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Here’s the thing for me. They aren’t even trying to hide the lies anymore. Not at all. The examples are piling up. Kavanaugh, Russian collusion, all the COVID hypocrisy, Jussie Smollet, NASCAR nooses, Covington kids, hands up don’t shoot, etc. This one is one of the most egregious though. Starting with Jacob Blake, the riots and ending with Rittenhouse. I can’t understand, I mean I literally can’t understand, how or why any average American is falling for this stuff regardless of political leaning. It’s simple truth and facts vs blatantly obvious lies. And they double down on it over and over again This is how we got Trump, Jan 6th, the recent Virginia election results and what will be complete destruction of Democrat power in 2022. The pendulum is going to swing hard right in 2022. As it should. The left has hopefully had their moment and hopefully we survive it.

Is that an attempt at a comparison? Your example didn’t happen in the Rittenhouse case. He wasn’t pointing and aiming. And he did pass a lot of people without aiming, pointing, or shooting anyone after being attacked by the dude who was threatening him all night, trying to grab his weapon, chasing him who according to a Jury was breaking the law and got killed justifiably. Not too active shooter of him. A kid who was and had been supporting his community and the opposition just tried to manipulate a narrative against him to get a political win. What’s one good person’s life right when compared to 4 people who had committed over 40 crimes between them to include 6 time rapist and abuser of little kids. So what was your comparison again? You going to the race card next?

I know for a fact that it's a problem in AFSOC, can't speak to other commands so maybe it's better other places. I've heard second and third hand that it's becoming a problem in other commands but I have no evidence of that. To your point on leadership "understanding" opt outs, that's probably a pretty tough thing to make happen with any regularity unless attitudes about leadership and what it means to serve change in the AF. O-6 assignments are handled in a separate system from the rest of the rank and file. Believe it or not, a lot of O-6s that are thinking about getting out don't show their cards until they have to, just like the guys on line. I would imagine that telling a guy like Slife or his most probable successor (CAT 5) that you're opting out of command but want to continue serving isn't going to go very well. Guys like that have serious difficulty processing that someone wouldn't want a command opportunity; the risk of vindictiveness through a shitty deal or assignment is simply too high for a lot of O-6s to be long term honest brokers about their goals/intentions.

The only victims were Kyle and the good people of Kenosha that had their city torn apart for made up protests in the name of rioting.

Is he responding to loud verbal commands? What's the temperature/dew point? What's the weather at my alternates?

As long as I’m the military, I’ll take what they tell me or I’ll get out. Even on the outside I tend to trust the majority of scientists because I think most people want to do the right thing, although I think risks acceptance differs. The military has to always be ready and we lose some freedoms when you join and I think that’s generally understood. Having a significant part of our force challenge something hurts the good order and discipline part. I think there may be a time and place for that but it would have to be pretty severe, like illegal orders. Even the military being low risk you don’t want everyone getting sick at the same time. No one had a problem with annual flu shots before, why would annual COVID shots be different? Last thing is this forum used to be a great place to come and learn things about AF policy coming down the line and getting inside info on stuff from people in the know. Now we spend most of our time arguing a shot and politics that none of us are going to change our mind on. I think it’s true out in the force too. We just need to accept our positions, deal with the consequences of either getting or not getting the vaccine and move on to talking about policies that will affect the younger guys and we can give them advice on, like new pilot training changes, building experienced flyers, changing OPR processes and forms, career expectations without BPZ and opportunities to fly more, or take a command route if you want, IDE changes etc. not waste our time not changing each other’s mind on a vaccine. Just my opinion.

Yeah, I can tell that you looked at all the facts of this case…and with an unbiased mind. On 9/28/2021 at 11:30 AM, Alpharatz said: I sometimes wonder how many gun toting types have ever been in a situation to realize how little comfort carrying a gun gives you (or at least me)..That's why I have stopped recommending Horse dewormer and suggested using Pig tranquilizer..it works just as well for the bug (not at all) AND cools off any idea of invading the Capitol..or shooting someone..

