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Why not look into getting hired at one of the AFRC T-6 units?

LOL https://twitter.com/kanekoathegreat/status/1687208312218210306?s=46

I’ve told 3/4 stars a few times a COA was bad, why it was bad, and what COA should be executed and why. I’m about 50/50 success rate. The one thing I did note across all of those interactions is the GO was genuinely interested in my thoughts and appreciated my effort whether they went my direction or not. The O-6 level was pissed I would dare to speak. It made me realize how much good things are filtered away from GOs at the O-6 level and replaced with yes man bullshit.

Good evening, fellow members. Major Osman here, and I've had the privilege of working closely with General Chang as his Aide-de-Camp. It's quite alarming to see the lack of decorum and respect for a dedicated officer of the General's stature on this platform. While I understand the nature of a forum is to allow for open discussions, I'd urge everyone to engage with facts and respect rather than unwarranted attacks. General Chang has dedicated his life to the service of this nation and has firsthand experience in many of the situations and decisions being debated here. Labeling him as a 'troll' or 'keyboard warrior' not only undermines the essence of constructive dialogue but also demonstrates a lack of understanding of the man's qualifications and experiences. I've been with him on the field, in strategy meetings, and during crisis situations. I've seen him advocate for the best interests of the force at every level, making tough calls when needed. His 'quals' are beyond reproach. If you have genuine concerns or seek clarity on specific issues, I urge you to approach them constructively. We're all part of the same team, with the same ultimate objective: the security and betterment of our nation. Instead of sowing discord with disparaging remarks, let's engage in meaningful dialogue that uplifts and educates. Remember, it's easy to critique from the sidelines, but understanding the gravity and nuance of decisions taken at the top echelons requires a deeper perspective. Respectfully, Major Osman

By your logic nuclear submarines and M1 Abrams tanks are "jets". Turbine-powered does not equal jet.

First off, I appreciate the use of 'fucktard'...classic insult that has layers, yet instantly understood across a broad demographic. It saw heavy rotation in teenage GKinnear's day. Second, I agree with your post, as most of us did 10 years ago when @General Chang first appeared in these hallowed halls (fuck I'm old). Chang was a more subtle character then, and played the part too well. They say an old dog can't learn new tricks, but in time, after repeated textual onslaughts from the entire BO community against his blue kool-aid induced corporatist wet dream, Chang changed his tactics and is less outright in his 'you're replaceable' mantra. He has occasional flashes of his previous delusions of grandeur, but overall he's a literal ill-conceived joke...and he knows it. @Biff_T you're capable of determining your own COAs...but there are better targets out there. @BashiChuni +1 internet point to you...Chang will continue to receive my full-send of downvotes.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

0800-1500 sounds pretty cool

That must be a blast lol! Penguins leading the way!!!

Bobs lie to their bosses about how things are going. The Russians did it leading up to the Ukraine invasion and I’ve seen it amongst our own O-6s+ in real time. The Full Bird Reset (where they fall in line with the orders of their superiors with the renewed loyalty of an E-1) is a real phenomenon and I swear they can’t see that they’re doing it. Policies, Guidance, Ways Forward, already decided COAs - written by a non-expert AO/staffer and approved with a nod from a 4-star - could be completely out to lunch but if there’s even a perception that an O-6+ is pushing back they’re done career-wise. Read about Xi’s Thoughts where everyone in the Chinese government is required to understand and think the same way as Xi…can anyone see echoes of that mentality in our own failed endeavors? The good news is that we’re different, because that lockstep mentality doesn’t exist at most of the Capt-Maj aircrew level. There are enough of them that they can air their informed opinions and grievances when things aren’t looking quite right, but still remain relatively anonymous. And sometimes that trickles up, skipping echelons when the wise GOs wander down to the slums to get a feel for things. Which is their duty, IMO. Don’t ever lie to your boss.

