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I did have a wing/cc once who said everyone who gets an incentive ride will shadow the entire 12 hr day prior for mission planning, etc. And on execution day would be there the entire 12 hr day. For all the time they couldn’t be with the pilots due to lack of vault access, they would shadow the SARMs, AFE, go out on the flight line with MX, etc. 2x 12 hr “average days” was a massive eye opener for everyone who went through.

Another example of the frozen middle, in my opinion. The GO’s are pushing ACE, empowering junior Airmen, etc and then young bucks want to run with it, but they get stymied with the aforementioned crap. I hate it and personally have never bought into the narrative that support functions are so inept and only aviators are worth a crap. It’s nature vs. nurture where as young pilots you’re constantly bludgeoned to make decisions, be the HMFIC, meritocracy via performance with assignments, etc. Support O’s are told to follow regulations and not fuck up, all while in a very resource constrained environment. It’s going to produce different outcomes. Ive always been a fan of the Marines TBS. I don’t think the AF needs to go that extreme, but even something cheesy showing how a days frag is filled in a combat environment and how all the various pieces tie together. Get the young Finance O out on the flight line for a day helping the hydro guys in an MC-130 in 100° heat for 12 hours and that’ll help contextualize why pay issues are important. Have the rated guy go around with a CE crew fixing random shit and how they prioritize while under strength in personnel to fix what will help launch those sorties etc. And don’t make it ASBC 2.0

We survived!

@frog You’re not wrong, but also being a truly mission-focused wing/cc who calls out failure and demands ops-like performance out of the MXG/MSG gets shitcanned in 6.9 sec in this AF. So they ask about the grass instead. Ultimately your rated leadership failure is happening at the O7+ level. Of course there are careerist douche wing/cc who stand on their own lack of merit, but hard to be a stand out warrior leader at the O-6 level and not get fired when you’ve got the crop of GOs that exist today.

Wow! It's been a while. While doing a bit of Google searching, I came across this thread and realized I was the OP. It's strange to revisit this thread six years later. It's funny how an internet forum can serve as a journal of your life in some ways. Anyways, quick update - I actually decided to go into finance after college. This isn't the coolest or most endearing story to tell - but I optimized for the most amount of money that I could make coming out of college. My family didn't have much financially growing up (I was a pell grant recipient in college) - so when I got into an top school I felt like I needed to try to maximize my earning potential and set up my current + future family for success. I actually then transitioned to the tech industry recently in a finance-related role. I'm happy with where I am at now. But obviously (since I'm here right now!) there's a part of me that wonders "what if?"

It totally is. They get the kick in the junk of essentially ‘mission first’ from the very get go. As buddies of mine put it ‘the rifleman is the focus and has the support of the entire Corps’ As much as it’d stroke our egos even more, imagine how the AF would run if we had something similar ‘the pilot is the focus and has the support of the entire Air Force’.

Maybe someone could make a documentary about how much government money these rich people are costing the taxpayers to get rescued from their stupid rich people adventure. Seriously how in the hell is my local beach "swim at your own risk" but we'll muster the whole coast guard in the futile task of looking for these billionaire a$$holes 2.5 miles under the ocean. Unless these dudes took out a 10 billion insurance policy to repay the government there is no reason public funds should be used to look for these idiots. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

You’re wrong that this is “common.” You or I would be in prison for over a decade doing what he is on video doing. Standard Democrat two tier justice system in action. Correction: standard two-tier justice system **for rich and connected people of all political persuasions** in action. Money buys good lawyers. Good lawyers get you out of things. I'm sure having daddy as president doesn't hurt, but fundamentally if you are rich and connected in this country you live (mostly) above the law, left, right, and center. Funny part is trump has stepped in it so hard with these classified docs that even the most talented lawyers might not get him out of this one. Especially when he continues to self-incriminate almost daily through social media posts and/or tv appearances. It takes a special level of ego to continue blabbing against the advice of all of your lawyers, and I'm so so here for it. Even barely sentient houseplant Biden has enough legal common sense to deflect or no-comment in response to questions about his derelict son.

I thought about this before. Every airmen a pilot. Voluntary, but give every airmen $5K-$10K towards PPL costs. Bring back Aeroclubs. Too bad none of this will happen. I completed my PPL at the aeroclub on base and was selected for UPT on an active duty board.

Keep optimizing that life/jobs/money. Buy an L-39 and fly for fun!

From AP News: I'd always shake my head at the budget shenanigans in the military and the wider government. "Different colors of money," "fiscal year end dollars," all that bullshit. But I get that a lot of those gyrations had some larger purpose, however inefficient. Given the above quotes though, can't we all agree we're just fucking making it up at this point? Give Ukraine 1,000 tanks, 10,000 pieces of artillery, and a whole wing of F-16's, and tell the American people it was all worth $100, because we said so. It doesn't appear that anyone cares anymore.

Many of these people are military officers and squadron commanders. I was shocked and disgusted by the majority of my peers during COVID.

