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Being serious for a minute: we need to file an FOIA request on the performance evaluations of every GO tied to CENTCOM and the draw down next year. Because I swear to go if I see some bull shit like "Hacho'd largest strat airlift op since Berlin--Saved 70K US Cit" I'm going to fucking throw a fit. Not a single person above the rank of Lt Col should be considering this operation a success.

I was waiting for “actually it’s Trump’s fault”…no, this mess is 100% Biden’s mess. Trump had an exist strategy…woke Miley sat on it until Biden finally made a decision in April and now we have one of the largest humanitarian crises in recent history - and because the guy in the office can’t put a sentence together let alone make a strategic decision, it might get much worse.

@brabus I understand what you are saying but I don't think it survives contact with our current reality. The problem is how do you PID all the high risk people. We still don't know why but the virus can have a severe impact on people who would seemingly have zero risk. I have no comorbidities and brother it humbled me. My COVID experience was crazy. I had a low grade fever and some intestinal issues on Christmas Eve. Christmas day I actually felt better. I had flown my family up to DC in my plane and my annual was going to expire on the 31st so the morning of the 26th I did a self-assessment and decided to fly home...no fever...no other symptoms except fatigue. I stopped in Georgia for gas and grabbed the courtesy car to go grab some lunch. I made it to the main road and something told me to just head back to the plane and get home. Still minus symptoms I took some preventative Tylenol, gassed up and took off for Florida. I landed, taxied to my hangar, backed my truck out of the hangar to load it and WHAM it hit me like a ton of bricks. Big fever spike, aches, chills...all at once, I almost called a friend to put my plane away for me. Thank god it didn't happen in flight. I felt like shit for about five days and started to feel better, you know the feeling when you have the flu and can tell you are on the backside...that is how I felt. I went to bed thinking a good nights sleep and I would be better...the next morning it came roaring back even worse than before. My family was still in DC and they all had it. Both my mother in law and father in law ended up in the hospital...My mother in law was given, steroids, breathing treatments, Remdesivir and LAST RITES. The doctor literally said "there is nothing else we can do and her infection numbers are still going up." Thankfully she turned the corner the next day. Eight months later my father in law still feels the effects. He has comorbidities , she does not other than being in her 70's (very fit and active). I was home alone and kept getting worse...my best friends were checking in and bringing me food but man it sucked. My pulseox actually went below 90 and at the insistence of my sister who is a nurse, I asked for help...the response from the Military doctor was "take Motrin and cough drops." Thank god for my sister who did a conference call from Massachusetts and let the doctor have it. "He needs steroids NOW!" The doctor was an asshole and replied "using what rationale"...she again unloaded on the doctor and mentioned the hundreds of COVID patients she had been treating..."His pulseox is below 90%, his lungs are swollen, he needs help NOW!" The doctor changed her tune and prescribed steroids. I picked them up an hour later and within 30 minutes of taking the first pill I knew it was the magic pill! My pulseox jumped to 94% and I started what would be a 12 week recovery. I had a follow up with that doctor who said "Wow, great to know the steroids work, you were my first COVID patient." I am a retired dude but after the fact I called the Med Group/CC and filed an official complaint...which I understand they did take seriously. I have a great friend from High School who is a PhD Nurse in Miami...one of the hot spots. The stories she tells are horrifying...truly horrifying. She is in the middle of the second wave right now and almost all of the patients are unvaccinated and a surprising number have no comorbidites. I've talked to her many times because I truly wondered about the vaccine and the conditions at ground zero. She keeps saying they all wish they had gotten the vaccine. I have another friend form high school and her 26 year old son has been in the hospital for 10 days...dude has no comorbidities and is an ultra-marathoner...no vaccine. I have a few rental properties, one of my tenants just spent two weeks in the hospital and is now home on oxygen. He is 32, no commodities and is again very active and fit...no vaccine. My sampling is not scientific but it is enough for me to realize there is still much we don't know. Again, I think people have a choice but given all I've seen and heard I hope they get the vaccine.

Let me see if I can get another down vote from Nuke. I truly don't understand how anyone can be happy with the way Biden is handling this debacle. It is now being reported he has been spending a LARGE amount of his time calling other Democrats trying to get support for his $5T spending plan. In what universe do you put a priority on a non-emergency spending plan instead of giving 100% of your time as the Commander in Chief focused on bringing Americans home? Not just SIV afghans but AMERICANS. Complete fail.

Do I need to post the CDC's Kentucky study again? If you're unvaccinated, and you had Covid once already, you're still more than twice as likely to get Covid again as someone who got Covid and then got vaccinated.

