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Stop being so conspiratorial and anti-science, everyone knows big pharma has our best interest in mind… Hail Fauci, praise Pfizer, and help us @pawnman! Thank God they have come to rescue us from us. edit: added authoritarian representative @pawnman

Restaurants, stadiums, and stores across the nation are reserving areas to honor the 13 U.S. troops who were killed in Afghanistan last week after suicide bombers in Kabul blew up at least 170 people.

Actually firing the Sq/CC seems even more over the top. It's not that unusual for a next level CC to disagree or even step in. Firing a CC because of it is pretty questionable. I can attest that as a Sq/CC I was a little close the bros and may not have always had the full objectivity. My OG never stepped in, but then I probably never had that crisis moment where one of my buds stepped in a really, really big pile. As an OG I did have to step in and direct a court martial when the Sq/CC had trouble pulling the trigger. I treated it more as a mentoring moment than a firing offense. After it was all over the Sq/CC admitted the charge was clearly warranted (absolute felony), but he just had a hard time because it was one of his own. I sat him down with a scotch and cigar and lamented that this was the hard part about command, and eventually he'd grow into his big boy pants. That said, I usually just stayed out of Sq business -- their time to lead.

Appreciate the recognition. Happy to help. Wouldn't it be a much better military if no one had to listen to orders from their leadership? Morale would be through the roof! "Nah, I'm not going on that deployment" "I don't want to take the PT yest anymore, so I stopped listening to the AFI" "These sweatpants are way more comfortable than my uniform. The commander tried to order me to wear a uniform, but screw that guy...probably a clueless boomer"

R9X: don’t believe the hype.

What I don't understand is how I've traveled the US at least twice per month, never quarantined or forced to work from home, for the past 18 months during COVID, been exposed to it six times and had seven test (the first time I decided to get tested twice), have been sick twice during the same 18 months with something other than COVID (negative COVID test - thanks kids), my entire family has been tested four times and never had it, yet it's so dangerous to me that I must get the vaccine. Not being a jerk and I'm not an anti-vaxer, just difficult for someone with my experience to understand how this vaccine is going to protect me or protect anyone else from me.

This is a result of people intentionally giving you a limited piece of the information. Your concern might be a valid one if it existed in a vacuum. However you are 1: Far less likely to get COVID if you have been vaccinated and 2: If you do get a breakthrough infection, you are likely to have a much smaller viral load and will be contagious for a shorter period of time.

Let me throw this into the mix: in order to work in close proximity to our new “guests”, we are required to be fit tested for and wear N95 masks b/c many of our guests are carriers of Tuberculosis. If we all have cloth and paper masks already that protect us from COVID-19, why do we need N95s to protect us from TB? Shouldn’t my cloth mask be as effective at stopping TB bacterial droplets and aerosols as it is in stopping viral droplets and aerosols? Or is the whole cloth mask/Chinese made paper mask to slow or stop Covid a bunch of crap? I wore (and still wear) my mask when required but believe it is not doing me or any of us a whole lot of good, other than to make us “feel good”. Feelings are so important.

It’s only two weeks

Carter was always honorable and tried to do the right thing. Joe Biden is and has always been a thug. Look at any number of videos insulting people, losing his temper, lying or just talking like he is out of the slums of Philly. Joe will resign at a time and place dictated by his handlers. I am more disappointed that Austin and Miley haven’t resigned yet. Perhaps they are being pulled by the same puppet strings.

We're witnessing the biggest seizure of power in history. It sounds like hyperbole until you realize it's not. Pay attention. Newly empowered Center for Disease Control is bringing gun violence under its authority. https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/27/health/cdc-gun-research-walensky/index.html

HD, the more data the better. They should have that as well. The more data there is, the better decisions people can make. It frustrates me that it comes out piecemeal. Agree to an extent on the seatbelt analogy…but if you die on the roadway you never take up a hospital bed. I guess you could end up pretty much in the same ventilated state though. There is increasing frustration in the healthcare community. The first wave it was mostly elderly people. This time around it’s younger people and they are hanging on longer, requiring a ton of care, you have to keep rolling them over to get air in their lungs…they are rolling out of the hospital with oxygen tanks to depend on for months. The hospital staffs are tired and many of them see these hospitalizations and ICU visits as preventable with vaccinations the same way they see traumatic head injuries being preventable with helmets and seatbelts. The vaccine, like the helmet or the seatbelt won’t save everyone every time or keep you out of the hospital every time. It’s not magic, sometimes it just doesn’t work, but it should help your odds. To your point I think some are starting to not feel bad about it. They are only human and they are exposed to this suffering day after day. As we all know here, that takes a toll. Many nurses and techs are leaving out of sheer exhaustion and those skills are hard to replace. Oh and yeah, of course big pharma is gonna milk it. 100%.

