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I remember my MX supervisor telling me that he'll be waiting for me when I fail out of Boom training. This was a few days before I left for training. It was said when we were alone (no, he didn't touch me) and he was dead serious. 15 years later, I flew through Hill, flying my Huey as a pilot. I didn't see him waiting. As a pilot, leadership at the squadron was upset when I wanted to be a pilot first. Being a prior sweaty, I could easily make it to retirement without doing queep. I flew my best but didn't do extra things. I wrote awards for my airmen, I helped several of my dudes with their OTS packages (a few are USAF pilots now) and took care of them as best I could. However, I didn't take care of myself. I refused to write awards for myself and I really thought I'd get that easy promotion to O-4. The other thing I did was play my cards too early. Don't let leadership know your intentions. I was passed over for the first time, when I was the Chief of Stan/Eval. In my 17th year on AD, I volunteered for a 365 in hopes that I could stay at my last duty station so my son could graduate high school at the same place that he started. I was denied because I had previous deployments and they had a volunteer who needed a deployment for experience. I was at 18 years when they said no to the high school senior deferment program. They realized that I was passed over and would be forced to retire at 20 and they still PCSd me. My family stayed in place for my son, who went to 8 different schools, could graduate with his friends. When I PCSd for the last time, I went as geographically separated bachelor. As a passed over O-3E, I got to fly as much as I wanted (😃). I took as many TDYs as I could. On one such TDY, my commander told me I was on the shortlist for a 365. Later that night,when I was pounding a few brews, I mentioned it to some of of the other pilots and two of them essentially fought to take my non-vol. The same non-vol that I volunteered for a year earlier. Two months after I retired (forced out for failure to promote), I received a letter from my CC informing me that I had finally made Major. He wrote, "Sorry Biff, too little too late". I never failed a checkride as a pilot (hooked my first MSN check as a boom). I never got a dui or into any trouble 😉 that required paperwork. I took care of my people as a NCO and as a CGO. My last supervisor was a Lt in my flight a few years prior. When I got out, I got my ATP and flew for Compass (God rest her soul). After Compass, I decided I had enough of being gone and elected to work very little and enjoy my time with my family. In the end, don't trust leadership to look after you if you don't play along. Also, you'll definitely enjoy life if you decide to get out.

So what? Men should just remain powerless to the system knowing their entire lives can be ruined by a spiteful or vengeful ex-girlfriend at any time? Did you know you can be ordered to pay child support for a child that is DNA proven not to be yours? Look it up. Also worth noting that selective service registration failed to make it into the NDAA for like the 7th year in a row. Radical feminists' argue for all of these rights but want to take none of the responsibilities that go with them.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/ We’ve provided the vast majority of direct mil aid, the EU has provided more financial aid. Individual EU/NATO countries have made additional contributions. All well worth it, I’m perfectly happy let the Russian armed forces crash against the hard rocks of Ukraine for as long as those idiots want to do so!

Counterpoint: I think the US is in a great position post-COVID, and pre-COVID we were still unquestionably the global #1. China is getting absolutely rekt by the virus right now due to extremely poor central government policy choices. I truly feel bad for the Chinese people. Russia is in shambles both militarily, financially, and demographically. I don’t see how they recover from the massive loss of young male life and national wealth in my lifetime. The EU is closely allied with us and we’re working together really well on the Ukraine War. No one else matters that much to be in the same conversation yet. Meanwhile the US economy is doing better than basically any other advanced nation, we’re also basically past COVID, we’re smartly re-shoring some critical manufacturing that I think is really beneficial long-term, and we’re super well placed to lead the big energy technology transition that will take place over the next 20 years. Our military is well funded and strong, millions of people want to come here and become Americans, and our culture is globally dominant. I’d rather be us every day of the week and twice on Sunday 🇺🇸🦅

We couldn't even build high speed rail from LA to San Francisco. What makes you think we'll be able to do it across state lines?

No way in hell I’m giving the USAF my OnlyFans subscriber content for free.

