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Good question, and this is the only reason I come to the forum: to discuss ideas and improve myself. Not for the latest gossip at an AETC base. what would I do? 1. Make the rules clear: drinking until you get an ARI is unsat. 2. Explain why the rules relate to the mission, and aren't just rules for rules sake. ARIs mean you have shitty judgement. Shitty judgement means I don't want to sign orders with you as the A code because I can't trust you. Importantly, this logic won't work with every rule. "You can't wear a reflective belt, you can't hack a combat mission" is bullshit because there's no correlation between the two. However "you can't handle your liquor or know you own limits or plan a backup plan, therefore I can't trust your mission judgement" is completely plausible. 3. Once you do those two, which most commanders already are doing, crush violators. Explain in public what happened and why you gave that punishment. Thats it. I don't think this is cosmic. The vagueness surrounding details of mass punishments dilute their utility. People need an obvious connection between what happened and the consequences. It needs to make sense. For example "To all IPs: 5 IPs got hammered at drop night and, with the full knowledge of their peers, drove home. That's unsat and drinking is curtailed in my facilities on my time until I'm given your plan to take care of each other and prevent this threat to our mission." Totally valid. But this lacks detail required to connect cause and effect and is consequently being mocked. Mass punishment is almost never a good idea. The occasions are incredibly rare. The only way it could ever achieve the intended outcome is with clarity. I need a lot of details before I'm going to buy-in to the idea that what someone else did was my fault. Sure it's possible. Prove it first.

3-5 DUIs at a UPT base full of students? Want to be treated like adults? Then drink like adults.

I gotta say, very cool of the Colonel to give his approval for civilian family members permission to drink alcohol (responsibly). Didn't know they needed his permission, but what a nice gesture.

Dude, it is a big deal. He's taking away one of the best things about the Air Force and one of the things that differentiates us from other organizations. It may sound crazy, but hanging out in the bar with the bro's is one of the things that makes a 70 hour work week palatable. I feel bad for you if your community has lost that tradition. If all I can do is fly planes and go home, I might as well work for Delta- a lot more money and a lot less BS.

In court? LOL. Dude this is the military...it's called an order, and it can be a lot worse, even here stateside. Having seen several of these memos written for similar issues, this one still allows for plenty of leeway, and isn't written to "get people". As long as you aren't sending out the invite via a .mil address, you should be fine. If morale drops it speaks volumes for the CGO mafia there than it does for the leadership. Coordinate house parties and make sure people don't drink and drive. Socialize. Have fun. It's really easy. One day you will look back on these days and wonder why you spent so much time getting your panties in a wad over the most minor of inconveniences. His mission is to produce pilots for the air force, and by the sounds of it people are fucking with the mission. Your mission is to get you and your bros through UPT with a clean record. Do your job.

I completely disagree, in fact it shows a lack of leadership and courage if he didn't have the will to push back to "someone on high." Instead he's made it clear to ALL his people that he doesn't trust them to be responsible. Not something that subordinates respect or make them want to follow.

"no beer light friday you naughty little IPs ...pilot retention problem?!" "thats FAKE NEWS nothing to see here morale and retention are fine trust me!" - Big blue

So, like a semi-official planned gathering?

Sorry dude, but this is asinine. You are excusing awful leadership by essentially saying that it's not that hard for the hundreds of affected people to work around the issue. That's a freaking cop-out. Here's the thing... I don't even drink. However, I respect the place that things like squadron bars and beer lights have in our culture. When I was a UPT Flt/CC, my favorite part of the week was turning the beer light on on Friday afternoons, and all the IPs and studs sitting around drinking a couple, talking trash on each other, and sharing lessons learned. It sickens me that that isn't an option now. Yeah, we can probably get creative... but just why in hell should I have to? I never had a stud or IP in my flight get out of control or attempt to drink and drive after a beer-light Friday. But guess what? If that would have happened, I would have been there and been able to intervene. This new policy would have made that harder if the event would have been off base somewhere where I have less ability to control the situation. Leadership, especially at the O-6 level, should exist to creatively finding ways to make the job easier and better for the folks hacking the mish. Not adding barriers and challenges. I get that some individuals probably screwed up. Ok, deal with them. Harshly if it's deserved. But you don't deal with it by dumping a policy like this on the hundreds of people who don't deserve it. Unless you want to alienate yourself, as a leader, and create distrust between you and your people. And then he has the audacity to give the only blanket waiver to the freaking O-6 promotion party? Are you kidding me? You couldn't put yourself on an island quicker if you tried. This was handled in the worst way possible and reflects poorly on how the AF chooses and grooms leadership. Maybe at one point this OG/CC was a solid guy. But something has obviously changed, if that is so. And I see that happening all the time as guys move past a certain level. It's a shame. The AF excels at turning good officers and pilots into pompous, arrogant, aloof douchebags.