@BrightNeptune I hear you, just saying you could go get an antibody test, and if that pops positive, now you have another avenue to pursue against a mandatory vaccine, from a regulation/legal perspective. @Scooter14 Keep seeing these infographics, but an incredibly important point they conveniently leave out is how many of the unvaccinated with COVID in the hospitals have 1+ underlying medical condition (regardless of age)? Answer: the national average is 95% (CDC). If someone has an underlying condition, they should probably get the vaccine, as the combo risk of COVID and med condition may be higher than the unknown longterm effects of the vaccine. These infographics are misleading because they imply all unvaccinated people are part of this hospitalization problem, when in fact the healthy/low-risk people are statistically NOT involved.

Yep. We’d be much better off if no one let the gub’mint influence their decisions. Stop signs? Ha! No one’s gonna stop my liberty! Speed limits? Fuck that. There should be no limits on MY freedom motherfuckers! DUIs? This is the US of A goddamnit! If red blooded freedom lovers can’t drink and drive here, where can they? We should be setting the example for the rest of the free world. Somewhere there’s a line between shitting on your freedoms and common sense rules and laws.

I'm not sure why you can't answer the question. My point is, if you've done your research, people who have gotten the MMR2 vaccination series have some immunity against covid. My point being if you've received your mmr2 vaccinations in the military over the last decade this may have helped you not get covid even if you're not covid vax'd.

I've seen this before. There is an established precedent that the DoD can only order a medical procedure if there is a medical necessity. If you are immune there is no neccesity. In other words, in medical ethics it generally advised not to change something on the body unless there is a clear reason to. It's the same ethics case that requires sterilization procedures to follow consultations and stuff.

It’s an unknown amount sure, but that number seems significant. My RN wife sent me this from a hospital in Eastern Maine…I wish more hospitals provided this data. I also wish they included “previously infected” with the hospitalization data, but for now this is what they have. Also…looks like there’s a lot of unvaccinated “young and healthy” people on ventilators in Idaho unfortunately…and triage decisions may be close at hand sadly. https://apnews.com/article/business-health-coronavirus-pandemic-idaho-09941b507483a5c7b0183dcbf03a8254

@BrightNeptune Another option, if you have COVID antibodies from a previous infection, is request a vaccine exemption IAW AFI 48-110 (look at section 2.6). There’s also a current lawsuit against DOD for mandating vaccines for people with natural immunity. No idea if either of those will be successful, but it’s another avenue to at least try…if you’ve been previously infected.

🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺

I was thinking more like this...

Resignations at that level would run counter to the current narrative of, “most successful airlift in history,” that the administration has decided to run with. I don’t think we will see a single person with stars fired over this. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Would be nice if they posted ages and comorbidities under each of those persons depicted.

What I have read says the vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting infected. That it just lessens the severity of the symptoms.

My response was less directed at you personally and more at what seems to be a prevalent attitude on the right. I didn't intend to attribute those positions to you personally, but I realize my post could be construed as such. To be perfectly honest though, I meant it to be somewhat inflammatory. I think 600+K deaths makes masks and vaccinations a pretty small sacrifice for most of us. I think many of you are drawing your "line in the sand" in a completely ridiculous place. For me, that line is somewhere past mask mandates, but well before Australian style indefinite lockdown.

I'm all out of upvotes today, fellas, but... Yes.