Pilots succeed at things because that’s how they became pilots in the first place. Take the top 40% of USAFA guys, the top 20% of ROTC/OTS, keep stratifying them through track select and drop night, re-flow the FTU washouts, give the remaining top 6.9% millions of dollars of high speed decision making skills, knowledge, and experience and then spend more millions to upgrade the best ones of those to IP and Patch…and then let them separate and fill their old staff positions with the aforementioned bottom 60-80% guys. The Air Force spends $20M each to produce guys that have survived 12 years of stratified tiers and is willing to let them walk away because they think they can replace them with non-pilots. Incompetence at best.

Nah, I kinda figured I'd try to get my point across but that in the end no one would change their minds and I probably should just bang my head against the countertop instead. I was right to have that suspicion! I'm truly beginning to view my entire ongoing participation in the forum here as not worth it. Why am I here debating with a bunch of people I've never met, who don't respect my opinions or share my values, and don't give a f anyways? It's a great question. Frankly I don't know what I'm getting out of talking to all you smelly assholes that I can't get by just talking in person to my squadron homies. Politics, flying, AF bitching, etc., it all gets discussed on shift and I've got plenty of years in uniform left to enjoy that back & forth. Good luck to you, have a great life.

So pull out your Republican Rolodex and hit up David Weiss and give him a piece of your mind. I am happy that any charges were brought at all, since I was told that could never happen. If you want to go to law school, become a U.S. attorney in the next 6-9 months and magically charge Hunter Biden so that it guarantees he goes to a federal pound me in the as prison, be my guest. I don’t give a single, solitary F about that guy and I don’t think any of my fellow liberal voters do either.

Clearly you're not a herk crew member

My favorite part is the fastest way to kill off a massive part of the developing world would be to outlaw fossil fuels on a super aggressive timeline with no suitable replacement infrastructure. But that nuance is likely lost on the petulant professional complainer who grew up in Scandinavia driving mommy and daddy's electric polestar around. Maybe, to get some perspective, instead of Gucci climate conferences in NYC and Lisbon she could sail her stupid f-ing catamaran to Somalia and see how well her fossil fuel plan is received.

There is no possible way these people are rescued unless they are bobbing on the surface somehwere. They have better chance of being rescued floating in space than at the depth they are most likely at if alive.

Dude, I loved ASBC. As a prior E with 9 years AD under my belt, 6 of which were spent as a boom. ASBC gave me a chance to restart the liver after my stay at OTS. Lol. I taught my class what was important, binge drinking through the non flying bullshit TDYs lol.

This Edit: Cough, cough....Epstein's Lolita Express. The Bills (not from Buffalo but Clinton and Gates), Trump, Prince Andrew and all of the others who hungout with that POS. They banged kids and there is enough evidence regarding this to send all of us common folk to San Quentin to be recipients of non consensual butt love for years, yet they are still free. Policitcs aside, the rich and powerful live with a different justice system. We should be fighting them intsead of each other.

The problem circles right back to rated leadership. In 18 years as a CE officer, wing commanders have rarely asked about work happening on the airfield or major infrastructure. I am never asked about CE deployment capabilities or readiness, which is the primary purpose of uniformed engineers. I do get asked about making the grass look better on an almost weekly basis. What message does that send to your organization? One thing the Marines and Army have done is mostly civilianize their installation support activities (think CDC, fitness center, etc), which allows their support echelons to better focus on how they support the no kidding primary mission. Great idea. I feel like my PPL experience, while nothing like that of military trained pilots, provides significant context for what is important and why.

But you're just asking questions right? I treat this like someone saying the moon landing was faked. Or "maybe it was faked." I mean, it could have been, it's not totally impossible, I'll give ya that! But it wasn't. Anyone still left saying the moon landing was faked is a f-ing moron who I am under no obligation to take seriously. Ask the doctors I gave you contact info for. They are experts in autism very specifically and can explain in more precise detail than my layman's summary the likely causes of, current best treatments for, and anything else you'd like to know about it. They will all tell you it is not caused by vaccines. They all fully vaccinate themselves and their children...I asked! I have a second child who doesn't have an autism diagnosis (yet) and so I literally asked, hey, is there anything different we could or should do with the recommended childhood vaccine schedule to ward off any additional risk of her developing autism too? They said no. Anyways, believe what you want I guess, but just stay out of medicine and policymaking if you have doubts about this one. While you're in the "just asking questions" phase, any speculative thoughts about the pyramids or earthquakes you'd like to share?

I think only you can answer whether or not you will be able to handle it all at the same time or if you need to break it up. When I took the AFOQT/TBAS, I already had my degree, PPL, and IFR. I also learned about this process much later than you, so we are coming from different life stages. I thought that some of the aviation sections of the AFOQT were a walk in the park due to the general knowledge I already had from getting my licenses. YMMV. For what it’s worth, most people I ran into throughout the process (trying to get hired by guard/reserve units) had at least a private pilot license before they took the AFOQT.