What victims? You can’t be a victim if you threaten to kill someone and then chase them, if you swing a skateboard at their head, or if you point a loaded weapon directly at their face.

Tell me you don't know anything about this case or law enforcement without telling me you don't know anything about this case or law enforcement. For starters, as pointed out, he did not point or aim his weapon at anyone other than the people he shot. Second, as a cop, I'm not shooting the kid unless he threatens me or someone else with the weapon. It starts with loud verbal commands and escalates from there. It is not my job to judge whether he shot in self defense or not. Unless he's an active shooter (he was not), or threatening me or someone else (also not), there is no justification to use deadly force against him. Your take is bad and you should feel bad.

Maybe it’s because having command in the USAF involves very little actual leadership and rather is more management of bureaucratic norms to not upset the status quo. I know people turning down management opportunities because there are better things to to do in life than be king turd of sh-t island.

I've tried answering that question for a long time. Since the Kavanaugh hearings. The voters' mindset I get, they just believed the lie they were told. But the people in that picture know they are lying. Why? I think it's because this has become the religion of the progressives. The dogma of power hierarchies and systemic oppression (that old friend, Marx), the original sin of slavery, and the requirement that you proclaim your faith despite what your lying eyes see. There are hymns (SJW vocabulary like antiracism, unconscious bias, systemic racism, white rage, whiteness, privilege), prophets and priests (Ta- Nehisi Coates, Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo), tithing (political campaign donations), confession... The list goes on. And just how the Catholic Church reacted horribly to the enlightenment, and nearly every scientific discovery that even remotely challenged the church's narrative, the progressives *hate* anything that threatens the "perfect word" of their God: the evil and racist nature of the American system, in which there is no justice for the oppressed. That's why they hated Rittenhouse so much, and it's especially why they hated the Darren Wilson case so much, and why they completely ignored the Eric DeValkenaere case. The first case attacks the purity of the cause. If Kyle was justified, then that night in Kenosha really was a riot, not "mostly peaceful protesting" for black rights. The second case reminds us that cops are more likely to be killed by black people than black people are likely to be killed by cops. There are very few actual cases of cops killing unarmed black people on which to build this vision of wide-spread sport-hunting by the police of minorities; Michael Brown was a martyr turned villain. And the last case proves that there is infact justice for minorities in America. Once you accept that the people driving the progressive movement know the narrative they are promoting is false, it becomes a lot easier to predict the behavior. The things you focus on and ignore when protecting a lie are different than when protecting the truth. Gaslighting, straw men, ad hominem attacks, appeals to authority, false equivalency... All tactics to distract from a weak position. They have committed to the fundamental notion that America is broken and needs to be radically changed. Build back better, right? They want the "new America" but lack the justification, considering the wild success of the American experiment for *all* citizens. So they are just making it up. Now that they are committed, and their power is tied to that cause, what choice do they have?

I would say that I'm of the opinion that your comment is misplaced, not well thought out, unprofessional and poorly timed. But we can discuss it in the future when we actually have some facts about what happened, rather than hashing out opinions and speculation before we even know the names of those involved... people we share the uniform with... in this tragic and unfortunate mishap.

To be clear, vaccination does reduce the risk of hospitalization and death by on the order of 90%. I mean, check out the percentage of people who are vaccinated in Scotland - virtually everyone at risk/over 60. But you end up with 30% of hospitalizations and 15% of the deaths in the unvaxxed groups - which are extremely small portions of the at risk population. It’s not like 30% of the population is unvaccinated. Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-58548727.amp A better argument is that we have reached the point of diminishing returns with vaccines and should stop. We have protected the at risk population - CDC reports that 99% of those 65+ are vaccinated. And as has been pointed out, transmission isn’t effectively curtailed, so getting a relatively healthy 25-50 year old to take the shot doesn’t help the population almost at all.

