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Here are three lessons from AFG we should be smart enough to apply in UKR: 1. We should not attempt fighting a battle for those who don’t care enough to fight it themselves. The idea Prozac expressed, that we must stop tyranny here before it spreads everywhere, is undercut by the unwillingness of Europe to defend itself. If Germany isn’t worried about Russia threatening them, why are we? We aren’t isolationists; if Europe is banding together against an aggressive Russia I’m in. But the situation looks like we’re overly aggressive defending a continent who is apathetic about our noble notions. We should be smarter. Do not fight a war for Europe that Europe won’t fight itself. 2. This one is tough to articulate: There are boundaries that if adversaries cross we should fight. But we should not artificially move those boundaries, then fight over artificially made boundaries. In AFG we said “AQ attacked us, we have to crush them & their ability to do it again.” Yup, 100% right. I spent my adult life doing it. But then we foolishly transitioned into “we must spread democracy here, as a strategic hedge against AQ ever growing again . Now we’ll stay for decades forcing democracy.” Fighting to prop up GIRoA was dumb, even GIRoA didn’t believe in itself. We should have left after smashing the enemy, let grow whatever political system worked for the Afghans, and come back to smash them again if required. With Ukraine, the line we cannot allow to be crossed is a NATO member being attacked. “If they attack UKR they’ll attack Poland!” Maybe, we don’t know. But if that’s the case, we should fight when they attack Poland (Article 5), not at an artificially made assumption before the one we actually care about. It is hubris to assume you know what the future holds. 3. We should not commit troops to war unless our nation actually wants it and we authorize it correctly through Congress. This thing we’ve all done for the last 20 years was stupid, unpopular, devastating to our national credibility, national debt, and the lives of service members. And ultimately we gained nothing from it. Now the same people are telling us we have to do something similar in Ukraine, and we should trust them. But our countrymen don’t want it, so it will fail. In light of these three items, we should be clear eyed about our prospects for success on this misadventure in Ukraine. And although this final item might seem political, it is relevant: given the obvious and massive corrupt political connections between our presidents family and Ukrainian oligarchs, can any of us trust that the information we are receiving about the situation is correct?

This is the relevant point. There were only a few select justifications for mandates (masks, school closures, vaccination, boosting). 1. Stop the spread. That's dead. None of the mandated actions *meaningfully* stop the spread. Alpha didn't look like it was responding, Delta killed that idea for sure, and omicron is just making a mockery of it. The vaccine turned out to be the fever-dream of libertarians. Instead of working like the measles vax, which absolutely stops the spread of measles, this vaccine only protects the individual who takes it. Fascinating. Sure, we didn't know that a year ago, but we know it for sure now yet some at the highest levels of government are still clinging to mandates. And if you think these people are up there begging to save the lives of their political opposition, you have a much more optimistic view of politics than I do. This is a case study in our ability to cling to a decision as humans despite changes around us. 2. Don't overwhelm the hospitals. This one was fascinating, because the average person had no idea how overwhelmed most hospitals are on any normal day. Do you really think nurses started using cocaine to get through the day because of the coronavirus? They are businesses, and like any other well-run business, operating near capacity is usually the most profitable path. But this was also confused with "don't burden the hospitals." There's a big difference between overwhelming and burdening. As the last few posts point out, we allow all manner of personal decision making that burdens hospitals. It's just another cost of freedom that is grossly outweighed by the cost of authoritarianism. You think the hospitals are filled now... Go check out the authoritative states. 3. Save the children. This one has been disgusting from the start. Perhaps the best thing about this pandemic is that it doesn't affect children. There's not a single factual analysis that implies children are at risk from this disease. Yet the teachers unions in the most radicalized cities in America have used it as a cudgel, and politicians have jumped on board. Granted, I don't expect the average American to understand the immensity of facial expressions on childhood development, but I do expect experts in the field of childhood development to be honest about it, and they haven't been. The most profound effect of the pandemic is not going to be a few more old people dying a few years earlier (and yes, compared to the rates of death that have been posted here numerous times, this pandemic did not change the game for old people. They died of a lot of things, now there's one more on the list. As those most susceptible to the coronavirus pass, the rates will return to where they were. It sucks. But it wasn't the only factor and we treated it that way). Rather the biggest effect will be the millions of children, overwhelmingly those from low-income and single-parent households, who missed out on two years of desperately needed, in person education. Most of the people here have their shit together, and therefore their kids have their shit together. They have no idea the abject misery that children live in, in places like inner city chicago, new york, memphis, St louis, baltimore, Los angeles, or any number of liberal-run catastrophes across the country. They had jobs that let them stay at home and watch their kids, many of whom already had a firm basis in academics and could handle the transition to Zoom for a couple years. That's not the case for the kids whose parents didn't make it through a year of high school themselves, and spend their days either judiciously working at shitty jobs to pay for food for their kids, or wasting their lives away in a self-indulgent drug fantasy world, where the effect on their children is the same. Unmonitored, uneducated, and mostly just alone. For a lot of those kids, the teacher was the only person who interacted with them in a meaningful way on a daily basis.

great post. i wanna add #4. 4. If we commit...we commit. No bull shit ROE. Total war, gloves off, unleash the devils to annihilate the enemy. Annihilate. Not win hearts and minds. Total devastation and destruction of the enemy. I think Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War 1 (not finishing the job all the way to Baghdad), and the GWOT have taught us that "police actions/limited wars" are not successful endeavors. If we fight we fight to win with 100% of our effort.

