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While I agree with Scheller's assessment, I do not agree with his method of execution. That being said he ultimately has to answer to his own conscience. His actions do remind us that we took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and we do have a responsibility to thoughtfully and legally execute the orders we are given, and a duty to refuse illegal orders. I would invite you all to read Breaking Ranks: Dissent and the Military Professional written by a great friend and Marine War College classmate Andrew Milburn. The reaction to his paper was maddening. The great bloviator Tom Ricks from the Wash Po latched on to Andy's paper and wrote a very negative response which demonstrates that even the greatest of authors can have a basic comprehension problem. Andy explored the subject and wrote the paper under the cloak of academic freedom in a forum we are all supposedly encouraged to think deep thoughts. Initially there was some push back from on high, thankfully NDU and other forces stepped in to provide protection.

COVID is over fuck can we move on with our lives

Take a look in the mirror. Your self-righteous rage is creepy.

Here's the plan that was briefed to POTUS.

I’d like to see us move away from a Q-3 risk adverse flying culture. Better way to teach lessons than just slap Q-3’s on aircrew for every incorrect decision. It builds a mindset and culture that is afraid of failure and afraid to take risks in combat.

Why would you cheer each and everyone? You know that masks and vaccines wont stop the pandemic right?

Wearing a mask doesn’t work. Nothing works to stop the virus it’s gonna spread bro everyone is gonna get it. Get over yourself and get off your high horse it’s obnoxious. glad to see you hold your freedoms in such high regard! Common decency is to let Americans move on with their FUCKING LIVES without you, the CDC, and fauci dictating to us. Scared of the virus? Stay home. Stay safe. Mask up. It’s only two weeks.

1. CDC study on MA 3-17 Jul: - 74% of cases occurred in fully vaccinated persons - Among this group, 5 people were hospitalized. 4 were vaccinated, aged 20-70, and 2 of those had underlying med conditions. 1 was unvaccinated, age 50-59, and had multiple med conditions - CDC: “Delta infection resulted in similarly high SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated people.” 2. Israeli study around the same time: - Overview: study found natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization for the Delta variant of Coronavirus compared to Pfizer vaccine - Model 1: risk of break through infection was 13.06 times higher among vaccinated patients (vs. reinfection of those with natural immunity) and they were 27 times more likely to be symptomatic than unvaccinated people who'd had COVID previously - Model 2: risk of break through infection was 5.96 times higher among vaccinated patients (vs. reinfection of those with natural immunity) and they were 7.13 times more likely to be symptomatic than unvaccinated people who'd had COVID previously (Model 1 was between people with same time of first event, and Model 2 was without syncing) - Israeli Health Ministry (IHM): “With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already [naturally] infected with COVID. By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection” - IHM: “effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has fallen to 40%” No spears, just data that many have not likely seen. The Israeli study did find a .53 times increase in protection if you had natural immunity + 1x shot. So, it’s not an anti-vax study, but does demonstrate the effectiveness of the vaccine and the expected results post-vaccine compared to natural immunity is substantially different than what the media, big pharm, and everyone who’s bought off on what they’re selling, is arguing.

Retention will tank further; every passing day proves it…I agree. I disagree about the 30%, they were at worst willing to stay. I also disagree it takes any of those thing listed to make it to 20 years. That said, we’re in a bad way. Centralized Command, Decentralized Control, and the lower echelons of Command AND the highest levels of Control are both incentivized to just say yes, beyond reason. It’s clear to those who can see it, at the highest and lowest levels. It’s a great job (calling even) this AF pilot gig…it’s a horrible place to spend a career. Don’t ever think it’s the same for 20 years…be a pilot, serve your country, then choose for yourself if this is what you want. Most of us stay because we think others need help/protection. If no one cared about people, the take rate would round down to zero. IMO. Don’t take the bonus unless you love/will love what you’re doing…to each their own. ~Bendy Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

Country is split 50/50 on politics, and has devolved into basically two camps, both with the mentality of “if you aren’t with us, you’re against us”. This leads to people digging in their heels to stand their ground, right, wrong or indifferent, not based on their actual belief on the issue at hand, but based on how the issue has been tooled to meet the needs of their party. Talk to a Biden supporter about Trump, they’ll be all “f*ck Trump”. Talk to a Trump supporter about Biden, same deal. That right there is the crux of the issue, you have people so afraid of the other party and being labelled a dem or republican because of what other people might think about them. Same tactic that has been used for centuries to turn one group of people against the other is just being employed by both poltical parties. You can see it in the blatant hypocrisy that is rampant, which there are so many examples of, to list them would make me vomit. Edit to add: I wholeheartedly believe only way it will get fixed is a 3rd political party entering the fight. Would take a very strong leader, and significant republicans and democrats BOTH breaking off and saying enough is enough. A party where responsible gun ownership doesn't make you hate guns, wanting a secure border doesn't make you a racist, clean domestic energy (not from the middle east) doesn't make you tree hugging nerd, etc.