If you were talking about a disease that had low transmission rate, *maybe* you could justify a minor reduction as successful. But you would also have to have a massively high infection fatality rate. Covid-19 is exactly the opposite. "Unfortunately, the vaccine’s beneficial effect on Delta transmission waned to almost negligible levels over time. In people infected 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, both in the UK, the chance that an unvaccinated close contact would test positive was 57%, but 3 months later, that chance rose to 67%. The latter figure is on par with the likelihood that an unvaccinated person will spread the virus. A reduction was also observed in people vaccinated with the jab made by US company Pfizer and German firm BioNTech. The risk of spreading the Delta infection soon after vaccination with that jab was 42%, but increased to 58% with time." So no, it does not meaningfully prevent transmission. Should we mandate things for "almost negligible" effects? You do have Google, right?

A good article by the late Robert Dorr on "light attack" in the early turbine-powered years. https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-a-37-dragonfly-in-vietnam/ Although based on the Tweet, it is quite a bit different despite what many believe. One of the guys in my UPT class did his 2nd assignment in the Dragonfly at Howard AFB, and was there when Operation Just Cause went down. Pretty cool that he got about 20 combat sorties shooting Willy Pete rockets at the Panamanian Guard. There is currently only one A-37B flying in North America.

Greek mythology was my favorite elective so I’ve got a soft spot sts for classical references, my vote Odysseus He wandered the sea on a mission and got out of some tough spots That’s my rationale Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Perhaps not strictly for this forum but spare some thoughts for our fallen brother. A lot of us could be there soon. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/11/20/laughlin-air-force-base-identifies-student-pilot-killed-in-t-38c-mishap-friday/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=Socialflow+AIR&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR3ORMNzwndIb4Rgt1CuqHMLV6mSfRkwFsBZ92HXlJ5NSLWE1XjLHPSsj2A

Good question and not the easiest problem to solve. Disclaimer: I declined command with prejudice two years ago so this a is topic that I have fairly strong feelings about. Second hand info, so take it FWIW, but I've been told that our MAJCOM/CC has stated that AF leadership is fairly concerned about this. Long term projections/trends aren't good; supposedly there's a real possibility that there won't be enough qualified O-5/6s in the coming years to fill all the required command billets. At any given point AFSOC has about 110 or so O-6s; about 3 years ago there was an O-6 blood bath where 42 of them punched in the same year, was a rude wakeup call. From what I can tell there's another big wave of O-6 retirements currently under way. I honestly don't know why AFSOC was surprised this happened, we're coming into the era where you have people who've been at war for their entire career. Once you make O-6 you're a company man and your control over your future is often times much diminished, and in the last couple years your chances of an undesirable 365 increased dramatically (admittedly this risk is probably diminished now). I'd agree with your pitch that there is and probably needs to be a middle ground. I personally know several guys in the last two years who made O-6 and still retired prior to getting 3 years TIG. If the AF tries to push guys/gals into commands they don't want, I'm of the personal opinion it'll be a lose/lose for everyone involved. The people in question will most likely just retire so we'll lose the talent, or they'll stay and do a job they don't want, which means they people they're leading could suffer. In my small corner of the AF: 1. I think we could do a better job about being open with guys/gals about what their future looks like if they're on the command track. AFSOC does a horrible job IMO giving guys on the command track feedback on the DT results/discussions. Almost everyone is in the dark until if/when they get a hiring phone call. That makes it very difficult to prog out family life or have any idea about what your future holds. 2. I think we could also open up DO and CC slots to more non-school selects/line guys (not just top 10-15% people). I know plenty of bros in the ops units that would've made great commanders and would've been interested in serving in that role but never got the looks or opportunity cause they weren't put on that path as a Captain. This would serve to widen the command gene pool and not limit senior leaders' choices for command billets to careerist twats. One of the better CCs I've had was one of these guys, always a line dude, no school or jt staff and was a great commander during a challenging year for the squadron. 3. I believe keeping productive O-6s that decline command would be win for the AF and for those individuals. I worked with/around a decent amount of worthless/not smart/downright cockbaggish O-6s during my time on staff. Every guy on here has probably seen things come out of at least the MAJCOM that were uninformed/bad policy/caused issued at the ops units. Letting good O-6s go to staff lets those guys/gals continue to serve and leverages their experience where it could have positive effects at the squadron level. Standing by spears/thoughts.

