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See we would have better security... but we were too busy having them harass a bunch of dudes going to/from their Helicopters in a marked vehicle while wearing flight gear. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Heard back the other day that I was selected to interview, I have a 94 pilot, 99 nav, 61, 78, 45 for the rest. Enlisted Guard Crew Chief of 8 years on F-16’s. My PCSM is 84 with 65.1 flight hours. Not sure how many they are interviewing, or how many applied, but I’ve been given the TBNT from Boise, Baltimore, and Tucson recently, and Atlantic City turned me down after interview despite being my home unit (not that I think I should’ve gotten it based on that). I’m as curious about VT’s standards as you are..

Same. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with 30 days this year. Not like I can go anywhere. I'd settle for being able to sell back my 30 days this year. A one-time exception to let people actually cash out their leave NOT in conjunction with separation from the service.

Dudes/Dudetes--Because I am deployed in a joint environment away from my command and on an opposite sleeping schedule of CONUS, there is a good chance I may be waiting a bit to find out about results even if they come out tomorrow. That being said, it would be awesome if anyone could DM me if the list is indeed out tomorrow so I can try to start working the telephone game on my end to get the news. Appreciate it up front. Fingers crossed for good news to us all!

Yes. Because that protects smaller states from getting railroaded by larger, more populated states. It's the whole point behind having the Senate at all. More emphasis should be put on states providing for their citizens (both in terms of services, and taxation to pay for those services). Want more social services? Move to NY or California. Want something else? There's probably a state that will suit you. Otherwise, what's the point of having states? Or state governments? The issue is that we've allowed political parties to become too powerful, and allowed them to drive political discourse, rather than states and local representatives.

But we all spent 14 days in Q-town quarantine, so we should all be good to go, right? Or were we just wasting our lives sitting in that mold infested, shithole?

You have to be the biggest condescending asshole on here dude. For fucks sake, please stop.

No but it should be 69% easier than it is now. Look at civilian multi-engine training, I don't see them flailing about because the existing aircraft that are typically used right now are somehow rapidly falling behind an ever increasing set of training tasks that their training aircraft can't meet. Our mulit-engine requirements are not that different and what mil unique training items we have in our heavy track we already simulate. If the Toners are wearing out then replacing them should be straight forward.

I see your points, especially about things like minimum wage that are localized. I am just wary about the ability to stonewall the majority. As easily as the majority can overrun the minority, there is a tyranny of the minority that must be kept in check as well. Thanks for the response.

It wasn't an AGR spot, but it was promised orders (from a previous boss) for 3 years. Dude literally broke the news to me while I was in-processing from said deployment. Pulls me aside and says, "we're changing things up a bit, but you can apply for the tech (GS-12 Step 1) that we'll be opening up soon...Oh, and thanks for volunteering for that deployment." This was a watershed moment in my career, where I went from "maybe airlines after mil," to 100% airlines. So much so that I said fuck you and went regional to get hours. In hindsight, I probably owe that guy a beer because I firmly believe I was hired so early in the wave because of my regional time, on top of my mil time. In the end, it all worked out as I love my airline gig more than I enjoyed being full time. But I definitely keep that in the back of my mind any time I make decisions wrt the military, and why I'll never be full time again.

Rumors that SECDEF will announce new guidance prohibiting OCONUS leave travel this week. I want to be outraged but I'm honestly not sure it changes anything. Even if you could manage to find a way to get here right now, everything is closed and hotels won't let you make a reservation unless you can prove you have a business purpose. Some countries I work in have curfews as well. I guess what Im really hoping to see is another extension to the SLA benefit from last year. Last year didn't go far enough to protect leave and as I've been unable to travel all year I'm still accrueing leave.

Having spent a few months in Tallinn, Estonia, I can attest to the above post! Just be carful not to catch the High-Five!

@URTHopeful2021 got you bro.