This policy will accomplish three things.... 1. Destroy morale. 2. Destroy leadership's credibility. 3. Force people to drink off-base where there are no built-in DDs and zero shits given about drinking "responsibly" as they would on-base.

I also like that the only "waiver" being offered with no caveats is the O-6 promotion. I guess all the dudes promoting to O-2 to O-5 aren't important. Or can't be trusted.

Make corn and stock the beer fridge...

That's what I figured and hopefully you are correct. Without being at Vance this is an academic argument ...no email is going to lay out specifics since those are best covered at CC calls or other forums. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

It's called the BIT (Break in Training) program, you hang out in your UPT -38 squadron begging for rides. I saw guys hanging out for a year, kind of gets the whole career off on the wrong foot.

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Chronic masterbation

No, mainly because shoving more pilots into a single jet doesn't solve your problem. Eventually, the "good flyer" jets will have to go into phase inspections and the like (365/728). Plus, I'm pretty sure the stealth upkeep requires more time in the hangar per flight hour.

It's the perfect storm, worse than 2010-2013, because we are running out of Instructors in all airframes, but especially fighters. Shortening the B-courses will only put more strain on the actual combat units. Amazing what driving your people into the ground for 10 years will do. I'm also seeing a large swing in guys that don't want to fly fighters. More guys are putting heavies up near the top. An unforeseen consequence of the lack of 11F presence in Phase II I would imagine as well as the ability to quickly build hours in the MAF. I also see more younger guys already building exit plans from AD. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Don't kid yourself, there are plenty of roles this type of aircraft can perform at a much better price point. You can also include helping out our international partners similar to our existing A-29 program and actually having a FAC program where you can actually face to face discuss with the ground components you are there to support. I know, gasp, how could we ever do that! Plus you can free up an MQ whatever, for another mission somewhere else possibly.

So, no alcohol in OG controlled buildings or on-base by OG personnel...so all the parties move off-base, out of sight from OG leadership. No way that can go wrong.

Have a sit down and drink them all under the table producing a two day hangover for them, while giving them mandatory duties that you help with during said hangover. Give them desk drawer paper work. Make them go through all of the programs the AF already has in place. Probably lose some credibility during track select/drop night. Then if they haven't cleaned up their act by then make the paper work non desk drawer. Give them the least desirable airframe on their list. And move on. Or punish a couple other 1000 or so people for the mistakes of a few. WWROD (Robin Olds)? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Well, it's not going to help morale. Most officers are responsible enough to not make career altering piss poor decisions while intoxicated. I hate punishing the masses for the choices of a few. The club on Friday nights during UPT were some of the best times in my career. Don't underestimate the power of comradery and tradition in keeping people motivated. Shame these dudes will miss out. Glad our newest pilots are getting to see a great example of leadership.

You mean the part where he didn't punish the studs and take away from their track select for mistakes made by IPs?

Booze ban at work and official events for 3-5 DUIs within two months is pretty tame, but maybe I've spent too much time in Japan/Korea. I'm amused at the outrage. People really love to drink on base.

The irony... I remember when Huge was the Mayor at a certain flying training squadron at Moody. Those roll calls were some of the rowdiest I've been to, even 15 years later. I wonder what 2002 Huge would say to 2017 Huge.