I don't think it's quite that simple though. Having covid definitely gives you some immunity in the short term just like the vaccine. But this pandemic has been going for a year and a half and there are people who caught covid early whose T cell immunity is definitely tapering off. Having covid is once is not a lifetime golden ticket to never having to worry about this again. And neither is the vaccine. That isn't how any of this works. Immunity tapers off over time and new variants emerge which is why you can catch seasonal flu every year if you aren't careful. The other problem is that people grossly over self-report having covid. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who say something like "yeah I had the sniffles last March and my bunghole felt weird, I probably had it already". Relying on self reported covid is not a good way for a company to run their employee health program. So at a basic level, yes you are right. Getting covid and getting the vaccine accomplish the same thing as far as immunity. But for both, we don't know exactly how long that immunity lasts or how durable it is for future variants and relying on someone to self report their immunity is about as unreliable as it gets. Companies are always going to air on the side of caution and when you have a safe, fully approved vaccine, I don't think requiring that is some dystopian overreach. Do airlines require other vaccines? Yearly flu shots?

Watch how Biden is responding. He's gone full angry-old-man. I don't think there's any chance he resigns, which means the 25th amendment, which will be a nightmare for the Dems. He sticks around longer as the inevitable catastrophe on AFG unfolds, then we get President Harris from a contentious legal procedure. Not good. Trump was a clown, and he was just as anxious to pull out of AFG. No one can say if he would have like this, but he certainly was pushing for an even hastier timeline. That said, the *entire* pitch from Biden/Democrats was bringing the adults back in power to save us from the endless Trumpian catastrophes (that were regularly promised but never materialized). Biden is in for less than a year and we get a literal repeat of Saigon. So I'm not sure how the democrats will talk their way out of this one. I suspect the midterms will be a bloodbath. I don't know a single person who had *any* experience with the ANA who thought they would maintain control of the country. There's zero chance this wasn't briefed over and over and over. And if Adam Schiff is already selling out Biden by defending the Intel community, then the party royalty has already decided to sacrifice him.

Microchip me, daddy. my body is ready

Light grey and Raptor guys somewhere… fuming at the idea that Super Hornets might get another air to air kill before they do… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mostly "It's not tested" (it is). We don't know the long-term effects (most vaccine side-effects happen within the first two weeks. It's extremely rare for a vaccine to have a side-effect years later). "I shouldn't be forced to do something I don't want to do" (One wonders if these people pay taxes, obey traffic laws, or especially in the military, pitch this kind of fit over flu shots every year) "The vaccine doesn't do anything" (even though it's been shown that breakthrough infections are rare, infection rates among the unvaccinated are far higher, and that vaccines have been shown to decrease the severity and length of Covid symptoms) "I don't trust the FDA and CDC" (So...I guess these folks are growing their own food in their backyard?) "I've done my research" (I hardly think that the five YouTube videos you watched from a doctor with a revoked license is "research" on the scale of a $6.5 billion organization staffed with people who have studied viral infections for a decade, but hell, maybe these people have their own microbiology lab set up in the garage I don't know about).

So in theory, I agree with you. I got vaccinated as soon as it was available and I support making it mandatory at least within the DOD. That being said, the left has made such a mess of Covid policies with their self righteous plight in ruining the economy that I can’t blame many people for being skeptical with anything regarding Covid and government mandates. Yes, Trump and many republicans have also adamantly denied Covid’s existence but they aren’t the ones that ruined the economy over Covid. Covid is real, the vaccines work and have less than a 1% side effect rate - but the left has left many people across party lines with a bitter taste in their mouth and complete distrust of the federal government to preach to them. I’m glad more republicans are actually encouraging the vaccine.

Man… the meme generation of this has been spectacularly dark. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sure is a good thing we had to put pulling out on hold because of the election/transfer of power. It really helped to wait until the fighting season when were up against a tight deadline. Listen up young pups, remember this shit next time politicians are playing fucky games with your lives and make your life decisions appropriately.

Served with an intel officer who was the intel officer for that squadron right before they deployed. She tried to give a helo vis recce class and was told to get lost. Another intel NCO I served with was in another squadron at the same base, same time and he told me that all of the other squadron intel shops briefed Army helo ops except that light grey squadron who didn't want to hear it.

I think that’s a pipe dream for republicans. But…..2024 isn’t that far away. I count myself as a moderate Democrat who isn’t necessarily opposed to voting R. So who’s gonna run? Trump? Sorry, but that’s as much a no-go for the left as Hillary was for the right. Desantis? Same shit, slightly diluted. Put up a sane, rational, non-octogenarian and you might find a lot of Americans are game.