Supposedly it was the drivers pants that were dropped not a cell phone. Multiple folks who were at Eglin when it happened said Amn Snuffy was getting a BJ from Amn Suffett when he became overly excited and lost control of the vehicle.

Who’s looking forward to living in Amazon-ville, NV? https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/nevada/articles/2021-02-04/nevada-bill-would-allow-tech-companies-to-create-governments This needs to be constitutionally outlawed.

What if, in my example, the citizens of south Dakota doesn't want their backyard to be used for nuclear waste storage? Or to have consideration (funding) for maintaining the site? What if they have concerns about safety, or believe the waste site hurts their economy? Since they're taking waste from other states, should they get extra funding as a "thank you" to fund initiatives for their citizens? In a direct democracy, their voice could be effectively silenced by the majority a thousand miles away, and that majority wouldn't even have to debate any of the concerns-just up straight skip to the vote because the votes would be there. National policy (set by executive branch) is one thing. States are free to do their own thing. Of course, the federal government (executive) can encourage cooperation through slowing funding. But if other states are concerned about individual states doing things that affect them, it needs to be more than just policy. It needs to be law. And since multiple states could be affected, it should be handled at the federal level. So in your second example, I'd agree with you. Though the issue you point out has implications outside the state. Pollution affects others, and energy resources are critical to national security, not to mention our economy. So it makes sense to have laws and policy at the national level. We also do it for other things we value as a nation-look at our national parks program and federally protected wildlife areas, or our airspace. Another good example is minimum wage. There's a federal standard, but some states have set a higher minimum wage, and some counties or cities even above that. As long as the state or local governments don't break federal laws, they can make it more restrictive. If someone believes in raising the minimum wage, they should be lobbying at all levels. And the local level would likely be the most responsive, as we see with minimum wage. I agree with that smart, nationalized decisions can be good. But we are a very (physically) large and diverse nation, so things that work in the New York may not work in Oklahoma or Oregon or. This makes it challenging to take a one size fits all approach, because that leaves a lot of people unhappy. Putting power in states lets power reside much closer to the local area, and be more responsive for the residents.

Nothing really gets stone walled-Texas can enact whatever programs it wants for Texans pretty much on its own if it was important enough to them. And Texas has the resources to do so if it wanted to. States don't have to wait for federal funding or laws, especially the bigger states whose economies rival other nations. For example, if universal healthcare was so important to Californians, they could implement it without federal funding. It would likely raise their state taxes, but there's nothing federally that bans them from implementing it. If it's a good idea, other states will do so, and maybe eventually other states will get on board and vote at the national level. And California has done things like that in the past (like for car emissions standards). Smaller states will have trouble doing things unilaterally; they likely have a much smaller economy, so it's harder to implement government programs if they want to; they have to lobby for outside help from other states. Without the Senate, big states can screw over small states, as well as the people within those states. For example, federal funding for programs (from federal taxes levied on individuals and businesses) could be diverted from small states into big states, and the small states would have no recourse due to their small population. Or big states could decide "nuclear power is great, let's do it, but where should we put the waste?" and vote to put it in say South Dakota, because SD wouldn't have enough representatives to block that vote. You do see this issue within states as well, with the conflict between urban centers and rural areas. So the even dividing down to states isn't perfect. But it helps protect minorities (not just race/ethnicity in this context, but rural vs urban, big vs small businesses, industrialization vs environmentalism, etc) within the population. Otherwise, democracies (both direct and representative) can devolve into mob rule or a significant consolidation of power once a majority realizes it can vote for things that only benefits then.