Good thing we don't have a pilot shortage, nothing like poisoning the well early by killing another good tradition like the classroom beer light on fridays, track select and assignment night fun.

Every time a commander does something foolish, someone comes to their defense. I understand, humans aren't one dimensional. Everyone is a combination of good and bad qualities. However, we are also responsible for our actions and this is terrible leadership. I don't care that he went to bat for your bro, he's using mass punishment while exempting his peers. Foul.

I don't see what difference it really makes. I've always preferred going off base to drink. and they can't stop that. even if you want to have a promotion celebration. just have the official ceremony on base and cut chalk and take the real celebration somewhere else.

Depressing but likely a reason that could get them to the party (around 14 years late depending on your opinion of when we should have realized we were running a marathon and not a sprint). It's going to take a public brow beating ala the SECDEF Gates chiding the services and specifically the AF that spurred Project Liberty and got an FMV surge. Not judging the efficacy of that project but I cite it as an example of an event that shocked the AF into action. If a SECDEF, Senator or other serious politician publicly humiliated the AF or threatened to send the mission to the Army, that might spur action. Just buy one AF... if we can not figure out how to buy a light turboprop or jet, crew it appropriately and not crash the AF then we might as well hang it up and head to the house.

Do you really think commissioned officers of the AF, who are rated aircrew entrusted with millions of dollars of equipment on a daily basis, have legal authority over probably hundreds of enlisted personnel at Vance AFB, who could be put on a plane at a moment's notice to fight in a war.... do you really think those people could be entrusted with this on government property or at government sponsored social functions?

Real life proof of Trump's involvement with the Russians... Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

If it were only that cheap. You know why divorce is so expensive? Because it's worth it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Valid point points...however. There is no denying decisions at the very top, particularly strategic ones are often a choice between two uncomfortable paths. I liken it to decisions made by senior generals in wartime who know men will be lost in combat and find a way to disconnect from reality as they make choices that will most certainly send men to their death in an effort to save a country or a way of life. What gets me is the double-speak, the slight of hand, the outright lies as he says one thing to your face then goes behind your back to advocate a lower hours requirement with Congress. Be a fucking LEADER, stand up and tell the truth to your men and women...Ive done what I can within my power and I am left with no other choice to save the service. I know Goldfein, Rand, and many of the others and I don't simply understand why they surrendered their integrity.

All that time spent learning how to get ATIS by yourself...wasted.

Possible punishment for these Devil Dogs; Nuts; Three dogs were sitting in the waiting room at the vet's when they struck up a conversation. The Yellow Labrador turned to the Black Labrador and said, so why are you here? I'm a pisser. I piss on everything....the sofa, the curtains, the cat, the kids. But the final straw was last night when I pissed in the middle of my owner's bed. The Yellow Lab said, so what's the vet going to do? "Gonna cut my nuts off" came the reply from the Black Lab. They reckon it'll calm me down. The Black Lab then turned to the Yellow Lab and asked, why are you here? The Yellow Lab said, I'm a digger. I dig under fences, dig up flowers and trees, I dig just for the hell of it. When I'm inside, I dig up the carpets. But I went over the line last night when I dug a great big hole in owner's couch. So what are they going to do to you "the Black Lab inquired"? Looks like I'm losing my nuts too, the dejected Yellow Lab said. The Black Lab then turned to the Great Dane and asked, why are you here? I'm a humper, said the Great Dane. I'll hump anything. I'll hump the cat, a pillow, the table, fence posts, whatever. I want to hump everything I see. Yesterday my owner had just got out of the shower and was bending down to dry her toes, and I just couldn't help myself. I hopped on her back and started hammering away. The Black and the Yellow Labs exchanged a sad glance and said, "So, it's nuts off for you too, huh ?” The Great Dane said, “No, apparently I'm here to get my nails clipped!"

I've got my boat driving license, was worth the cost. I only bled a little.

The trick to summoning the hot ones is to grab the Ship's Wheel at the Viking.

True story. Where they want to rank the failed-out-of-wic guy behind joe bagodonuts finance guy because he didn't pass training.