MCO mentioned towards the end of the linked post a desire to steer conservations back toward AF-type stuff. As such, and on the topic of command, last year's O6 command board had ~40% of eligibles opt out from competing for command. Rumor is that the policy of "all in" will return. So for the crowd, which is worse for the AF: Selecting your group/wing commanders from a much smaller pool (nearly half as small) that results from letting people opt out from competing Or, forcing Colonels to compete and, if selected, take command unless they retire under the policy of "all in"? I think there can be a middle ground. If I were CSAF, I would want as big a pool of candidates as possible, but knowing that there is an O6 shortage, especially among rated officers, I would institute a policy to allow commander-selects to decline as long as there was a mutually beneficial assignment besides command to keep from bleeding talent. Thoughts?

It is crazy to know that the selects are probably (mostly) selected at this moment. Been trying to apply for 4+ years now and finally got my app in so I’m grateful to be in the pool. Good luck to everyone!

They (the political/activist class) are not ignoring reality, they are attempting to redefine it. It's the well-meaning liberals who fall for the lie who are ignoring reality. For now.

That’s fair. But are you now an anti vaxxer in general? As in don’t vaccinate your kids with any of those vaccines and take the risk? Just curious if everyone is becoming what they made fun of 2 years ago using the same arguments they made fun of 2 years ago because it’s normal now. I’m actually not judging if you are, it’s just interesting how this is going. I’m pro vaccine personally but also pro self determination in most cases. I just accept the military is going to shoot us up with a bunch of stuff.

I suppose they already know who has been selected. This is going to be a rough wait ahhhhh

It’s not hypocrisy Aspirin…1899 Advil…1961 Tylenol…1955 Those are the approximate years that each of the medications you listed were developed. Fetal cell testing for developmental purposes didn’t start until late 60s. There is marked difference between developing something with fetal cells, and testing it well after creation for the novelty factor. If someone were to test the effect of aborted fetal cells being placed into a bottle of Aquafina, are we now no longer allowed to consume it based on religious beliefs? Stupid argument man.

I don’t understand how anyone with an ounce of fairness could oppose this verdict. Justifiable self-defense has rarely been this easy or clean to determine.

FIFY

Now I hope he sues the shit out of the major "news" networks.

Safe? Based on what clinically sound studies? We've chased this squirrel before. This crash program did produce something that helps. It is not a "vaccine." Effective? If you get the shot, you can still transmit the virus. If you get the shot, you can still catch the virus and get sick. At a not insignificant percentage either. Best tool? Maybe. But too many other avenues of research/treatment have been shut down arbitrarily for me to accept the efficacy on blind faith and gubmint say-so. The draconian 'mandate' isn't helping their case and makes me dig in my heels. Especially given all the political exceptions - USPS, illegal aliens, attending 'peaceful protests,' etc, etc. This virus is either so deadly to all of the US or it's not. The counters produced thus far are either ways to defeat the virus or they are not. Exceptions literally and figuratively weaken the argument for a vaccinated population. The FDA, yesterday, asked a federal court to grant it permission to answer FOIA requests in 2076. Yes, I'm skeptical. I also do not want to lose the freedom of choice argument currently underway. Otherwise, we all will continue to lose our freedoms. As we have doing at an alarming rate since at least 2001. All in the interests of "safety."

So much what lord rather said. I’m fairly in tune to local politics, and it is very promising to see how many liberals (not far left progressives, there’s a difference) are starting to finally wake up to this bullshit going too far. I’ve talked to several who self-described as progressive, but now they’re saying they can’t do it anymore. Those liberals won’t necessarily get on board with all the conservative polices you like, but they will have a conversation and are more open minded than given credit…just as the same applies to conservatives who are closer to the middle/lean in the libertarian direction. Locally, I’ve determined the GOP are all old people who staunchly cling to their viewpoints/fuck everyone else just as much as the progressive nut jobs…there’s no fundamentally big pic difference in the two groups as far as I’m concerned. Invite the other side of the middle fence to respectful conversation, bet you find out they’re actually pretty reasonable and good people. And hopefully they will find the same about you if they give honest conversation a chance.