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.

Yes

Not currently an AWACS guy but I slept in a Holiday Inn last night... There are a couple of main issues as I see them: 1. Capability. Enroute control would be fairly easy to perform from an E-3 however terminal control in and around an airfield is a non-starter based on radar/IFF update rates. Not to mention orbit locations have to balance radar and radio coverage and the ideal radar look isn't necessarily the best radio look. 2. Training. ABMs (and their enlisted counterparts, Weapons Directors) receive no training on being an Air Traffic Control controllers. While some of the skills translate across the two disciplines they are separate career fields for a reason. Interestingly enough the Canadian Forces train their ABM equivalent to perform ATC functions so it's not out of the realm of possible but not likely given the current training pipeline. 3. MX rates. While I won't dive into specifics here suffice it to say that if the plan calls for an E-3 to be your primary ATC function you better have a well thought out alternate and contingency plan.

Rog. Sorry ‘bout the thread drift.

Care about your fellow Americans and follows orders! Come on now…they did this without a problem in the 1940’s! https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation#background

It seems they have copied some of the OCA and DCA FLUG briefs I’ve seen. The no-plan gameplan. Always works out real well <sarcasm>.

Summer/Fall of 2020, some d-bag made the floppy hat illegal again in Centcom. So we just wore our illegal baseball hats anyway (BAF not the deid).

I’m pretty sure whatever staff planned that shitshow can’t even spell MDMP. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Misinformation, a lack of credible leadership and the fact you have to dig through a bunch of media sensationalized bullshit to try to find some semblance of facts to make your decisions. That’s why it’s split. There’s whole regions of the country who have bought into the vaccine. There’s whole regions of the country that reject it. The more one is surrounded by one narrative or the other, the more inclined one is to go with the flow. There’s a lot of strong group think out there and not a lot of critical thought.

Biden wasn't looking at his watch, he was seeing if he still had blood on his hands...

So in the end, the Israeli data shows exactly what the Kentucky data shows...if you already had covid, you are still better off getting vaccinated that relying on natural immunity. Because the KY study only focused on people who had already recovered from covid once, in both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.

Just that a nuclear sub with a COVID outbreak is probably a much bigger problem than the Redsox playing with half the roster.

All you have to do is type "US vaccination rates" into Google and you'll get your data. You can look at other countries as well. We are actually right at 62.7% with at least one dose and 53.3% fully vaccinated as of 2 Sep. https://www.google.com/search?q=us+vaccination+rate&oq=us+vsccin&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i10i433l3j0i10.2727j0j7&client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 Depending on what you read, one shot of Pfizer or Moderna gets you to about 60-80% efficacy 30 days after your first shot. Two gets you to over 90%. Again... efficacy = reduction of severe disease and death; not infection. The big deal is partly due to fanatical views by people who believe everyone should be vaccinated. While I think that people who believe the government is tracking them with some sort of device in the form of a COVID vaccine or believe they are being injected with stem cells from aborted babies are total morons, I can respect someone's educated decision to not get vaccinated and resist the urge to point fingers and blame them for our full hospitals. Noone points the finger at smokers or diabetics (type 2) filling beds who had a choice to live life more healthy. 60,000 people died during the 2017-18 flu endemic in a 3-4 month timespan. It was one of the worst flu seasons in decades. Most of them weren't vaccinated. Not just old people, but children as well. If the flu was as seasonally resistant as COVID, we would have seen at least triple the deaths from the flu that year. Apparently hospitals claimed the sky was falling and were overrun with flu patients, treating them triage-style in tents. Guess what. I am getting that data from the link posted earlier today. You know why? I don't remember that happening at all. It is literally news to me halfway through 2021. You know what made the news more than that during winter of 2017-18? Rocket Man and Orange Man on the brink of war. I remember nothing about a flu "endemic". While I realize COVID is in a bit of a different league than the common flu, the word "endemic" was thrown out there back then. When you use that word, it's a serious matter. There was no mandatory mask wear. There were no corporations mandating flu shots and charging people $200 extra on their health insurance if they didn't get one. This country is a crazy place right now....

My sincere apologies, I wasn't trying to convey personal emotional investment, I'm just emphatic for effect when i talk/type. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

Dude. Seriously? You must be really close to this because it seems that me asking questions or saying what I think drums up a lot of emotion in you which wasn’t the point. And I wasn’t looking for support or opposition when I started this thread. I did have an opinion but not all the facts. Nor do I now. Thanks for your opinion.

You say that like management isn’t already trying to develop better comms so they can speak, I mean direct you while you are in combat.