Same team Farva, same team… I know of two people here locally who have had Covid and have had their antibodies tested a bunch of times (because they are donating plasma) and their antibody levels are high enough even months after recovering that they can still use their plasma to treat patients. Im definitely NOT saying that if you think you’ve had Covid go ahead and call yourself good. Im also NOT talking about getting Covid again because we all know anyone can get Covid…vaxxed, unvaxxed, previously infected…it’s the level of severity and mortality that we are trying to tamp down right? What I’m saying is that there should be a way to determine the antibody levels of a previously infected person compared to a vaccinated person. Antibody Levels will likely vary from person to person but I do agree with my aforementioned airline pilots argument that, if his antibody levels exceed those of vaccinated people, why make him take the shot? What is the end goal? If it’s to make sure you have antibodies against the virus he has met that goal. Will the virus derived antibodies wear off? Sure. Will the vaccine wear off? Sure. Is there a rate in which that occurs? I don’t know.

Memo states that they still have to get the shot.

The American voter: “ just got my welfare increased, and the government says I don’t have to pay my rent” . In my state (MIchigan) the governor says if you get a DUI, don’t worry about it, we’ll make it go away. buying those votes over giving a shit about anyone who gets off their ass and contributes anything. The ones who voted these people into office could care less about the sacrifices the military has made.

I don’t think you understand the people who are choosing not to get the vaccines point. I haven’t heard anyone complain about the survival rate. I have heard people bring up that it’s not approved but not as their main point. So while the discussion points may be less now because it’s approved I hardly think the goal has changed. If you had to state the people who don’t want the vaccines opinions, what would you say it is? Put the shoes on the other foot for a second and just indulge me.

I think it’s a mix of both, but yeah, his feeble mental state is likely the majority root cause, with handlers being a secondary root cause. I hope the midterms absolutely crush the Dems, they’ve earned it.

The airlift is a success httpd://rumble.com/vlmtso-psaki-i-would-not-say-the-withdrawal-is-anything-but-a-success.html?mref=22lbp&mc=56yab&fbclid=IwAR0P8fCe5mgv1zHv2NvSzNbjo9s5R3UHBlVR_GqLs_9HTNWTZATTksIDUE4

@ClearedHot Fair enough, and I would likely feel exactly the same as you had I lived the same personal experience. Conversely in my personal experience, I’m 1-2 degree separated from 4 kids who have died from the vaccine (COD: Heart inflammation), as well as seen a few friends take 6+ weeks to get rid of “moderate” COVID symptoms following the vaccine (a couple self-DNIF for 2-4 weeks). Both of us have anecdotal experiences that have surely shaped our viewpoints. With that said, a study hosted by CDC Mar 20-Mar 21 showed 95% of those hospitalized for COVID had at least one underlying medical condition. Another study done by Tufts (Feb 21) estimated 65% of COVID hospitalizations were specifically due to 1 of 4 in order: Obesity, Hypertension, Diabetes, heart failure. In the early days of COVID (Apr 20), a study conducted in NYC showed 94% had underlying health conditions and 88% had 2+. What’s interesting is the number from that early study is within 1% of the number from the most recent study, with the biggest difference over that time being the release of the vaccine, and the number is still the same. The data does indeed show majority of COVID hospitalizations are those with 1+ underlying health condition. Of course there are outliers/anecdotal cases as you appear to be one, and of course there are the other examples you gave. That does not cheapen your story or their’s, make them any less hellacious or less real, etc. Every one of us can loose a dice roll in life, regardless of our risk management, positive health/fitness priorities, etc. Sorry to hear you had such a shitty experience, and I’m very glad to hear you have recovered.

Good gig for a Metroliner guy. Heck, I have Beech 99/Shorts 330 time...should have thrown my hat in the ring.

This administration is in real trouble. Rightly so and very predictable. Biden was a terrible politician, known for dishonesty and unpopular prior to the election. But, he wasn’t Trump. That’s why he won. Harris is absolutely awful on every level. My question is, how does this play out if Biden doesn’t survive this Afghanistan debacle? I would argue that this is one of the worst, self inflicted, embarrassing and unforgivable situations that our country has ever been through. It’s been handled with complete dishonesty and lies. There has been zero empathy and ownership. And it’s going to get worse. Much much worse. I’ve never seen anything like this. My community has been heavily involved in Afghanistan. We’ve got multiple guys in the squadron who have done the air advisor thing. They were embedded with the Afghans for 6 months at a time. I’ve never received as many late night calls from guys in my squadron as I have over this. We’ve had emails from the VA, counselors in the squadron, talks with commanders etc. And today, for the first time, I legitimately asked a buddy if he thought he was going to hurt himself. This stress is cumulative and we all have unique stories. It started in February 2020 with COVID and it’s culminated in this Afghanistan disaster. So, again, how does this play out? Do we see a resignation like Nixon? Do we watch this come and eventually go with Americans and their short memories? What are your thoughts and how do we handle it?

Yes "unvaccinated." Fixed in post. Yes "comorbidities". Fixed in post. Spelled it right the first few times but spell check doesn't know the word.