'Merica! 🗽🗽🗽

It all depends on the training pipeline, age of the applicant, PPL/no PPL (for Pilot/RPA selects), etc. A lot of factors go into it. Most of my intel is from previous years threads and some people I personally know. There are some people who had nearly a year wait from selection to departing for their assignment at UPT. People who have a PPL have a higher likelihood of being put in an earlier class and in turn PCS before others. URT is all TDY from your current duty station for current AD members. UCT now does their own form of IFS at NAS Pensacola.

I thought a lot about your question last night and to be honest I don't have a good answer or even know if there is one. I've said it before but I personally felt that Milley and McKenzie should've resigned for the way the Afghan withdrawal was conducted. That isn't really an answer to your question though, because they just happened to be the guys in charge when everything came crashing down; tough to blame them for at least 18+ years of official fallacies we (both State and DoD) were telling ourselves and the American public about how the war in Afghanistan was going. My thoughts in no particular order. 1. Part of this is cultural, both in our military and in our political leadership. We (in the officer ranks) all should bear some responsibility for this. On the military side, we rarely (almost never) want to or will actually say "no". It's in our DNA that if we're given a task or mission, we'll figure out a way to get it done. And nobody gets promoted for saying they can't accomplish something (see the Navy's destroyer mishaps as the latest example of severe consequences of this mentality). We've grown and groomed our leadership this way. Almost no one from the top generals/SESs down to probably the at least the FGO level wanted to admit that things weren't going well and that the goal of an independent, democratic Afghanistan free from most Taliban/VEO interference (if that was the goal) wasn't attainable (at least not in any reasonable timeframe). 2. We (talking the royal we, USA at large) tend to have a belief that the US is capable of accomplishing anything if we set our minds to it. And in the late 90s-early 2000s we were still coming off of the rapid, smashing success of Desert Storm. The American public was willing to keep things going so long as the casualties were relatively low and they didn't have to personally pay anything for it. Our public is also as separated from the military as it's ever been and our political class hasn't voted for "military action since the AUMF back in '01. A lot of us also mistakenly hold the belief that everyone in the world wants our version of democracy. 3. "Sometimes you have to let things fail". Don't know how many times I've heard senior leaders say this one in my career but I've rarely seen it actually utilized. I get that "failure" with something as large as the entire Afghan campaign is orders of magnitude different than some new process at the squadron level but it feeds back to point #1. Nobody in our senior leadership wanted to be the guys holding the bag when things ended in the Stan. They would have rather kept the war going indefinitely than admit our ever shifting goals were unattainable. Honesty was less acceptable than the static quo because no one could admit that we were going to fail. 4. Tactical success vs. Operational/Strategic failure. This one goes without saying. If our Operational/Strategic goals were unattainable from the get go, 20 years of killing people and spending money was never going to translate into a win. To answer your original question about who to hold accountable, I honestly think it's probably the bulk of the DoD and State leadership chain for the last 18 years (from at least O-6s all the way to the top, maybe lower). I don't believe the US military was able to be honest with either itself or our civilian leadership about the war. I understand that's probably not a popular opinion. I know a lot of vets were having trouble (a lot probably still are) processing what happened two months ago. The bulk of the rhetoric/messaging has been aimed at us doing our duty, no more attacks on the homeland, etc. That's all well and good, and probably appropriate for the time, but we lost, and I think we need to figure out how to avoid these sort of mistakes/failures going forward. I don't think anyone is going to get fired over this, so to your question over accountability, it'll probably be hashed out in the history books versus public hearings, resignations, some GO/FO or retired GO/FO actually saying "I'm responsible". Not a very satisfying answer I'm afraid.

