

Lowest bidder for FTW! I was there last July. About 3 days after I arrived, my AC unit spun a fan bearing and sounded like a can of nuts and bolts rattling around. Of course this was about an hour into my sleep time. Shortly there after the fan stopped and things started to heat up. A few hours of that was all I could take so pillow and blanket in hand, I walked my ass to the rec center and slept on the couch in the music studio room. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

There's really not enough information to answer the question about qualification, however, there are several items I can comment on. The right eye is farsighted, hence the positive sign in front of the power. +2.25 is within the waiverable range, however, the only way to accurately measure farsightedness in many cases is with a cycloplegic refraction (using Cyclopentolate not Tropicamide/Phenylephrine). Second, the left eye is nearsighted, hence the minus sign in front of the prescription. When the eyes are different like this, stereopsis (i.e. depth perception) is often compromised. The only way to determine where your son stands would be to have an optometrist do a cycloplegic exam and measure the degree of stereopsis. Although it does not guarantee anything it would give you a much better feel for where things stand. If you choose to get this exam, either post or PM the results and I can comment further.

Huh. When I watched the trailer I kept expecting a transformer to pop up somewhere. Blackhawk Down this aint.

You couldn't have waited 3 months to make it a full decade thread bump?

Yup

Agree with positive Star Wars reviews. Was excellent, amd would watch again. Minor complaints here and there, but great movie that recaptured much of the feel of the originals.

J.J. Abrams did an outstanding job with Episode VII. I can't believe how badly George Lucas f***ed up Episodes I, II, and III. It's going to be tough to wait until 2017 for Episode VIII.

War is hell.