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Hey guys, I was totally ready to sign up for 9 more years of OPRs, PT tests, PCSs to shitty places, deployments to shitty places, a useless 365 resulting in missing seeing my kids grow up, crappy leadership, crappy support agencies, flying falling apart aircraft that are twice my age, creating trackers to track the other trackers, hustling strats to make O-5, 1206s, POCing some change of commands, getting chiefed for morale patches, commanders calls, SAPR briefs, resiliency training, my wife putting her career on hold for just another decade, my kids needing to go to 9 schools to graduate HS, sitting Sup/SOF, being forced to volunteer for BS to fill up OPR blank space, and some other crap I don’t want to think about. I was totally gonna keep doing all this shit. But then I heard another pilot say STS 6-9 times. So I’m getting the fuck out now.

Valid for a kill, kill called

Is that like an HPO?

"And another balloon of marijuana slipped from his anus." NOW it's a party!!

We call them "prick-xxx" in the B-1 community. Not super-involved in the SAR side of the house, so can't say what those guys are doing.

Why are some of you on this forum criticizing other people’s literal first hand observations and experiences in their lives? You don’t get to say that guys’ lack of realistic employment or career options for their spouses can’t or doesn’t impact their retention. For some people, this is the biggest issue they have with the Air Force. Im glad it’s not a factor for all of you, but I know for me and numerous other peers, it’s a huge consideration. High performing people marry high performing people. And sometimes they do it without understanding 100% of what their military career implies for both of their lives. And that’s not their fault. It’s impossible to understand the full scope of a military career until you’re there. If my wife who has 2 real masters degrees gets told one more time by the employment office she should be happy to take a NAF job - by the way the best one they had was a gym receptionist job paying 60k less than her last job - I’m probably out. And all of this happens while there are GS jobs she is qualified and interested in, but for some reason don’t utilize spouse preference. Don’t try to turn this into a single issue problem. Opinion crushing and narratives that say it’s just one thing like QoL are why now dudes can’t say that lack of compensation might also be a problem. The truth is this is a multipronged problem. We’re all on the same team here, let’s support fixing it all.

I'm an old retired fart, but I had a great Air Force Experience a couple of weeks ago. A client of my wife found out that this couple had a kid who was all ate up about flying, flew flight sims for hours, but had never been in the cockpit of a real airplane. So I volunteered to give the kid an incentive ride in my might Piper Warrior. It turned out he was a junior in college, majoring in mechanical engineering. He wanted to know all about the Air Force and wanted to hear my war stories. Of course I cleverly managed to never get shot at, but I shared some 'peace stories' with him while we stopped for a hundred dollar hamburger. Anyway, my Warrior is based at Austin Bergstrom (KAUS), and we get a lot of military transient airplanes. As we were putting the Warrior back in the hanger a black T-38 showed up in the pattern and flew a couple of overheads and then landed. As we started to walk back to the Signature terminal the Black 'BB' coded T-38 was parking right in front of us. My pax asked me if he could take a picture of this T-38. Of course I knew that nobody would care if someone took a picture of a T-38, but I said 'Why don't we ask the pilots'? So I walked over as they were climbing out of the cockpit, introduced us as 'once and future Air Force guys' and asked if we could take a picture of their jet. It was a looker I'll say that. To make a long story short, the crew were two U-2 pilots. Of course they let us take all the pictures we wanted, but more important they asked my young friend what he wanted to do in the Air Force, and he told them he wanted to be a pilot. They spent about 15 minutes telling him about pilot training, suggesting the best paths to a commission for him, and in general talking up the fun of being in the Air Force. I'm sure the guys were probably a bit tired, and in a hurry to get to Sixth Street, but to this young person they were heroes bordering on Living Gods. I really appreciated the time they took and their enthusiasm for my young friends dreams. It reminded me how cool it is that the Air Force sometimes would give you the keys to a jet plane and a gas card, and tell you bring back in one piece next Monday!

I have dudes walking into my office with family problems. I tell them I cannot execute the mission without their family affairs being in order. Your family does play a role in executing the mission. I need dudes who can delegate and punch at COB, not one minute late. If you have to leave early for your kids activities, that's okay with me too. If you are having family problems, let me know and I'll give you a day to recage with the wife especially. I should be the last person to leave the office. I have to tell dudes to get out of the office on a Friday afternoon and go home to their families. When I see people staying late, it's for promotion purposes in my opinion. I tell those individuals I need leaders who are about efficiency, getting tasks accomplished earlier so you don't stay late, and who believe in family first. If you're a workaholic, then you are going to lead the same way. The CC and Super determine who gets submitted for strats for enlisted. The 3 dudes who stay late I noticed, none of them were submitted. A MSgt was asking my NCOIC if there is more he can do. I heard my NCOIC telling him what I need you to do is go home to your family.