Fair enough. I stand corrected on the semantics of "as soon as practical". I am aware the IFG matrix is not a T.O. Either way, an emergency declaration is not a requirement for a single gen good cross was my point. Your 6 of one, my half a dozen.

In a country of 300+ million and a 99.7% survival rate

Great news for the ~13k hospitalized for Covid last week.

Tower control means d$ck all, though in general towers tend to be proxies for ARFF services (part 139 certifications is a better proxy). KLAW is an ARFF index B facility during air carrier ops (aka operating hours), and it is 7 minutes away by T-38. That's just not in dispute. The argument could be made that the risk of a botched landing attempt of an otherwise non-emergency aircraft (I'm sorry if you all disagree, but that is the T.O. categorization of a single gen good cross in the T-38, unless a compound EP/failure presents itself), in a field without crash services, where one was available 7 minutes away, is not justifiable and demonstrates a pattern of improper decision making in the eyes of the guy who owns the iron. That's it man. You don't agree? Cool. Feel free to win the hearts and minds when they make you OG. This isn't an abstraction for me in the least. I work in the same community and know who I'm beholden to when I decide that a quick-tempered Leroy Jenkins is warranted, and shine my #ss out there in the NAS with a tail I don't have personal OPCON over. I further decide I don't like that construct? I can always sit on my hands, turn in my wings and eat the paddle I got coming to my *ss like a full-retard-Scheller. There are hills to die on in this life.... but not everything is one. To each their own. But you tell me. You're the one who started a thread asking about what could warrant a Q3, but don't provide any truth data required to inform the position you're arguing against in the first place. That reads to me like you know the answer you want, but have heartburn with any position that doesn't feed that confirmation bias. Corroborate that any compounding factor to that simpleton non-emergency is at play here, and you'll have my 100% vote on that Q3 being bullsh$t. Until then, we're just throwing hypotheticals here, and my guess is as good as yours.

"Reduces risk of infection 91%"...not risk of symptoms, infection. The Kentucky study shows that "natural immunity" isn't as good as vaccination. The UK study shows vaccines reduce the risk of asymptomatic infection by 50-60%...asymptomatic infection, not "reduces severity".

I would argue (maybe not argue, just point out) that mental illness is probably at root cause of violent crimes, domestic abuse, etc. We have a serious mental health problem in this country but people like to call it “gun violence” or whatever because we don’t know how to solve the mental health crisis behind it all. So yeah the CDC should play a role but they aren’t really showing me much lately.

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

So what is so dangerous about landing at an airfield with 2x runways, 10/13k long vs. a single runway that’s 8.6k…the latter is better because some guy in the tower says “cleared to land?” Not trying to imply 8.6 is too short, but what the hell is the big deal with not having a civilian tell me I’m cleared to land (who collectively across my career have multiple times give me clearance to land which would have resulted in a mishap had I not caught the problem and reacted accordingly). Sure, talk to the guy and tell him the preference is LAW/another towered airport in the event of a land as soon as practical EP, but anything beyond that is egregious BS/CYA. Edit: Last week sent a 4 ship into a NTA with multiple GA in the pattern…turns out pilots can pilot and everything was fine. That OG would probably have a heart attack hearing this.

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.

The system will now play dirty, he was directed by his commander to report for a mental health screening.

Absolutely. It's the way I handled an 8 year stint at my last duty station. Super easy transition during the eventual PCS; a twofer since I'll never landlord as a matter of personal preference and life priorities. Of course, I also rented cheap with a young family and put that whole spread into other aspects of my life (to include a mammoth war chest that might just be enough to not have to even dabble in the airline d!ck dance after .mil retirement). In fairness, a scheme most of these haughty m'fers I call my vocational peers generally consider beneath them, but that's neither here nor there. LOL 😄 Cheers!

Cool, they should also charge an extra $200 for anyone with a BMI > 25, to keep it equitable. And if they were truly genuine, they should probably charge $400 for BMI > 30, which probably accounts for 50% of their workforce

No. Don’t believe they hype, he was and is a political creature. That he was fired because his underlings were undisciplined and foolish does not equate to speaking truth to power and being willing to fall for it.

My grandfather fought the Krauts and all he gets to show for it is some d bag German coming over to our UPT base and Q-3ing one of our guys? fuck that.

Nope. Realize getting your app to the 69% level is pretty quick. Getting it polished to the 95% level can take a while. Took me 6 months.

We’re about to be amazed at the number of military members with dual Ph.D.’s in economics and virology.

Take it up with SECDEF. They've already kicked one person for refusing the vaccine and mask. I'm pretty sure there's about to be a bunch more. I'll be cheering each and every one.

Almost as strange as expecting them to care about their fellow Americans or follow orders. Wild stuff.