In my opinion, it extended much further down than just the top level GO/FO leadership. Long but interesting anecdotal story. When I was a young staff officer I was assigned to be my command's GSOS lead (Global Special Operations Synchronization, it's how SOCOM is supposed to prioritize where it puts SOF, feeds into the GFM process). BLUF is its a multi-phase process with a lot of data collection/processing and in person PPTs to a board. During my second year doing doing this, SOJTF-A J35 was presenting their Campaign Plan for the conference (presented to a board of 6 O-6s from SOCOM), SOJTF-A team was made up of an O-6 and several O-5s and civilians. The SOJTF-A team VTCs in and has this very bright, optimistic "this is the year we turn it all around, X years to stem the tide, XX years to seize the initiative, we're gonna take it to them with this new strategy, etc, etc, etc). I think they even used the word "defeat" in some of their presentation. The O-6 board receives the presentation, asks a few minor questions, then says great job, go get'em, we really appreciate you", or something to that effect and starts to move on. That would've been the end of it except for 1 O-5 Army Strategist (extremely intelligent guy who was about as cynical as they come) in the audience. He stands up in this room full of 50 people with god knows how many others in VTC land and politely asks what's different about this year compared to all the other years in the Stan (this conference was in early 2018). When SOJTF-A says they don't understand his question, he expands by saying what they've presented looks remarkably similar to his 2005 experience, which also mirrored the time he was there in 2009, while not differing all that much from the strategic plan in 2011, seemed shockingly similar to his deployment in 2013, and he didn't see all that much change from 2015-2017. He then asked how on god's green earth they were going to seriously degrade or possibly defeat the enemy with a fraction of the resources previously available and an ANA that wasn't that much more capable and suffering a record high number of casualties. The crazy/really eye opening moment to this whole thing was that the SOJTF-A guys just sat there dumbstruck, like they couldn't believe anyone wouldn't believe in or would dare question their plan. They literally had no answer. I seriously think several of them honestly believed the nonsense they were presenting. The O-6 board quietly ruffled through their notes or stared at their hands. The O-5 strategist shook his head and sat down. Will always be one those random moments in my career I'll never forget and the moment I knew we could've been in the Stan for another 20 years and it wouldn't have changed the ultimate outcome one bit.

Well, since the sim instructors at Altus all flew the A model, the young guys hear about it. All. The. Time. How many Altus KC-135 sim Instructors does it take to change a lightbulb? Five One to change it and four to tell you “how we did it in back in the A model.”

Let's say you are a patrolman and some rigged up dude comes running down the street in a riot..pointing and aiming and just shot someone...do you shoot the dude who ..by God.. looks like a kid? Your decision time is already up...

I sometimes wonder how many gun toting types have ever been in a situation to realize how little comfort carrying a gun gives you (or at least me)..That's why I have stopped recommending Horse dewormer and suggested using Pig tranquilizer..it works just as well for the bug (not at all) AND cools off any idea of invading the Capitol..or shooting someone..

I’ll take that as directed at me. I see your point of view & I understand where you’re coming from. Try and understand mine: I, and many others are equally confused as to how a person who is willing to give their life to this country, and make all of the other sacrifices that come with military life, is not willing to accept a vaccine that is safe, effective, and the best tool we have (at the moment) to fight a disease that has killed almost three quarters of a million Americans. I know you aren’t selfish. I know that for most of you, military service is not just a “transactional relationship” (as alluded to by some of the more hardcore libertarian types here), but is truly service before self. But I soundly reject 99% of the objections out there. Religious objections, worries about long term side effects, efficacy arguments, and almost all the other “objections” simply don’t hold water. Getting a vaccination (and yes, probably at least a couple boosters) is the single most effective thing you can do to fight COVID. Regardless, I know you and most who serve are not selfish…..far from it, and I apologize for coming across as a self righteous asshole.

Did you raise the "murdered baby" argument for any of the other vaccines you got in the military? MMR, varicella, and hepatitis A vaccines were all developed using fetal cell lines.

Ya took too long there Spike Buddy...the kid ran past and just shot another dude...what are your thoughts..ya only got a few seconds if that...Did he shoot in self defense? Was the second victim trying to defend himself ? In any case ya REALLY got to hurry up 'cause the kid just blew the bicep off ANOTHER victim...was it self defense? By who? quick now...Jeeze Spike Buddy...You got THREE victims and still haven't made a decision...A jury of 12 of your peers may be analyzing YOUR action..or lack of ..soon enough..