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I'll have to dig for those examples. Admittedly anecdotal. Specific example from personal experience. I was an RA in college, and one of my residence tag was stolen. So I called campus police. While we were getting it worked out, I asked the cop why I had been harassed by campus police for the past 3 years. He said oh shit, you're the guy that drives that green cutlass supreme. I said yeah that one right there. He said oh we thought you were a local drug dealer. We have a profile on you at the precinct. I asked why. He said remember a while back when campus SWAT rolled you up (yes we had a SWAT team for some reason. I said yeah wtf was that about. He said a lady called us and said you were selling drugs in a parking lot and had a prostitute with you. I said yeah I had to get my Det CC to come out and convince them I was a student and in ROTC. He said we asked her why she made the call and she said because he's black and drives a ghetto green car. After your commander came out, we were still convinced you were dealing, because honestly you look like a drug dealer and your car screams drug dealer. So whenever we saw you, we would follow you, or pull you over to see if you had anything in the car. I said I appreciate your honesty, but take me off your wall. He said he would, and I was never bothered again. You may think thats just good policing, I think that's ed up. On your isolated incident comment; a guy driving an 80s mobile got busted with drugs and now anyone that resembles that description is treated as such. It's happened to me. I was pulled over going home and the cop said "you just look suspicious man" I was just driving down the street. But because of a few isolated incidents in my area, I was treated like a criminal. So I get it, it sucks. If you believe there is racism, but you don't believe people will use their position, power, job etc to hold other people down I find that hard to believe. And I think that happens with all races. It's on both sides, and that's why I'm trying to bridge the gap. Can you give me an example of a minority receiving privileges of this society more than the majority? I'd like to hear that. I love this discussion. Thats one thing I like about the AF. We can have differing opinions, talk about it and learn from one another. It will not effect our mission. I have a solid bro that thinks along the same lies as some of you. We as black officers can't exile him. We need to listen and understand his perspective. I can trust him to execute on the jet, and vice versa with our differing views. We're gonna go rage and when we get back, have a beer and continue the discussion. Just because he thinks a certain way doesn't mean he's not a solid bro. I think some people are missing that.

Just think of all the fellas you and I fly with who have *never* been upside-down in an aircraft. When I fly with someone who is in that category, I usually encourage them to go buy an hour or two of aerobatic instruction for their own airmanship development. I have been surprised to hear many folks respond with either, "...if I needed to know that, the company would train me to do it." or "...being upside-down in a Pitts doesn't teach me anything about what to do if it happens in a 767." So, literally, these individuals are not concerned about their first time being inverted in an airplane being in a transport-category aircraft and it occurring at an unplanned/unexpected time. SMH.

It amazes me how much some professional pilots (mil and civ) can lack humility/scoff at other types of flying or specific training. I have a couple thousand hours in fighters, but landing a tail wheel the first couple flights felt like I might as well be back in UPT. It’s been fun as hell learning TW/GA aerobatics, and it has absolutely made me a better pilot overall. Every pilot should do it as soon as they can afford to.

Heard back from the POC on this one. "Our next pilot hiring board will be in October. Please have your package submitted to me by 14 Aug 20. If selected, I will include all the details needed for the interview process. While the interview dates are currently scheduled for 3 & 4 October 2020, we may have to be flexible due to COVID-19 protocols."

There’s been a long discussion over what uniforms police in America should I wear and I fall strongly on the side of as civilianized and non-confrontational as possible while still allowing officers to carry all the gear they need and command the respect they deserve. @FLEA is spot on saying tension is cyclical and since we can’t control non-organized protesters, let’s do what we can with the folks we can control ie our LEOs and do what’s possible to de-escalate. At the same time let’s also have political and activist leaders call for de-escalation and non-violence as well. You can’t and shouldn’t expect to quell unrest in a democratic republic via crackdowns (eg “dominating the battle space”), it has to be mutual reductions in force and those who are in power and sworn officers of the law should take the lead. This is a good read on the subject: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-18/a-history-of-police-uniforms-and-why-they-matter I think everyone knows that wearing different clothes makes you feel different. It’s why you dress up for church and “sun’s out, guns out” at the beach and why I at least feel a specific type of aircrew pride throwing on the green bag. For me, it’s even more so in the bag than when wearing the multicam flight suit that IMHO makes us all look like we’re in the Army despite the advantages of the two-piece style while shitting or sweating. On active duty we were issued combat shirts at one point to pair with body armor and the multicam bottoms and boy did we feel like Billy Badasses despite no actual increase in combat lethality. SEALs of the sky indeed 😅 All that to say: police, even federal LEOs, should wear uniforms that look like civilian police uniforms, especially when patrolling American cities and towns. It actually matters in how the public perceives and treats them. And they should always be identifiable with specific department badges and individual badge or ID numbers if not names. If you’re an adviser in Iraq or raiding some cartel safe house on the border or SWAT, it’s a different situation obviously.

