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Agreed unfortunately. When 50% of the electorate pays no income taxes they don't care about your great income tax cut you passed last year. They don't own stocks so they could give a shit what the Dow Jones is. They don't have any money to pass to their children so they don't care if there is a federal inheritance tax or not. They live day to day, paycheck to paycheck because the globalized economy transferred their places in our economies to the developed world while enriching the investor, academic and administrator class. They see this and they are right to be pissed. We (conservatives) have come to look with disdain on government action that improves the lot of the common man and expect them (the electorate) to be able to trace the good or improving things in their lives (particularly their economic circumstances) to broad national policies that you would have to connect the dots thru in a very tenuous sense. We expect a machinist in the Mid-west to see how reducing marginal tax rates on individuals making over 500k a year leads to higher investment in small business and that's why he has a job, gimme a break. We expect a dude in his 50s established in a town with a family and connections to not be resentful as hell when his job is outsourced and to see how it really serves the greater good to more efficiently source his function overseas and that creative destruction in capitalism is fine, just depends on which end of the whip your on... Conservatives can remain true to the principals of limited government and use the scale/ability of the federal government to broadly improve the lives of the working/middle class in this country. Modern conservatism in any modern advanced state with an industrial or post-industrial economy should be on limited but effective and focused national governance that excels in a few areas rather than our current model of the federal government being mediocre in a lot of areas. Use those few but well executed functions to enable and secure the largest possible middle class that is the only way a stable democracy can survive in a large and diverse country. I am not for an intrusive all encompassing federal government but the people want some basic reassurance that if they obey the law, support their families and are loyal to this country, that the federal government will give them a reasonable safety net. As conservatives, we have to accept that but deliver it in a realistic, sustainable and understandable way that does not enslave the industrious to the lazy and modestly insures the honest and hardworking from the whims of fate.

Same reason the US is still in Afghanistan, with no end state in mind and zero incentive to ever win. ForeverWar feeds the jobs program that is the Defense Industrial Complex. As another poster pointed out- once you realize the purpose of the DoD is to spend taxpayer money, everything starts to make sense.

Nope. Spot on. Much like the O senior leadership I have found myself speechless at some of the bs that comes out of our senior Es. Mostly being the near 20 year types that were prob young NCOs around the safety belt/sock inspection era. Don’t get me wrong, some of these guys are shit hot, but more than a few are off their rocker. My old unit had a shirt that was non aircrew, he spent most his day wondering the squadron correcting people for “only having their backpack on their right shoulder”, (didn’t know that was even a thing) asking the last time they shaved, open zippers and other non sense. Meanwhile some of Es had real issues that needed mentoring/help and were to afraid to talk to him because he was such a dick. I would say it’s a systematic problem with our E culture to blindly follow rules to the T, without ever wondering if they have meant the intent of the reg/pub/rule/course.

Fellow Air National Guard Hopefuls who are of the elderly variety.... Attached is the newest NGB ETP Checklist. I couldnt upload the fill-able form, but this will allow you to see that the ETP checklist has been drastically cut back from the previous. My last conversation with my recruiter indicated that NGB has changed their accessions process and now requires ETPs to be complete before swearing in just like the reserves. They also indicated that Age Waivers are now to only take 30 Days as opposed to 6+ months. I received this information early September and my packet was pushed up at the end of the second week of September. I was told that my packet is now on the CC and CF desk and should be approved this week. Fingers crossed! Hope this helps! NGB ETP Checklist.pdf edit: ETP signed off today! (34 days in new policy)

The shit people forget is Bastion wasn’t the first attack. It was the 4th. Salerno, they hit it and got plastered. Just a poor combined attack and timing basically blowing their wad on the VBIED and then strolling in after the shock and audacity effect had already worn off. Frontnac, they hit well and got in but had no clear goal other than “attack!” Ended up dead but took the chow hall with them. Shank... huge VBIED cement truck. But they hit the bazaar and really only killed a lot of Afghans. After each of those we did... pretty much nothing. After Bastion people suddenly remembered this was a war and actions like the brigade at KAF put the pathfinders on the line in the dark because we had no idea if we were next. T walls instead of a cheap unguarded chain link fence. Crew chiefs were launching aircraft strapped, because of anything is more vulnerable than a parked aircraft it’s a parked aircraft with an APU and engines running. Really it was a wake up call to stop pretending just because you could go to the boardwalk and get ice cream you weren’t in a war zone. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They don’t have to be, but it helps, here is why: you can’t force a civilian to come in at 2200 on a Saturday to give malaria pills or ambien to aircrew deploying short notice the next day. Also, it’s a lot harder to fire civilians when they suck at their jobs.