At SWA you can never be called or have flying added on a day off, but it can be added if you’re on duty. One confusing thing is that here the term “JA” applies to what you’re thinking of (“You thought you were going home but this other trip needs to be covered so go do it”), but also to what is actually an unscheduled overnight (“I got so delayed today that I missed the last deadhead flight back home”). While the former is contractually legal it’s exceedingly rare (hasn’t happened to me in 5+ years), although the latter occurs in my experience maybe twice per year. In a true JA you’re flying a brand new pairing in addition to the one you already flew, but in an unscheduled overnight you’re contractually deadheaded home on the earliest flight following your rest period. And here’s the biggest difference with the AF: you’re rewarded if the company doesn’t get you home when you planned. True JA pays double on all legs, unscheduled overnight pays higher of 1.5 or full day’s rig, and if you’re reserve you have the option to drop a day of work later in the month. A minimum of extra $500-$1600 depending on seniority is a pretty decent way to feel okay about getting home at noon instead of 1am. Compared to my C-17 career when a 10-day SRT consistently got me home 2-3 days late and sometimes 2 weeks late with nothing to show other than a backlog of office work and pissed off Bobs, it’s a night and day difference. Our union actually tracks this stuff if you’re curious…during this week’s epic meltdown there were 70 unscheduled overnights*, exceeding the historic average of 14 for that week. There were 9 true JAs, and the historical average for that week is 0. There are definitely reasons to decide airline life isn’t for you. IMHO JA really shouldn’t be one of them. *Edited for full transparency that this number only refers to people at the end of their trips and not the ones who got messed up in the middle of theirs from all the cancellations and clogged scheduler lines. Also plenty of commuters who couldn’t get home too.

covid and climate change are power grabs of enormous scale

Thought I just did

Evil is in the eye of the beholder. I'd say that some of the Iraqis we killed during the invasion might call us evil. Even their families might think of us as evil to this day. Dropping the nukes on Japan might be seen as evil to some people. The profession of war is pretty gnarly. We're dancing on the line between good and evil everytime we send 18 year olds to kill with rifles. I got paid a decent wage to participate in war. I didn't do it for free and sure the 9/11 patriotism was flowing through my veins at the time OEF/OIF kicked off, but I joined before 9/11 to have fun and earn a paycheck. Am I evil? Some might say so. I willingly joined the profession of arms for fun and a paycheck. In the end we all have to live with our consciences. Even the lady who aborts her child. In my opinion, the evil ones don't care about what they did.

You have some massive rose colored glasses, but of course I completely agree with this statement. However, just because we’d rather be American than Chinese does not mean we aren’t a complete fuck show right now. Those are two independent things.

Yes, there is a lot more than meets the eye. Some people love to hold her up on a pedestal because they hate everything Delta and/or management. I freely admit they fucked up in how they tried to get rid of her, and they payed for that, but from the sounds of it, they weren't necessarily wrong... Flown with a few guys that flew with her and they pretty much called it. There is a thread over on APC that will provide some of the data. But this should help her book sales/webpage/public persona that she's created...

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If Peter Zeihan is to be believed (the first bullet is his point, he has explicitly said what follows is what he's heard from some folks), here's the calculus at the strategic level: -Russia will not stop with Ukraine, they will continue expanding till they have secured defensible borders. They view it as an existential problem. -The Russian military has proven to be awful and would get monkey stomped by the western/NATO coalition that would meet them. Which means there is almost no way to avoid a nuclear exchange. -So the Russian military needs to be attritted in Ukraine. Win, lose, or draw, what remains needs to be incapable of continued offense. If that is actually what is going on in the head-shed. I'd imagine this is a blank check.

I think we’ve sent too much money and materiel, but I also generally agree with nsplayr’s statement. If the current state of our own country wasn’t such an epic dumpster fire of a crisis, then I’d have less fucks to give about UKR support. It was smart to do so for a while, but we’ve gone too far given the state of our own house.