Credit bureaus are a tough nut to crack. Their customer isn't you as the individual, but lenders. Their business is telling lenders how risky lending to you is, and their formula doing so it's the core of their recommendations. Sure, you should have visibility to make sure facts are correct (accounts, addresses, etc). But the formula that spits out your credit score is proprietary to the credit bureau, and it's what keeps them in business (providing good recommendations to lenders). So there's no way to have transparency without destroying the business. You don't *have* to have a credit score to get a loan; there's no real requirement for a lender to check, though it's likely in the lender's financial interests to do so. The problem with the government getting in the credit reporting business is then the government gets deep in the lending business (has that worked out well for government backed education loans?), especially if commercial credit bureaus are eliminated or forced to use a certain formula. What happens when a lender uses a government backed credit score, and an individual defaults on the loan? Is the government responsible for backing part or all of the loan because it endorsed the individual (through issuing a credit score), especially if the government score differs significantly from a commercial credit score? Or if the government formula ignores certain indicators based on fairness/equality, lenders may choose to increase interest rates across the board (to avoid perceptions of unfairness) to cover loans that may default.

Amen!

It’s like people forget that we’re a Republic.

Keep talking. Enlighten us.

Here's what I'll do: instead of verifying @AW91 and waiting until I see proof, I'll let the anxiety ruin my weekend. Then on Monday if the results don't come out, I'll just say to myself that of course they didn't and I wasn't worried about them coming out on Monday in the first place of course.

I flew MQ-9s and killed people. I saw an entire spectrum of reactions. Some people handle it without issue, some people break down crying in the debrief, some people go home and drink too much, one dude passed out when it was time to shoot. You never know what you're going to get from someone until it happens. The people who approached the task of killing as just another job to excel at seemed to have the least problems. That's the approach I took and would recommend. It is not a job for the squeamish. I saw heads and limbs blown off, injured dudes flopping around trailing their guts behind them and shit like that. What the view looks like from other planes I can't tell you.

I'll give my 2 cents as someone who believes themselves to be a devout Christian and a recent off-the-street UPT select who's never killed anyone and won't be flying a combat mission, but did interview for a platform that could go kinetic and thus I had to be ready to take life before throwing my hat in the ring. I'll go light on the scripture and keep this relatively agnostic from a faith standpoint as I know you didn't specify your faith, but if you ever want to chat on more nuanced aspects of this topic (religion, philosophy, etc.), please feel free to PM me any time. I've given this one a lot of thought and it's good that you're doing so, too. So here's my perspective--and again--as nothing more than a civilian UPT select who's never been in combat, most likely never will be, and is nothing close to an expert or tough guy: I'm an avid shooter, and, once I'm in a CHL/CCL-friendly state soon, I'll be carrying my Glock 17 with me basically everywhere...and especially in church, as odd that may seem. So, whether I'm in church, a grocery store, a movie theater--whatever--if, heaven-forbid, I'm pushed to the point where my only option left is to engage a threat with my pistol, at that point, morally, I'm feeling pretty free and clear. Similar to how many of us were raised with our parents saying, "You don't start fights, but you have our permission to finish them," that's how I feel about engaging a threat with my concealed hand gun (or weapons at home during a home invasion, for instance). At some point, you're forced with the decision to take a righteous stand to protect life or to allow evil to prevail in that given situation, potentially letting it take the lives of others, even that of you and your family's. The latter is wholly unacceptable to me in every way possible, and I see no conflict with that philosophy and what I read in scripture. For me, if I may be so bold, it would be the same in combat. This may not be apples to apples, but, IMHO, it's close enough: If you're put in a position today at CostCo where you're armed and you see a bad guy indiscriminately shooting innocent people, do you believe that your religious faith prevents you from taking that shooter's life in order to save others, even your own and your family's? If so, I respect where you land--I have true pacifists in my family who share the same faith as I do, who have served honorably, and who have ultimately come to own different convictions than my own. But if that's not you--if you see no issue with taking life in such a scenario--then let me lay out a bit more insight into all of this: First, from my relatively limited understanding, you're not dropping any ordnance without a good amount of teamwork to confirm the target and to get approval to be cleared to fire. You'll have a knowledgeable and often highly experienced team of professionals around you all contributing to getting this right. You won't be going at this alone, and your teammates almost assuredly won't want to take any more life than they have to either...and when they do, they'll want to get it right just as much as you do. To me, that counts for a lot. Second, if you are in a position in a fighter to take life, odds are you're hitting a target who is either actively engaged in harming Americans (or innocent civilians), or they are planning to do so in some capacity. For me, if there are American lives (or other innocent lives) to protect, I want to be the guy doing it--I can't think of a more fulfilling or noble task than that of stepping up to the plate--even putting yourself in harms way--to support troops on the ground or to protect innocent civilians. Those kind of kills are the kind that--again, if I may be so bold--I don't believe I'd struggle a whole lot with. Having a few really close relationships to folks who have taken lives (and are still involved in doing so in the active duty Air Force and the Air National Guard), what they've told me is that they've yet to have a kill they wrestled with morally...but that it's actually the shots that they couldn't take or couldn't make (for whatever reason; if you ever read "American Sniper" by Chris Kyle, i believe he shared very similar sentiment) that still eat at them. Imagine having troops in contact and you can't get there in time before more casualties are taken or lives are lost...or, somehow, you drop on the wrong location. How do you think you'll handle that? How do you think you'll handle seeing/knowing that something horrific is happening to civilians on the ground, you're armed, nearby, and mentally ready to take action, but--for whatever reason--you are not cleared to intervene and stop that atrocity from happening? What if you see footage of that atrocity the next day on the news or shared on another message board somewhere, and now that's with you forever? I say all of that to say this: While I'm certainly not trying to tell you how to think about these things--just help as best as I can with my limited experience--situations like those above along with fratricide were the things that were a lot more prevalently on my mind, and that I gave even more thought to before submitting my applications. I hope that's helpful--my apologies for the novel this evolved into--and best of luck to you.