This is the crux of the issue for me. Too many law enforcement agencies look like SEAL team 6 out there. It sends the wrong message and blends two VERY different missions in the minds and eyes of the People.

Hey @Guardian, a word of honest advice. You’re debating like a self-righteous dick and it’s likely turning some people off to potentially valid points that you make. Not being the IP here but rather simple peer-to-peer debriefing from the sortie. And trust me, I am an expert at arguing like a self-righteous dick. I did it here and elsewhere for many years. I’m not anywhere near perfect now, but am actively trying to be better and give more people the benefit of the doubt more often and engage in good faith whenever possible.

Excellent question. The answer is the same way you get better at being an aviator. And that's in the debrief. Which is what I think is happening right now on this thread. Take off the rank, biases, etc and have an open discussion. Listening to the feedback and applying it. I say we need to get people to understand that there are those that have hatred in their heart for minorities and non-minorities a like.Racism in most cases is covert and subtle. I ask that when we see it from anyone, squash that shit. I want you to understand my perspective and to not down play the way I view something. You may not every see it, but if and when you do, call it out. I understand what Guardian is saying, and I'll reflect on that. I ask that others do the same with different perspectives.

No shame in knowing you'd rather not serve in the military if stuck with drones (my feelings exactly if they had been around when I went through), but I wouldn't necessarily say it out loud. Just stress your desire to fly military "fast" jets and stick with Guard/Reserves.

Even for mil guys, an upset recovery training course (UPRT) is definitely money well spent, especially if you fly any amount of GA. Big 2, to Hacker/Brabus posts...and yes tailwheel flying is where it's at, definitely makes you a better pilot. At a minimum, UPRT should be required training a commercial ticket. Also, check out the videos I linked above.

He’s got a good point OP. Your SA is about as high as the vipers blowing through the entire stack claiming they have radar SA, even though they almost hit everyone, including their own wingman and still don’t see the guy in front of them. You just don’t have the experience yet with that sort of flying. Most people start UPT wanting to be fighter pilots, many finish with no desire to ever go over 60 degrees of back again. The guard is still the way to go in my opinion. Once you’re in your in. If fighters don’t end up working out a heavy unit will almost definitely take you if you’re not just a total hazard, and even then I’ve seen some scary 135 guard.

Why did they censor the tail code. It's not like they're everywhere. Exactly. Did you not get the new SecAF OPSEC email at 4:30 on a Friday telling us worker bees with so many ties to the media to stop leaking info?

Thanks for the words. I appreciate it. I’ll look to praise more in public and criticize in private. Open to listening to how better to make my points and not letting my own personality get in the way of the facts. Let me know.

Two issues here: first, the federal LEOs in Portland, from what I understand, were not clearly identifying what agency they were with (BOP, US Marshals, ICE, etc.) nor did they have individual ID or badge numbers on their uniforms. This prevents any person interacting with them from lodging a complaint because it’s totally unclear who you would even call or how to describe one officer from another. If I am misunderstanding the details of what happened / is happening with that operation in Portland I’m open learning the truth. Second, policing your own citizens in the homeland is fundamentally different than military operations overseas and I’d rather error on the side of stringently upholding citizens civil liberties than on the side of OPSEC for the LEOs involved. I don’t find any valid reasons why an agency affiliation and individualized ID number violates the personal security of the LEOs out there doing difficult work nor would it hurt the overall OPSEC of their mission, which was crowd control and defense of facilities, not undercover work. Also not for nothing, as a member of the national guard, I 100% want the American people to very clearly understand when they are interacting with local or state LEOs, federal LEOs, or my fellow Guardsmen. All of those institutions have different missions and conflating them, especially in controversial and confrontational situations, only serves to drag down the trust in all of the institutions at once.

It's not blame shifting, @Guardian, it's pointing out double-standards. Don't misconstrue the argument.

Lol, AFSOC has tried to claim it's better than Hurby? That's rich. I spent 3 years there (Palace Chased to avoid spending indefinitely longer), left 6 years ago and haven't missed it since.