Absolutely no one here has said any of the things you're falsely attributing to my position or anyone else's who thinks our response to COVID is going way too far. We can't have a civil discussion on the singular issue at hand without one side of the argument chiming in with "Whataboutisms", hyperbole, and hysterics (Fuck, motherfuckers, goddamnit, etc.) Can you not defend your position on COVID without relying on unrelated and irrelevant arguments? We've just established 83.3% of our population has COVID antibodies as of 4 months ago (while the herd immunity threshold is widely regarded at an "unachievable" 60-70%), pharmaceutical companies are applying pressure for endless boosters and now pills, and COVID passports are already in the United States. The only difference between us is where we drawn the line of "common sense". It is vastly apparent to me that we've crossed the definition of it, but you're unwilling to specify where you draw the line. I believe it is more important to you to defend the side you've chosen than to admit that people will take from you until say "That's enough." Where was your alarmism in 2018? source: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/

Inside the wire at KAIA. All the feels. https://www.brokenjarhead.com/kabul-evac-video

Pfizer CEO doubling down: Vaccinations and Boosters aren't good enough. Non-hospitalized low risk adults also need Pfizer's new and improved oral medication. What more does it take for people to understand what is obviously happening? Snap out of it, FFS. The Press Release: https://t.co/su5VtfbWPX?amp=1 The CEO:

There may be some countries to the north which while largely Islamic are much more secular and would really like to keep the Taliban from exporting their ideals to their country. Add a potentially very large aid package to one or more of these countries they may be willing to look the other way while we make life hard on the problem children to the south. I would hope so anyway.

Obviously these guys got out, unlike a lot of other much less fortunate people, but the worldwide communications relays here sure are interesting. CCTs initially had the wrong freqs? https://warisboring.com/21st-century-dunkirk-the-story-of-how-air-traffic-controllers-used-social-media-dms-to-help-rescue-friends-trapped-in-afghanistan/

I’m confident we’re done with the “M” portion of DIME over there for awhile. I’m sure there are some guarantees to the Taliban about how they protected the airport and we won’t bomb them back the Stone Age. And since our State Department did such a bang up job last time, it’s good to know they’re in the lead.

Here's a picture of crew members volunteering to go make craters over there.

This headline about sums up the entire thing

I hope stories like Scheller's gets thrown back in the faces of the current government come midterms. Not saying that he should be free from consequence, but like, really? Generals patting themselves on the back for "the best airlift operation since Berlin" while court-martialing an FGO for daring to question their integrity? It's genuinely disgraceful, no matter how you slice it. If some generals owned up to it, took accountability, and resigned, and then Scheller got court-martialed anyways, I would think it would be more justified. But this? Absolutely disgraceful. It seems like to get a bird or stars, you have to turn in your balls first.

At this point I'm not sure whether there will be any resignations among the top brass. Several of the retired ones (McMaster and Petreaus specifically) associated with Afghanistan general officer leadership aren't currently taking any responsibility publicly. Right now the narrative seems to be "we did our duty, served honorably, if anyone's to blame its our civilian leadership" (the last part isn't being said openly by the active duty guys). There's probably an element of truth to this but in my opinion its far from the complete story. Interesting book to read on the evolution of American generalship since WWII is The Generals by Thomas Ricks. The book only covers US Army generals and Ricks has some serious bias against the US military in many ways but its a very good read. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on what he has to say regarding US military senior leadership but I found it to be a pretty well researched and written study.

I find it weird that we accept the fact that we're allegedly the world hyperpower, and the Taliban are the ones giving all the orders. I find it weird that the withdrawal was planned in such an appallingly catastrophic fashion. I find it weird that the administration was absolutely obsessed with meeting some meaningless deadline. I find it weird that no one can seem to nail down how many Americans were in Afghanistan, how many were airlifted, and how many were truly left behind. I find it weird that the Taliban allegedly offered us the opportunity to police and secure Kabul, and we said, "No thanks." I find it weird that leaving any number of Americans behind is acceptable to this administration. I find it weird that so little effort was made to disable or destroy the military hardware left behind. I find it weird that we seemingly made so little effort to prioritize American evacuees ahead of Afghanis. I find it weird that a presidential administration could survive this calamity. I find it weird that the administration claims they had no inkling the AFG government would collapse in this manner, but that is constantly being proven false. I find it weird that the President told the press we are not leaving until every American who wants to leave is airlifted, and today...meh. What can you do? Americans are stranded overseas all the time. I find it weird (no offense meant) that people like you think there is nothing weird about all of this.