Inside, ok...but walking by yourself in an open area? Like I said, we've lost our minds.

21-02 WSO was 4x F-15 3x B-52 21-03 WSO was 2x F-15 2x B-52 1x B-1 Reserves 21-04 WSO was 4x F-15 3x B-52 1x B-1 Reserves 21-05 WSO was 4x F-15 2x B-52 2x B-1

Having worked on the hill and seen how the sausage is made, more often than not there is a lot of back room negotiating that takes place during a filibuster. i want that debate...I want it to be painful and slow to make large course corrections.

My input, from someone whose never killed anyone but is still raising my hand for the job. It's important to differentiate between wanting to be GOOD at war and WANTING war. Philosophically I myself would rather live in a world free of war...but this is just not reality. People have been fighting for thousands of years, and you have to decide what it is you believe in. Yes, if everybody refused violence the world would be a better place. But this is Utopian/impossible: there will always be someone willing to stab you for 50 bucks in your wallet , rape your GF, kill you just for the sake of killing you....or to fly a 767 loaded with jet fuel into a skyscraper killing innocent people. Nobody wants to kill anybody until they are the victim, or until their freedoms are being taken away (ACTUAL freedoms (think Nazi Germany), not "wearing a mask is a violation of my rights BS"). So I personally believe that the people who appreciate life the most are most qualified to decide when it is necessary to start taking it. You may not want to kill, and I think that is a good thing. But you should want to be the best killer in a jet out there for if and when it becomes necessary, that is the serving your country part. America isn't perfect, and I do think we've made some rather large errors in certain conflicts (always easy to see looking in the rear view...not so easy to see for those looking out the windshield at the time). But compared to the other power players (Russia, China, etc.), she is still incredibly precious and vulnerable, more so now than ever, and politicians seem to be forgetting that more and more (i.e, lets work together to solve problems and find reasonable middle of the road solutions before it is too late). Hopefully some dudes who have actually sprayed some lead will chime in.

Ungrateful peasants!

Legit had a Lt that parked in "General Officer" spots because she thought it meant "any."

counter point: we have OPEN socialists in the US congress we should expel them.