@Guardianexcellent discourse, I really appreciate your perspective. And I'm not here to change your mind. I think everything stated above was racially motivated, but thats my opinion. I do think the system is racist, heres why. Those people that called the cops on me, did it because of my skin color. Beyond that, they both have jobs. What I mean by that is, we can agree that racism exists. I don't think that hate and resentment towards minorities stops when they go to work. Racist people are in the system, and I believe that some of them allow it to cloud their judgement. When overt racism became uncool at the turn of the century, those people didn't stop being racist, it's just undercover now. I agree the BLM moniker is tainted. But from what you're saying, you understand that there is an issue, but others won't join because of the BLM moniker....that makes sense, I can understand that. I brought up the OKC issue to point to BLM here isn't tearing down stuff, looting, or rioting. I agree with you. And it's a call to celebrities in and from the area to help. MLK did say a riot is the language of the unheard. However, I agree. I don't like some of the things I've been seeing. Hopefully you don't think I think a whole race of people are racist because of MLK, I don't. I brought it up to show that it wasn't that long ago, and people that think that way are still alive. Most of us fully understand all whites aren't racist. We're trying to bring attention to those that are. I don't like preferential treatment either. But I also don't like people thinking I received preferential treatment to get where I am. I'm just damn good at what I do. Example. One of my peers (at the direction of some other peers) had enough balls to tell the Sq CC that we had too many black flt ccs. We had 2. 2 out of 10. I was one of them. Got Flt cc OTY at the group level, and the other guy got it the year after me. But some say we got it because we were black. Further, who ever these people are, are going to stay in the AF and continue their careers with that mind set. Thats bad in my book. But I'll continue to overcome that. As far as the system, there is a disparity from that I'm seeing. Brock Turner got 6 months for raping a woman an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. My cousin got 3 years for a dime bag of weed. That white lady that paid 15k for her kid to get into Stanford got 14 days in jail. A black homeless woman who used a friend's address to get her son into elementary school got 5 years. The change I'm trying to see is everyone being treated equally. I want the white racist that call the cops on blacks for nothing to stop. That fact that it's ok to use the police as a weapon against someone that has committed no crime is heinous. What police do when they get there is a different story. I've seen your post, and I'm aware you have different views. I see the world differently as well. I see it from an inner city kid perspective that made it out. Someone who couldn't go to schools in a certain areas, that was only looking for an opportunity to make it out. Believe it or not, not all of those kids believe they can make it out ( I didn't) and that's a shame because they can. The change I'm looking for is for us to get into those communities and show those kids it's possible. For me it was a white Capt in a flight suit at an inner city high school football game, where there are shootouts every weekend. After my game I asked him if he was a pilot, I wanna be a pilot. He said yes. I told him, you're brave for coming here. He said there is untapped potential in your neighborhood, so you want to be a pilot? And the rest is history. That's what I want. Also, I don't see that as preferential treatment because all I received was information on how to become a pilot that I didn't have access to/didn't know existed. You can believe everyone starts on equal footing if you want, but that's not true where I'm from. The change I want is for those of us that have made it, to reach back and help others, regardless of race. Get in those neighborhoods. There are 100 of me in each of those neighborhoods, just looking to take the next step, but they don't know where to place their foot. I don't think the fabric is racist. The behavior I'm speaking of is what's happened throughout America's time. The raping, pillaging, looting, and murder of the Native Americans. The enslavement of Africans. We literally fought a war to end slavery, and the beliefs of those on the losing side have been passed down. I'm saying rioting/fighting, and forcing people to bend to our will is what made this country into what it is today. That stuff happened, it's in the past, but it is history. I don't think we can dwell on it, but I do think it's important to understand that blood has been spilt by this country since it's inception. It has made us the greatest country on the planet, but my patriotism leads me to believe it can be even better.

Which inexplicably is every single direction.

For those of you that are tired of the Social Justice stuff before and during sporting events, I get it. Hell, I even agree a little. However, I am more tired of being racially profiled/discriminated against. Being pulled over, because "you look suspicious" or having the cops called on me while standing in my own drive way smoking a cigar by the new couple in the neighborhood that didn't think I could have a house that nice. And then having to convince the cops that it was actually my house. Or having parents bring their kids in when my wife and I walk by. Or having some of my peers thinking I got the strat/award because I was black, and not because I actually busted my ass. I was detained once because I "fit the description" Didn't ask me my name or anything like that. Cuffed and placed in the car. Then he searched me and found my wallet...and my cac. Knowing I had done nothing wrong, but more importantly I had a cac, I figured I'd be ok. That's the world I live in everyday. That's most of our reality. The issue is, most of us can't flash the cac to get treated like a human being. Imagine a young kid who's done nothing wrong being cuffed and detained for no reason, and how he may react. I've had to deal with that for 30 years, and will continue to deal with it for many more. I'll be just fine. But I hope you guys can understand why it's happening. We've been trying to have this conversation for centuries, people are just now starting to listen and understand. I'm a believer that a slogan or phrase does nothing...it's not actionable. But I can't scoff at the effort that is being made.