I'll start out by saying this... Thank you for picking the topic among RFKJ's vast web of conspiracies that I know the most about. Ok, so I have an autistic child and have gotten what I consider a great layman's education on the disorder. The causes are not fully understood, but BL it's some combination of genetics and environmental factors, e.g. in-utero maternal stress, maternal immune system disorders, pollution exposure, etc. FWIW there have been lots of studies on vaccine ingredients to see if those could be a contributing environmental factor, and the consensus is no, at least not to the degree that outweighs the benefit of receiving the vaccines. Also vaccine manufacturers have changed some of the ingredients used in vaccines over time in response to both founded and unfounded fears about them. Autism is a challenging condition but one that's always been found in humans. Autistic people aren't "diseased" in a way that's curable or even necessarily bad, they're different in a way that's part of the human condition. There's also a spectrum of impacts the disorder can cause, and autistic people range from very high-functioning geniuses (e.g. Einstein, Turing, etc.) to people who are quite disabled, non-verbal, etc. and require lifelong care. The saying goes, "If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person," and clinicians really do treat every case individually because much more so than with some other conditions, YMMV. But don't take my word for it, even though I have up-close and personal experience. You didn't know that before. What I recommended was not Google MD your way into backing up your beliefs, frankly that's easy. I do recommend that you talk to your personal or family doctor. Please do that and I'd love to hear what they say. Now granted, not every physician is an expert in autism, although anyone providing you primary care should be familiar enough to tell you it's not caused by vaccines, a few odd quack doctors out of millions aside. If however you do want to consult with some true experts, here are some near me who have been tremendously helpful in helping me understand autism: Dr. Rachael Hundley, PhD - clinical psychologist Dr. Angela Maxwell-Horn, MD - pediatrician and developmental medicine specialist Dr. Linda Ashford, PhD - clinical psychologist Dr. Julie Lounds Taylor, PhD - research psychologist Dr. Sloan Sparks, DNP, PMHNP - psych nurse practitioner These are all fantastic doctors that I know personally and who know this subject inside and out. I'm dead serious, reach out to one or all of them, those links to their bios all include phone numbers or email addresses. Since you said you like to read, this book was recommended to me multiple times and I found it really helpful in understanding autism better, since I used to know little to nothing about it. Uniquely Human by Barry Prizant, PhD. Highly respected autism researcher with 50+ years of experience with studying autism and autistic people. BLOB (bottom line on bottom): vaccines don't cause autism. Also we landed on the moon, the earth is round, and anyone who believes any of these asinine conspiracies or others like it is officially too stupid to deal with, no matter how famous their family is.

Get a load of this guy. I think he might be serious. 😆

James Cameron is rumored to have just begun writing a script for a sequel to "Titanic". Who's excited?

I highly doubt this. See Pooter's post above about two-tiered justice, which absolutely exists. It takes a special case of stupid to be found guilty of serious charges when you can afford the best and most connected lawyers. Trump is certainly trying his damndest though! I believe this is ongoing in the House. Last I checked they may have lost the "smoking gun" audio recordings or something, IDK, I'm sure you are tracking this more closely than me. What I'm spiking the ball on is this: many of y'all said "Biden's son could never be charged!" Well guess what, he was, pled guilty to some tax crimes and got a year of probation for a gun-related crime. Seems like decent justice to me, y'all can quibble if you want but I think it's good when criminals face justice, even when they are the son of the President of the United States.

Door isn’t t closed to come fly jets. If you decide to stay where you are, try to be happy with that and dump the “what if” thing. Because I guarantee you’ll never have stories and life experiences anywhere close to what I and a lot here have had. And that’s fine. You’ll also have alot more time to do what you want and spend time with your family than I’ve had. Also fine. It’s completely an individual thing. Don’t look for feedback here. Lots of people here are great. Lots are losers. Do what’s right for you.

I wonder how much of that is engrained in their culture “Every Marine is a rifleman”; not to mention all officers go through the basic infantry school. I’m not advocating that non rated go through pilot training but there has got to be some middle ground. More ops focused Wing Kings that drive all groups towards common operational objectives would be a start.

But would ya eat it?

It’s this 100%. The AF gets top talent across AFSCs when compared to the other services or especially the general population, but the system most non-rated folks are operating in beats any innovation, mission-focus, or adaptability out of the vast majority of folks. I know several highly competent lawyers, engineers, loggies, etc. who have succeeded & thrived in dynamic jobs in the civilian world after leaving the Air Force because they could not stand the BS their career fields shoehorned them into for 4-7 years.

It could be the quality of recruits, but I could also see it heavily being the non-rated world discourages free thinking/critical thought while encouraging binary thinking and zero mission ownership. This is not a problem in at least portions of other services. Hell, the USMC officers I’ve worked with from the “shoe clerk” MOS have more mission-focused/get it done attitudes than the entire non-rated AF combined.

For democracy and constitution, right?

Let’s not forget these people still exist and are active members of society; and will espouse similar if not worse sentiment during the next manufactured crisis. Vote accordingly, they sure will.