If Putin is allowed to invade Ukraine without repercussion do you think he’ll stop there? He will be emboldened and the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, etc, will all be in his crosshairs. What happens when he decides to attack a NATO member, thinking the alliance is too weak to respond? I’m not saying I support a direct NATO response wrt Ukraine, but sanctions, strong military support, and a more aggressive NATO posture in Eastern Europe should be the minimum response. Letting a tyrant run amok on the European continent has never worked out for anyone.

I quoted my last summary for comparison purposes. I was hired in March 2018. Here's how 2021 went. I'm a line holder. The alternative would be reserve, which at AA means 18 days per month (in blocks of 3-7) where you are either on a 2-hourish callout (76 hours pay/month) or 12-hour callout (73 hours/month). I get a schedule every month from the bidding software. I then use the trading tools to drop my entire schedule, with some rare trips being "sold" to others (I pay them to take my trip). I then wait for what we call makeup flying, trips leaving today or tomorrow that he company needs to fill dues to sickness, weather events, fatigue calls, delays, etc. I fly these trips because they usually have a high pay-to-flight-hours ratio, due to contract intricacies that aren't germane to the conversation. My entire goal is to maximize my efficiency. As an example, at AA these trips pay the same DFW-OKC-DFW vs DFW-ORD-DFW - Both pay 5:15 hours DFW-OKC, overnight, OKC-DFW vs DFW-OKC-DFW-JFK, overnight, JFK-DFW - Both pay 10:30 hours Anyways, in 2021 I flew 295 hours in the cockpit. I spent another 150 or so riding in the cabin as a passenger (fully paid at the major airlines). Lets call it 450 hours of actual uniformed work. I was paid 1310 hours (this includes vacation and training pay, which are done as work-hours) plus per diem, which worked out to $241k Gross earnings, plus $30.4k of company contributions to my 401k. So $270k in my fourth year. Recently the junior captain bid went to someone below me on the seniority list, but I will stay where I am and accrue seniority-in-seat which will allow me to further enhance my pay-to-hours-flown ration by picking up even shorter trips that pay the same as longer trip, as in the examples above. Please note though, I am an extreme case. You have to really work the contract and scheduling tools to do what I do, but anyone can if they can tolerate the uncertainty. I spend more days home than most, so when I say uncertainty I mean you don't know what you're doing until the day before at the earliest. As a side note, $270k seems like a ridiculous amount of money to me, but I fly with people who make quite a bit more than me, yet still live paycheck to paycheck. Please get yourself financially savvy before you start making eye-watering money. My neighbor, a wide-body captain married to a specialty doctor (total of ~$750k/year), spent years wasting everything. They tell me that Dave Ramsey saved them, and I'm a fan of his work, though I've never needed it.

The above is not an accurate statement. Most wars in history have not been "total" wars ie the entire population of a state/tribe/group completely mobilized and waging war for the purpose of complete destruction or subjugation of an enemy. Its just not that common in history statistically. Sure, there are wars that were "total" (3rd Punic War, some of the Mongol campaigns, I'm sure there's others I can't think of off the top of my head). The most recent example would probably be the USSR and Nazi Germany in WWII (Richard Overy's "Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort" is a great read that articulates just how total the Soviet effort in WWII was). There are countless (far too many to list here) examples throughout history of limited wars that permanently settled the issues that provoked the conflict. The US has fought several "limited" wars that were successful. The Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and Desert Storm are all good examples of limited US wars that were very limited in scope with successful outcomes. The revisionist arguments about Desert Storm being an "unfinished war" ignore the original goals of the war and conflate the muddled reasoning behind the ONW and OSW efforts. Prior to 1990, Hussein provided a useful cudgel to bleed the Iranians, and we didn't really care what he did to the Kurds and Shiites inside Iraq's borders.

Oops. Where’s that AP “fact checking” now. the gig is up. The “experts” were wrong. All vax mandates need to be demolished. All vax passports (I still cannot believe some of you crossed that bridge) need to be removed.

An all out war with Russia for invading Ukraine?! That’s a good one!

1:1:1 he didn’t say you should do that. He said for him it’s enough. For you to say it’s insulting of him to say that to you means you didn’t read it and are easily offended even when someone’s not talking to you. Be happy for him. He seems to found happiness. So what if it’s different from yours.