Are you trying to say 6-9 jack and cokes affect my geography skills? Well I guess South East Asia is where the war will be. After everyone on the peninsula is dead.

Interesting thread. To the OP, please consider some advice. You have a lot of passion, and decent objective stats. If your posts here had been an interview, I would put you as a maybe. Your core claim of purpose has a few flaws. “I’m hugely passionate about attempting to become a fighter pilot, not for the “cool” factor but because I truly feel an intense passion for the mission, especially CAS.” Specifically, combined with your major concern “I know for a fact I wouldn’t want to fly drones.” These statements together mean you’re either ignorant (have not done your research) or dishonest (it really is for the cool factor). Perhaps neither of these are true, but that’s the way it comes across to this old salt. I’d recommend analyzing what your priorities really are, and go after them without any shame or false humility. Good luck.

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I'm not sure how the author of that article managed to use so many words and still say nothing intelligible. Any clue what she was getting at? The only thing I learned is that we should be saying "airpeople" instead of airmen and that warrior culture is another form of white fragility and toxic masculinity. God help us in the next war.

“The term warrior, as a brand marketing term for militaries in western democracies, should be permanently junked; it sells an impossible image for soldiers, marines, airpeople, and sailors to live up to while preventing the civilian population from executing its oversight function.” How many times is that in the stupid creed again, for a force where like 5% of people do war fighting and 80% sit behind a desk?

Thanks for the videos. I watched all you linked and would offer a perspective from someone pitching in as an outsider. Is it possible that “your mind is already made up” on some of these? I suffer from a condition where I try to look at things objectively and it’s hard to do that in 15-30 second clips. *All of the below are for personal edification so please take the questions as such* 1. Rubber bullets at the house. What was the situation in that area that required that level of police presence? Had they been threatened and/or shot at from porches in that neighborhood? They were repeatedly told to go inside and continued filming. I don’t know the context. 2. Beating the cuffed suspect. Looks bad, is bad. What is the objective legal criteria for when a cop has a suspect under control? I doubt it’s handcuffs because someone can still thrash and do a lot of damage while cuffed. Once again, I don’t know. 3. Shot at while being recorded. This one shows me absolutely no proof where that came from and is the ultimate case of a pre-conceived notion fitting a narrative. 4. Proud Boys treatment. Should they get directly in their face and demand that they disperse with force? Or should a cop defuse a situation and get some guys to leave an area? Looks like the type of de-escalatory policing that everyone says they want. A key element of this one is the posture of the suspects. They were standing around and drinking a beer for crying out loud. The tactics work there. Can’t do that with a group screaming into your face. However, it’s once again a short clip that I don’t know the context. 5. Getting in the protesters way. Look at the manner in which that protester is conducting his protest. I don’t buy it, but I can see how an argument could be made that the cop felt threatened by his actions. I thought this one was very cut and dry that cops were in the wrong here. 6. Chokehold on the woman. Looks terrible from where the video started. No idea what happened before it to justify that. It was very rough, but I don’t see the cop doing anything excessive to secure her. You could tell how hard he was choking her (not very) by how well she was able to talk less than 15 seconds after he released her. I absolutely think that policing (and the criminal justice system in this country as a whole) needs a major overhaul. The fact that many police are acquitted in the deaths of suspects (Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, and Rodney King are three that still make zero sense to me along with many others) is unbelievable and pisses me off. It also pisses me off that leadership at various levels of the government allow something like Portland or CHAZ/CHOP to occur. Protesting is great and I encourage concerned citizens to exercise their first amendment rights. However, if it devolves into an ugly riotous situation, it’s going to look ugly as it’s broken up and everyone with a phone can get that ten second video of a cop smashing a suspect. This post is partly me playing devil’s advocate (probably a poor phrase given context) and partly me being genuinely curious to understand the issues from both sides.

This is advanced tactical knowledge for FAIPs