Justice Ginsberg is back in the hospital. Democrats are powering up the defibrillator, the machine that goes "bing" and whatever else they think they might need to keep her from flat lining. If she kicks the bucket, can the Democrats kick up the toddler tantrum a notch or are they out of notches?

You’re on point. I rolled my ankle playing hoops at ASBC eons ago. I asked my flight CC if I could skip one or two of their retarded “kill the bunny” exercises and just do everything else because my ankle was black/blue and hurt like hell. It was a bad sprain. After “consulting” with the SQ/CC they thought it best that I just go home and come back again later if I couldn’t do EVERYTHING. I told the captain that he and the CC were clueless (which he didn’t appreciate from a Lt, if you can imagine that), sucked it up and stayed. AF leadership hasn’t changed much in 16 years. Sad.

Agreed, not a war. A lot of other things: monumental waste of resources among them tops my list. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

F-15C: Guy in front rubs, guy in back tugs

If you want your finance troop to be effective at combat, then you have to actually train them properly on how to be effective. That means training with firearm outside the CATM range doing convoy ops, base defense, CQB, etc. Otherwise they are just checking off items to green up a slide and are more of a liability than an asset.

You mean Camp Bastion where they destroyed 6 Harriers?

C-130 Unit. Board consisted of 6 people (pilots, nav, flight engineer, loadmaster). Tell us about yourself and how you ended up here. Why the C-130, why this city, why this unit? Tell us about a time you had a disagreement with a co-worker/supervisor. UPT is hard, tell us about a time you failed and how you overcame the failure. Weaknesses question (reworded as a “strengths that are lacking” or something along those lines). Question about how I handle leadership (“We aren’t hiring co-pilots, we’re hiring future aircraft commanders. How do you handle leadership?”). What are your plans post seasoning? Have you applied anywhere else? Then they asked my about my flying time (had a several month break in my log book). There may have been one or two more; I’ll edit later if they pop up. This thread was very helpful in my preparation for the interview and I walked out feeling pretty good about it. It was my first interview and, of course, there are things I would’ve said a little different in hindsight but overall I was prepared for what they asked and nothing came as too much of a surprise. Great board, everyone was friendly and it was pretty relaxed. Whole thing took about 25 minutes. Should be hearing something any day now...

If you want airmen to be expeditionary then you have to train for the fight. All these training days off medical and finance receive, some needs to be converted into days where they shoot, practice MOPP, and combative skills. Most of them will never use this training unless they PCS to Korea to sit in MOPP gear. When a base was attacked in Afghanistan, a bad ass from special forces went outside the wire to kill one of the insurgents in PT gear. Watching it on video looked really cool. Wasn't AF that ran outside of the wire. When the bases are being attacked it's Special Forces or a Task Force that rolls up the bad people. Does anyone remember the attack on Camp Learherneck in Afghanistan where the insurgents took out 2 harrier jets? So insurgents were able to penetrate a base held by Marines. Just think about a base with only shoe clerks and Security Forces protecting the base and aircraft. Shoe Clerk Airbase: "The insurgents are attacking! Did they not see the sign on the gate because we are doing training and X-mas party planning." Insurgents: Oh, we will come back later.

Why does a pharmacy tech need to be a uniformed military member? Seriously. That question applies to any number of jobs.