I personally have owned Fannie and Freddie preferreds since early 2015 when they were trading for $4 on a $25 par value. At $12 today the risk/reward ratio doesn’t look as great since you can only make 2x. I got involved expecting favorable outcomes in the courts which didn’t happen. Then Trump got elected and they got a second path to paying out. All of that is context to say that even though I like the idea in some ways I don’t like buying the common stock as a hail mary/get rich quick scheme. If you want a good investing forum with smarter people, check out Corner of Berkshire and Fairfax. They have a thread on FNMA/FMCC that is 1,258 pages long dating back to January 2011 (https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/fnma-and-fmcc-preferreds-in-search-of-the-elusive-10-bagger/). While the Trump administration is the first big proponent wanting to move this forward it is not a new idea. I could give lots of reasons why I’m not sure this will really work out but at the end of the day it comes down to motivation. Right now the government is in a great position, these companies throw off lots of cash and it all goes directly to the Treasury. If you privatize them again the big winners will be a bunch of hedge fund assholes like me. Of course Mnuchin supports that but who else in government is going to stick their neck out to force through a massive change on something most people don’t see as being a problem in order to benefit Bill Ackman and Bruce Berkowitz? I hope I'm wrong because the government overstepped their authority by nationalizing these business a decade ago, stealing billions of dollars from the private citizens who owned them in the process, and I would like to believe we are better than Venezuela. But I'm also not holding my breath and it's combined about 1% of my portfolio.

Instructional Fix: CSAF should read “The 5 Love Languages”.

Sounds like your words are important because they represent action. Doubt that would play well if every charge was always declined. The USAF is talk no action regarding QOL improvements. Don’t believe them.

There is nothing wrong about a heritage video for support guys as long as it recognizes that they are in support of a larger mission. In many cases, bad support is a result of a lack of connection to the mission. I don’t think a heritage video will fix that, but it wouldn’t hurt either. - Support Guy

Are you talking about the zero/thin clients? I’ve recently experienced them on NIPR and SIPR, and they are computing cancer. They require a network connection to a central server to operate at all. Way worse than the laptops. Every login is like the first time. The lagging keyboard and mouse inputs are screen punching bad. It’s a 100% worse Air Force comm experience, if you can believe that. If your base is talking about getting these, push back with all your might.

From the cheap seats, if I ever go down, please come get me ASAFP! I don’t care if you’re AF, Army, Italian, or Bernie Sanders. I’ll be the guy curled up in the fetal position weeping softly.

Quoted from Facebook "It looks like if you rub it for a few minutes the plane will start shaking violently and dump fuel everywhere."

Prior to BLADE 11 there was a circle covering Raqqa too. We see how well the T+180 timeline worked out for them and they were still fighting over BOG numbers in 2017 two years after. When I was in Iraq we actually had people from the CAOC questioning our need to XSAR because of the cost/effort of having us and an HC airborne. Meanwhile a 8+ hour XCAS for a B-1 is approved without second thought. The fact that it took almost five months to get dedicated PR assets based in-country to provide less than a 2+30 response time is laughable. Nobody cares about PR until they need PR.

GA is going to get carved up and not have the pull they do in an RQS. You think they’ll be able to tell a ODA team that they need a 6 man team with a CRO to do their mission? They will be on the QRF bird with a two man team waiting for the bell just like they are now. AFSOC wanted to divest most of the AD 60Gs and curtail the 60W to pay for more CV-22s so they can have 6 to make 2 when deployed and they wanted the HC’s to turn into MC’s. The line crews in AFSOC want the mission, the Bobs want the iron, manning, and funding.

I asked AFPC what can I do next because I don't feel challenged enough in my DO position. Everything just feels really slow. I was offered Staff, C-12s to Saudi, or Edwards. They noted I have 3 short tours already and asked if I was married. I am single going on 19 years. The functional didn't specify why, but I can't crossflow to another MWS. I'm on a 3 year stab tour, but AFPC said I can leave after 2 years. I just need my non rated CC's blessing. Figure I would ask her in a few months. AFPC needs a response by Jan 2020.

There are DO jobs available if that is what you want. I wonder if this is a reason why we get slammed on promotion boards for not taking on other types of leadership jobs. Being an AC or MC is a leadership job.

So true. I'm not even married. I have had CC's ask why my old lady doesn't follow me around. Because she has a great job in engineering. Then I get a puzzled look from them. I say she makes a lot of money 💰 and I leave it at that.

Nope, but my unmarried ass has a sugar momma who is an engineer holding it down in a great place to live and work. She has a great career and neither one of us sacrificed our goals or careers. When I walk into a room with her I am very proud of her accomplishments because she builds highways and bridges across the state that everyone utilizes. 🤣 Can you say the same thing when you walk into the room with your old lady or does she jet toward the punch bowl just to get away from you?

Spot on. I have never asked my old lady to sacrifice for me. Marrying or dating a high potential woman (HPW) means someone is going to have to sacrifice for every PCS. That can create strain, stress, and resentment in a relationship or marriage.

Posting trashy photos here is kind of a bash against women. I don't know that lady, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't need you posting photos of her past here. Have a bit more respect. That is someone's wife, daughter, or she may not be on this earth anymore. Who knows. If you are going to try and bash people wives or girlfriends who have successful careers despite loving a military man with their own successful career, then I highly suggest you look at the state of your marriage. Maybe there is some jealousy shrouded in your posts because your significant others Uber job just can't pay the bills anymore. She should stop giving out so many free rides, but at least when you PCS she will always have work.