What is the source of this fancy graph; I was never given a chance to participate. And you just casually throw out that 16% of Americans, or up to 53 million people, belief the "Satan worshipping" line. I'm thinking we're identifying part of the problem with political discourse in our country...

The day before I got out Flight Med said I had to get a Yellow Fever shot. I told them I wasn't getting that shot and had no desire to visit anywhere where Yellow Fever was prevalent. The NCOIC said if I didn't get the shot, he'd tell the Med Group/CC, since it was reported to her for non-compliance. I told him that no one was giving me a shot and that at noon the next day when I was an official civilian, I'd personally tell her to fuck off. The next day I picked up my records and they said I didn't need the shot.

Flying has to be it's own reward, because the shift in focus of the military is that the flying will get done and no one cares how cool pilots are anymore. Military flying is challenging, endless training and upgrades and just because you did it correct 1,000 times, you can still screw up 1,001. Military controls where, when, and how you will fly. You are tired, too bad, press the mission. Just woke up, sorry you launch in 12 hr go back into crew rest. They also control when you don't fly. Time for PME, now staff job, training pipeline is backed up so you can't requal right now, how about a pentagon tour. You owe 10 years after training which is usually 12 year total. Granted my experience is active duty, but I've heard stories that reserves are not much better, and even the guard isn't the flying club it use to be. Still with hindsight I would do it again, but it's not for everyone. I will likely fly a desk into retirement, I have a goal to build and RV-10, but in the meantime I've discovered paramotors to scratch that flying itch.

You’re 20? Partway done with premed bachelors? If that’s the case, you’re not dropping anything by still completing that bachelors. If you get turned down for UPT, you’ll still have your current path as a fallback. That bachelors can work for getting into UPT. If you were already far enough down the path to have real opportunity cost (practicing successful physician, complete with 8 years of school plus residency), my advice would be different.

We can agree to disagree. Personally, I believe that our current form of government is most definitely not optimal and should be updated. Many of you will say that is not the case. Some of you will say that’s not the case because it was designed this way from the beginning. Malarkey. I have read the federalist and anti federalist papers, and I’m not convinced they have as much foresight as you think. I personally believe that - hot take - the founding fathers couldn’t actually predict everything that would happen in a complex modern society. And I believe their glorification is actually counterproductive to discussions about how to change things to work better in a society that no longer resembles 1770s New England. I mean, the original government of the US only had to represent the ideals of a couple million homogenous white American males who all lived in the same place and did the same thing for a living. It’s more akin to the governance of Delaware, New Hampshire, or Vermont than a multicultural, 4000 mile wide nation with vastly varying interests, beliefs, and economic factors. And we are feeling the cultural issues with non-homogeneity and have been ever since our country expanded. A few obvious mistakes: the original constitution still enabled the oppression and non-representation of women and slaves. The founding fathers knew that a two party system would be a terrible thing for government, yet they couldn’t do anything or have any foresight to stop its formation. Additionally, I must say that our government since the early 1900s has taken sharp turns away from the original founding with both formal laws and amendments and informal changes, whether it comes to how/how many electors are appointed, how senators are chosen, tactics to stonewall legitimate legislation and appointment of officials, or powers of the executive/legislative branch. “We the people” used to mean a lot more when they had proportional representation, yet it was casually changed just so it was easier to deal with. And my point is that the changes that have led to the current American government are not necessarily a good thing. You could call me pro-reform. Pragmatically, we don’t stand a chance of uniting and making valid national change to strategy without a new boogeyman. The World Wars and Cold War were the only thing that brought Americans together over the last century, and without them, we resort to infighting. For many Republicans, their only policy is that they want to “own the libs.” Beyond that, they’re stumped. Many Democrats just want to expel “fascist Republicans” and sing Kumbayah. And now we on this forum are fighting about whether or not it is a valid tactic to read a cookbook for 16 hours because the majority of people don’t agree with your point. YGBSM. Maybe the actual governmental system is f*cked if people have to do that as a “balance of power.”