ASBC died for a reason and only a moron would say you need to do anything at ASBC. ASBC was nothing but stolen syllabuses from ALS, the USAFA, and AFROTC. Kind of like someone asked me if you waive people to do said obstacle course what would happen to us that manage/instruct? I was like it would go away like ASBC. Teach them how to dodge flooding behind a B-hut in Afghanistan. That's ironic because I injured my back toward the end of ASBC. Instructor said he never knew because I only spoke when necessary. We were like 0/5 for challenges until he put me in charge of one. My class told me I had to run for one of the final class competitions. We can come in first because you are fast they told me. I sucked it up and ran. I found out a year and a half later I ran on a herniated disc. At SOS some 7 years later, I injure my back. I did the leadership course prior to the injury. After the injury I was mostly a safety observer. I ran during the last week of SOS and I think one of my classmates got sick. Leadership was trying to pressure the guy to run. During my parting shot speech, I asked my class what happened to taking care of people? Who cares about points for a run because someone drops out. Absolute buffoonery... One back surgery later, pushing through pain to run was probably not a good idea back in my younger days. It wasn't a back injury. It was a herniated disc pressing against a nerve.

You're not going to like what I have to tell you, but if you take it to heart, it will help you in the future. Your attitude is 100% the opposite of what it should be. You need to debrief yourself on why you came up short. I'm willing to show you how, but only you can take the steps required to make it count. I can guarantee that you will never, ever hear a CAF pilot say "why can't I catch a break?" in a debrief. If you ever hear a MAF pilot say that, punch him in the face and tell him to fix himself. Asking a question like that is a way of absolving yourself of ownership of the situation. You are the only one who can control your performance, which means that you need to figure out why you failed to reach your goal, strike your target, execute your airdrop, or get hired by a squadron. A good debrief is the most important part of any sortie. It's an opportunity to actually learn lessons, rather than just observe them, in order to be better next time. Doing that requires brutal honesty, and often requires admitting and owning your failures and shortcomings in front of your peers. You don't have to do that yet, since this is a personal exercise, but realize that if you're going to be a successful AF pilot, you should be the type of person who can put his ego on the shelf and take a good honest look at his performance, good and bad. Learning from a debrief usually starts with a question, called a DFP or debrief focus point. Your DFP is NOT "why can't I catch a break?". Instead, your DFP is really "why wasn't I good enough (in the eyes of the only people who matter, i.e. the ones hiring you) to land the job this time around?". That is the question that will drive your future actions and spur you to be better if you can fix it. Once you have your DFP, identify your contributing factors, or CFs. No one knows these better than you. What are your weak points? Maybe you stayed up too late drinking before the interview, or maybe your grades weren't very good in college. How much flight time do you have? Is it less than your peers who are also applying? Remember, the people you're competing against are shit hot, top-1%-of-Americans kind of people. If you have 45 hours and a PPL under your belt but they all have 200 hours and an instrument rating, then this could be a contributing factor to the overall outcome. I realize that you don't know everything about everyone else, but you know what the weaker areas of your application are. List out 3-4 of them, ideally ones that you can improve upon moving forward. Step three: identify a root cause. Usually, there's one CF that's more important than the others, which led directly or indirectly to the chain of events that caused mission failure. What is your biggest shortcoming? Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring board - what part of your application would cause you to look at other applicants rather than snatching yourself (sts) up right away? Usually in aviation, everything can be done better the next day. That might not be the case for you - your college GPA is probably pretty set in stone, for example. However, there are always things that can be done to improve your application and, more importantly, yourself. That leads straight to the fourth and final step: the fix. What can you do to improve your odds next time around? What concrete actions can you take to prevent that root cause from holding you back in the next interview? Map it out on a piece of paper and post it somewhere where you'll see it often. Use this framework anytime you fail and you'll find yourself succeeding more and more. No pilot has ever flown a perfect sortie, but the good ones work hard to get a little bit closer the next time around.

If you fucked that up, my fellow card carrying members of the Bag Protection Association (BPA), will find you. Hopefully we’ll be able to pay our dues if you answered question 2 correctly.

And this right here is why the OCP becoming mandatory wear is another goal of Big Blue. We all need to be “equal”

I will say this, it’s tough for the FAIPs. They are closer to the students age then the “wife and 2 kids” MWS guy who is at a minimum 5 years older than him. You put them in towns where the talent is tough to find. Then along walks in this LT who starts to feel like you taught her to fly and you were the cool IP and now she wants to go XC with you. Then everyone is drinking and... it isn’t hard to see how two adults end up in this situation. Not saying I agree but it’s reality.

But what if she’s hot?

Deny, deny, counter-accuse, deny. This works in any situation whether it be your ROTC CC asking about booze in your room, or your wife asking why you have glitter on your face and smell like vanilla.