This. There comes a point where you gotta ask: How much money do I need? And once you reach that, it is then up to you to honestly decide if it is worth continuing to work. Maybe you got the FU money and like the job--great. Maybe you get the FU money and decide it's not worth it so you have the ability to walk. Personally I've decided I will LIKELY have my FU money when I retire at 20. Even though the pension is small by comparison to raking it in at the airlines, I just don't need huge sums of money at even this point. Part of it was luck and it's a 12 year Bull market (aside from the bloodbath yesterday), but even in a downturn I figure I can manage with my personal risk tolerance. The value of a pension/medical is heavily discounted here, but the truth is there is extrinsic value beyond monetary value. All that said I've never seen the other side WRT airline life and my situation was different than most. I just don't have any interest in trading in time for huge sums of money if I don't have to.

PTSD, mental health issues, and heart issues are the big VA to FAA gotchas if it recall correctly. to a lesser extent, sleep apnea may mean you get to carry a CPAP machine everywhere you go. It may not be the “easy 50%” or whatever the current gouge is if you plan to keep an FAA medical.

There’s a whole lot of people out there who evangelize about the life decisions they made, which often seems to be rooted in insecurity about said decisions. The “Bro why would anybody want to be in the Air Force,” guys are almost as bad as the blue Kool Aid drinkers that scoffed at the guys who constantly deployed and got no strats. The most opinionated on both sides just seem to be fishing for reinforcement from the crowd. It never comes across as understanding of a different guy’s perspective, and it certainly isn’t humble. At the end of your life, the amount of money you have doesn’t really matter as long as your family is safe and secure, just as your personal list of military accomplishments will seem pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

the risk factors of covid are highly correlated to age group and co-morbitities. if you are young and healthy your risk is statistically proven to be VERY low. let people accept that and move on with their lives. if you're a high risk demographic...get the vax, and stay home. easy. none of the "mitigation" factors have done anything to "stop the spread". that has been proven. Good intentions (maybe), but now the gig is up.

Bashi— on your #4, Agree 100%. Not sure how many people, even in the military, have the appetite for what you’re talking about or even understand it. Weak leaders have tried to breed it out of us, but a willingness and desire to commit ultimate violence against other humans is a healthy thing for warriors to embrace. Instead they’re trying to make gunship pilots feel sad for the bodies they’ve smeared on mountainsides. a topic best discussed around a fire pit with bourbon & bros you trust.

Remember, hospitals were "overwhelmed" in 2018 during the flu endemic. So much so, they were treating people in tents in certain cities. Very few knew about it and the ones that did didn't care. There were no flu shot or mask mandates. Why not? Hospitals don't mind being overwhelmed when they are overwhelmed by people with illnesses that are more profitable - cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular and obesity related illnesses all make Big Pharma BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of dollars per year. For hospitals, elective surgeries are what make them lots of money and they've lost 10's of billions of dollars delaying these surgeries due to COVID.

But they would have to be willing to use it, methinks they don't want Ukraine to be assimilated by the Russian Borg but are not going to do anything kinetic or material if they are attacked Not throwing spears but I doubt the NATO members of Western Europe would put blood and treasure on the line for Ukraine, a non-treaty ally. Now Central and Eastern Europe might as they know where this train ends if they let it get out of the station.

Never said he insulted me. I've just sat through enough all calls with NAF or MAJCOM commanders who harp on patriotism to automatically roll my eyes when someone implies money is shallow or meaningless. That is what I find insulting. That being said, if you enjoy your place in the air force, I'm glad you're happy. Continue to do what works for you.

Money may not buy happiness, but financial security is a real thing. Being able to send your kids to any college they get into is a real change in your quality of life. Knowing that your wife won't be impoverished if you don't make 20 years and Lt Col is also a real difference in your life. The air force may not be able to compete dollar for dollar with a lot of jobs, but pretending any money above $100k salary and tricare is unnecessary is asinine and insulting.

What if the European continent spent > 2% of GDP on defense and therefore presented a credible deterrent? Are What Ifs open?

Recommend you never say the phrase "sleep apnea" around anyone. Ever.

Would anyone who got selected for pilot be willing to share their application (redacted)?

Gotta do what's best for you and the fam! If guard/reserves is an option for you check out bogidope.com. At one point I was looking at the guard route and that website is phenomenal for see what is out there. Best of luck to you!

Cloth masks are a show of solidarity and little more. At this point those “minor inconvenience” events are the equivalent to ordering the Diet Coke with your extra big ass nacho and burger. More to the point the amount of people incorrectly using barrier systems like rubber gloves create more risk than simply distancing or avoiding social situations. Every moron boldly walking around in rubber gloves spreads risk because lost of the dirty nasty stuff out there lives longer on neoprene than on your fingers. The system is designed to protect you from what you’re immediately touching that is dirty, then be thrown away. Instead those groups are actually increasing risk while taking an active “deterrent” using it incorrectly and engaging in normal activities. We could tell people screw masks, stay out of the grocery store in your own damn car and use our new app. That would have been safer than watching Americans use masks wrong, touch things with gloves on, and then take their vegetables home and spray bleach on them… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

checks.

Scratch steps 3, 4 and 5 and you have the best gig known to man...going on mloa and back full time just ruins that. For step 1, go ANG (preferably a unit on its own base) over Reserves if at all possible. If you can't do that, avoid a reserve wing that's embedded in an AD wing, because all you'll get is a slightly different flavor of bullshit.