Women can abandon their newborns without persecution…they’re called Safe Haven Laws. All I ask is that men have the same rights as women. We can discuss the morality piece separately if you’d like. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/parenting/2019/09/13/safe-haven-laws-things-you-didnt-know-surrendering-newborn/2031516001/

I listen to Breaking Points regularly and this monologue was about NATO contributions to Ukraine. Info from it, we (just us) gave more money to Ukraine in a year than we did to South Vietnam from 1956-1975 and more than we did in all of Afghanistan + and all the way back to 1946. Guess how much NATO is contributing…

And don’t forget. Guard bonuses generally speaking aren’t binding in a lot of cases. You can get out of them.

The discussions have to happen to deal with the problems. Otherwise nothing is done at all.

That’s pretty sweet, esp because I’m assuming you didn’t have to pay to install the charger. I also have a chargepoint in my garage and pay $0.097 per kW from the grid which is super nice. Great charger for my first EV (2021 VW ID.4) and I’m recently finding out it works well for my Tesla too with the adapter that came with the car. GL with the solar + storage setup when you buy a house at some point!

I think you may have some flawed assumptions about what JA is. The days of “you pick up the phone, you’re on the hook to fly” are long gone. JA is completely voluntary at every airline that I’m aware of and usually comes with some serious financial incentives should you decide to accept the JA assignment. At my company, it’s 150% pay. I believe others are higher. If scheduling makes it through the entire seniority list with no takers, they may be inclined to offer further incentives. Sometimes flights cancel for lack of crews when there are no takers. Over this last summer, it was not uncommon for me to get two or three JA calls in a day. My time off was more valuable to me and I don’t think I picked up a single extra trip. I have friends that did and made a LOT of money. It’s good to have choices. When your bros at SWA & elsewhere talk about being forced to work overtime, they may be referencing the fact that most airlines can keep you out past your originally scheduled return to domicile. It’s not super uncommon to be returned to base a day (or sometimes more) later than scheduled & it can be infuriating if you had hard plans on your first day off. Every contract I’m aware of discourages this practice with extra pay that ramps up quickly the longer you’re kept out. There are stories at my company about people making absolutely stupid money when they got stuck in Europe for over a week when the volcano in Iceland blew a few years back. Late arrival sucks, but at least you’re compensated for it. The other way you get “forced” into working overtime is through line construction. At my company, minimum guarantee is 75hrs per 28 day pay period. On certain fleets, you’d be hard pressed to find a line constructed below 80 hrs and we have some pushing 85, so that is sometimes considered a sort of forced overtime as well. Hope that clears things up a bit. There are obviously a lot of us here who consider our QOL to be much better than when we in the AF and time off and pay are certainly some hard metrics that support that position. Doesn’t mean we’re shitting on those who choose to stick around. On the contrary; I appreciate those who continue to serve and am sometimes in awe. I didn’t have the patience to continue. There are a lot of intangibles that might make someone decide to stay in. I don’t think the “threat” of JAs should factor into one’s decision though.

It's not about fathers abandoning children. It's about highlighting the hypocrisy with "my body right". No matter how you feel about abortion, it's legal in most states. A woman kills her unborn child for convenience and is labeled a hero. A man, who goes out for a pack of cigarettes, is a deadbeat. We've all probably done or seen worse things concerning humans than talking about abortion. If we're not evil now, we'll never be.

I recently had someone who acted like this while he was active duty contact me about a referral to my company. I told him that I wouldn't give him a referral and "good luck to his future endeavors." The shock that these types of people have when us DD-214 holders tell them to fuck off is always hilarious.

[emoji445]Rocky Top you’ll always be home sweet home to me, good ole Rocky Top, Rocky Top Tennessee[emoji445] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quick work by the Igla gunner.

Ya gotta admit that the short haul airline system has to change..and soon..probably to high speed rail...the Europeans are starting now..The waste of POL to haul a container of people up to ..I dunno 270 ..whatever..cannot be sustained..

had a sq/cc say that to my face 1 month out from terminal leave. "how does it feel to be a quitter" he wasn't joking. jokes on him though. how commanders say that to men/women who have given up 12 years of their life is the epitome of tone deaf

Is that statement relative? It’s all subjective! Except the stuff that’s not. Philosophy 101. In the words of Inigo Montoya. “That word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.”