Desantis is a bully (my opinion) and I despise bullies. And the next President should be under 60yo. Biden is done. 1. He is incompetent and I'm being kind with my words right now; probably well into dementia. He will get heavier and heavier to prop up. Any decision he makes is dangerous because he lacks the mental ability to make them. 2. The fucked up AFG exit will stick to him and his administration forever. There isn't a story or image available to paint a better picture. From people falling off the C-17 on takeoff, to the picture of the Marine holding a baby that was then killed in the Kabul attack, to the story of former operators going in on their own to rescue people they worked with and promised a better life, this complete and utterly inept group must go. Every time I see Bidens picture ...... When he said he will make them pay in regards to the Kabul attacks, he should include himself. 3. No leader of any country, organization, company, or political entity will, nor should they, ever trust Biden and his inept administration ever again. He is completely ineffective. Zero influence, or more accurately, zero positive and most likely just negative influence. Out

I flew the A-10 as a TPS student and employed the gun and dropped BDUs (I know, cool story, right?). Am I not supposed to say I flew it? Or in another instance, I flew just 10 hours in a prototype but never had a Form 8. Does that count?

https://www.edwards.af.mil/Portals/50/documents/AFD-131008-020.pdf?ver In my humble opinion, if you get accepted to Test Pilot School as a pilot you can log every airplane you flew there because…it’s Test Pilot School.

No decent foreign senior officer would/should ever do anything so drastic without consult of other senior host-nation officers. I served in a coalition combat unit with some pretty inept NATO and other nation senior officers. Minus a few good eggs, the foreign O-6 crowd was a joke...in way over their heads but the good news is they knew it. My Aussie O-6 boss was interested in learning our USAF OPR system so he could "do better" but was a total LIMFAC and not worth the time- I deliberately cut him out of the process and convinced our USAF O-6 director of staff that he should rate on all of my dudes- it worked. Not all of the divisions did the same and they paid the price. BL- If the thread scenario is as described, cut this dude out of the process now. If your American leadership is not backing you up, elevate. Also, ENJJPT is a joke. Finally, can we please man up and stop dancing around this AFSOC guy who uses Q-3s like AMC? What is his name so we can hold people accountable.

Is the German OG the reservists actual legal commander? If there were to be non-judicial punishment (which this is borderline), would a German have actual legal authority for that in the United States for a USAF IP? I've landed a fighter with an EP at an uncontrolled airfield. Everything turned out fine. Bit of a pain to get the fighter out of there because it required ACC/CC approval, but never heard anyone second guess me even though my leadership at the time was less than optimal. If it were me that this happened to, I'd be in the IG office, talking to the ADC, a civilian lawyer that knows military law, and my senator. The Q3 might stick, but it'll be so much work and pain that they would wish they never thought of it. Edit to add: in case it wasn't obvious, this Q3 is complete BS if this is indeed the true story. Also, if it is a true story, the reservists there should all be sick for the next month or two. Get it highlighted all the way up to AETC/CC when the whole base gets a month behind timeline to show that he has an exceptionally toxic commander that needs to be dealt with.

New commercial coming soon to Al Jazeera: "Hey, all you jihadis! Come on down to our new showroom here at Biden Arms Bizarre and see me, Mad Mahammad, because I'm crazy about making a deal. You want new M-4 automatic rifle to replace that clunky old AK? We got thousands of new and lightly used rifles in stock. Get the latest in night vision scopes to go with it so you can shoot infidels day or night. I'll even throw in 1000 rounds of ammo free. Tired of riding that donkey to set roadside bombs? I've got over 2000 armored and 70,000 other vehicles ready to move! Whether you are taking your jihadis to work or that special goat on a date, we have the vehicle to fit your lifestyle. And check these out. 40 Blackhawk helicopters, low hours, and completely loaded. We also have Apache attack helicopters and Tucano A-29 attack aircraft! Be the envy of the terrorists on your block when you go searching for Christians with one of these bad boys. And you can find those infidels using one of these ScanEagle drones! Perfect for reconnaissance or seeing what Abduls new child bride looks like without a burka....but you didn't hear that from me. We didn't forget the refreshments! Stop by the Aloha Snack bar where your first shot is always free! So what are you waiting for? Come see me, Mad Mohammad, at Bidens Arms Bizzarre today!"