Nothing like a person with 2 visible comorbidities (obese and elderly) telling us she isn't getting the shot so she won't become magnetized 🤦🏻‍♂️ I do hate these "people on the street" videos though. The daily show also loves to do them and it's such a cheap, intellectually dishonest way of lumping all your opponents' arguments into the stupidest bin possible. There are intelligent people who have doubts about the vaccine. They aren't all raving trumper hillbillys on your grandma's Facebook page as this video would have you believe. I still think their risk analysis is way off the mark, but the media needs to figure out that personally attacking vaccine hesitant people is not the way you create converts.

Yes, that's not 9 esophoria. I forget the conversion, but that number means nothing without converting it. The techs always converted for us so I don't really know what the raw score mean. If you haven't seen one of the docs yet, just hang tight. People failed things all the time and we often could get them through with a little better instruction, etc.

Yervis, Agree with you 100% on point #1. Regarding point #2, I'm not sure the AF cares that much. Let me give you an example. My son was in ROTC with the intention of becoming an AF pilot (he's since decided the military isn't for him and is going strictly commercial). At the "Welcome to ROTC" ceremony, I asked the ROTC commander if they did any type of medical screening before bringing in young folks whose sole goal was to be a pilot. I cited the example of color vision. About 8-10% of males are color deficient and it's relatively easy to screen. He said they couldn't afford to spend a couple of thousand dollars on the device. One of the first young fellows from my son's class failed color vision at WP and was devastated. Seemed easily avoidable to me. Can't change it (a person's color vision), but would have been a whole lot better to know before spending two or three years working towards an AF pilot slot. I get the whole thing about ROTC being there to create officers, not pilots, but that seems like a bit of a bait and switch to me. As you said, the AF is a bureaucracy. Nothing more. For the most part the individuals who work there are great- some of the best people I've ever met. But, in the end, big blue is there for big blue no matter what anyone says. Don't get me wrong, it can be a great career. I was married into it (i.e. a dependent) for twenty years and spent almost the same amount of time working there myself as a civilian, but in the end the organization's number one goal is self preservation at any cost, even at the expense a lot of good people.

I get it, he hates Trump but I don’t understand why he insists on constantly pointing fingers at the GOP rather then the actual decision makers now. He might as well go ahead and switch parties… https://ktvz.com/videos/2021/08/22/gop-congressman-places-blame-on-trump-admin-for-crisis-in-afghanistan-they-set-this-up-to-fail-3/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9921611/Ex-Navy-Seal-imagines-hes-Biden-reveals-fix-fatal-mistakes-Afghanistan.html

Vaccinated spread it at the same rate as unvaccinated IF THEY GET INFECTED. But the vaccines help reduce the total number of infected people, which helps prevent the spread to others.

True, but at least with my airplane, I get to decide who gets inside her. The price for such control...

I'd bring your plane for one simple reason: you're probably going to sit casual status before you start for a while and have absolutely nothing to do. Once you start UPT, that's a different story. If you asked me then, GA flying would have been the last thing would have wanted to do on weekends during UPT. Realistically you're going to be flying or simming demanding graded events every workday and studying/chairflying for at least part of every weekend. It gets tiring. And unless you are an absolute addict, you're probably going to want at least a day or two off from flying per week. Still, casual status alone is good enough reason to bring your plane and keep your skills sharp. And you might sit casual after UPT as well waiting on SERE and follow on training dates. Hell, you might even FAIP and then you'll be really glad you brought your GA plane, because then you'll be able to escape the shithole towns they decided to put UPT bases in.

Based on our current political leaderships COA? A resounding yes. Biden just wanted to pull the plug and wave the flag on 9/11 and say “see, my leadership brought all the troops home and ended the forever war” He chose….poorly

Yeah, probably... also... 14 days to flatten the curve?

Hey, I know where you can get an M-4 and ammo real cheap! Maybe even an Apache helicopter if you have the cash and don't ask too many questions.

We need their help completing our defeat at the hands of the current administration.

Notice how you’re the only one responding to your own thread?

Gowdy

Happens all the time. Not as often since the passing score for the "standard" test was lowered, but still very common. If you passed with the circles projected on the wall, you will get a waiver. Don't sweat it.

I made you aware of several things and NOTHING.

Call the F-15Cs. They are experienced at shooting down American Blackhawks.

After the Taliban said they would not accept an extension of the August 31 Deadline, President Biden announced he will not extend our presence beyond Aug 31. Even Pentagon Spokesman Baghdad Kirby stated it will take days (72 hours), to extract all U.S. forces. Realistically that means this thing starts to get even more ugly in 2-3 days. AND....The Taliban have now said it is no longer safe for Afghans to leave the country, they need the engineers and professionals to help rebuild the country. Let the massacre ensue. FINALLY...there is an intelligence paper with credible sources that says the Taliban and Al Qaeda plan to launch an attack on the Kabul airport. This should bring down the administration.