You’re saying white jet, generator, and German OG. So just to clear up confusion: the dude has a generator failure and lands at Sheppard with no tower controller and receives a Q3 for it? If so: the commander is free to do as he pleases, but I think he’s setting a very dangerous precedent. Telling people they are unsafe for reasonable actions in an emergency is a quick way to breach faith. If it was me, I’d refuse to sign the Form 8 and contact the IG.

Negative. Broke jet, home plate right below you...no brainer to me. It's just uncontrolled, not a torn up runway. How about thanks for bring a broke jet to place where mx is readily available.

Let's be honest. This end-state for AFG was inevitable and was/is/has been a foregone conclusion. The notion that we were going to install a democracy there was absurd from day one. Period. Root cause = we defined success to be an unachievable goal from "go" - hence failure. It really is that simple. It's not Biden's fault we lost. It's not Trump's fault we lost. It's not Obama's fault we lost. It is Biden's fault we are losing in such an embarrassingly avoidable manner, however. That *is* his fault. We should be losing more gracefully.

Bit of an update after a couple busy months. Just got my Training RIP for UPT right as I was finishing up IFT! AFOQT/TBAS: December 2018 UPT Board: May 2019 (selected as alternate) Alternate to primary: got the call for the big leagues February 2020. MEPS completed and signed off: May 2020 Enlisted and gained by the unit: June - July 2020 NGB approval for FC1 and OTS: 01 Dec 2020 FC1: 09 Feb 2021 OTS: 06 Apr 2021 - 28 May 2021 (Class 21-04) IFT: 7 July 2021 - 13 Aug 2021 (Class 21-16) UPT: UPT 2.5 at Vance AFB T-6 Phase: 1 Nov 2021 - 17 Jun 2022 T-38 Phase: 20 Jun 2022 - 05 Jan 2023 IFF: ??? FTU: ??? Feel free to hit me up with any questions about the training pipeline up to UPT! Happy to help where I can.

So I just switched. Still have USAA for banking but not for insurance. I took the emotion out of it and assumed all insurance companies can have customer service issues from time to time. I just compared rates. For both home & auto I used my existing USAA coverages and got estimates that matched (apples to apples). I got quotes from Progressive, Geico, Nationwide, Liberty Mutual, All State, Farmers and State Farm. All had easy, online systems for adjusting coverage to match my USAA policies. I examined costs for auto/home bundles and separate policies. I also looked at each company's app just to make sure it didn't suck. I ended up choosing Liberty Mutual (31% less than USAA) for auto and Nationwide (35% less than USAA) for home. Bundling with one company did not save money overall. Surprisingly, in the comparison USAA had the highest rates by far for both -- and it was even close. They were 24% above the average of all the auto quotes and 17% higher than the next closest competitor. For home they were 22% higher than the average and 16% higher than the closest competitor. For bundling they were better as it seems each company tends to have better rates for one or the other. For bundling they were only 9% above average and within 7% of the next closest competitor. However, the bundling appears to be a red herring as none of the companies had a deal anywhere close to the combined rates when using two separate companies. With my switch I'm saving so much that I decided to increase my coverage. For example, I was able to reduce my auto deductible to just $250 for each vehicle for both comprehensive and collision, zero deductible for glass, twice the liability, add uninsured motorist, add rental car reimbursement, upgraded towing (100 miles free), and "better car replacement" (next year model newer and 15,000 less miles if car is totaled) and still save 26% over my crappy USAA coverage. For home I increased my overall coverage by $265K, reduced my wind/hail deductible to $1500 (USAA was at $12,500), add increased coverage for guns, tools and jewelry (and a bunch of other extras) plus guarantee rebuilding regardless of building cost. That Cadillac coverage still saved me 26% over USAA's crappy coverage. What I learned is that I've been wasting a lot of money with my loyalty to USAA and false assumptions about their competitiveness. I recall looking into this 15 years ago and found nobody could come close to their rates. Now they are not competitive. The were significantly higher than every other company. It's also not small change. As a bonus, my USAA Subscriber Savings Account (some profit sharing thing) pays out in full with give me over $10K cash. That's actually a nice incentive to switch.