We are dumping everything feasible to the side to modernize our fleet. Trimming “anywhere and everywhere” is the mantra here at the PP. Retirees overseas know the drill. Their choice to live where they live. We need to trim the fat faster. Certainly would be easier if we had term limits and we could close excess bases here in the States, but Congress won’t allow it. So we trim the fat.

Interesting how my recent comments seems to bother some on this site. The point is this: if you’re cognizant enough to put together complaint after complaint in the English language on a website, man up and do something about it! This is the greatest country in the world, despite our flaws, and to have former military leaders/wannabes in this forum whining for whining’s sake is an absolute shame. Get out there and make a difference while you still have breath, for Pete’s sake! And yes, I have more Air Medals than all other personal decorations combined over a very long career, so don’t give me the pity-party “Chang, you just don’t understand my pain.” Be a man.

This doesn't sound like a flying squadron.

On the plus side, you can wear blues to a bar. Unlike the flight suit/OCPs. Which is a bonus if you have to do all your drinking off-base.

So a few weeks ago I'm in SFO and saw that the local Whole Foods carries a beer I like. I head over, load up, and as I'm heading towards the checkout lanes, some scruffy looking dude is opening a fridge case with sandwiches. A security guard, wearing a vest, real gun and ammo, tazer, cuffs, etc., quick strides towards the dude, shouts, and the dude tries to run for it as the guard closed the gap. He whips out his baton and whacks the dude across his back, hard! He gets ready for another whack when the dude drops the goods and scampers for the exit. Warnings were shouted. I was a bit surprised, not by what I saw, but where I saw it. Yes, this was in San Fran.

I don't have any personal advice for that. I just got hired in a completely different environment than today. Currently, we (and most squadrons, from what I gather) are really heavy on new pilots and have drastically pulled back hiring from what was happening Reserves/Guard-wide when I was going through in 2018. Unfortunately, you're just in a tough part of the wave and, even more so, I'd bet lots of squadrons are hiring closer to the vest and going with internally recommended/known folks and non-advertised hiring boards. That said, the resume is one thing to getting hired, but the hustle is an even bigger piece. It may take you pushing further with reaching out to squadrons than just listening to their "we aren't doing rushes." With your access to Global, you can do more digging than the average bear and have a leg up to reach out to folks in squadrons through research. Also, as @JimNtexas said, looking outside of fighters is also probably a good idea, depending on whether your view is "any military flying" or "I'm only going to fly Fs." That's only something you can decide, but I'd recommend doing some research, soul searching, and looking into what your career choices are after UPT pipeline.

I couldn't do it. I just wanna stay away from that cesspool. Lol Edit: But imagine what we could do there if we're not trying to swindle Americans and do illicit drugs with our children lol.

Seems legit...

Blues Fridays? JFC. Blues Monday is bad enough but Blues Friday seems designed solely to kick people in the junk. Absolute idiots in charge in so many places.

Obviously the turbo.

Yes.

And that’s exactly why you should be the new ATF director! You’d be the Ron swanson at the federal level

The first thing I would do is abolish the ATF!

Nah. Turboprop. Not a jet.

@Danger41 Not to split hairs here but the t-6 is a jet. Quite literally. It has a jet engine in it that has no mechanical linkage to the prop, and it even has exhaust stacks that make a small but non-zero amount of thrust. So stop being afraid of your douche canoe enjjpt IP and tell him to open the dash 1, learn his systems, and maybe just eat a whole dick.

I mean it's a tough call between the two but.....

Was not sure where to put this. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/retailers-strike-back-7-eleven-workers-beat-brazen-mega-shoplifter-stick

A HR guy once told me, if modern companies had no women in their ranks the HR dept they would not have a job. Seeing that new college graduates who put their preferred pronoun on their resumes are going straight into the G file.

Story time... Pops once told me about the old days when all the F-4 units in Europe would rotate down to Wheelus AFB Libya for desert bombing and gunnery training. The first base to arrive would typically load up beer, ice and bbq items and roll down to the beach to watch jets from the different bases arrive and prep for a 1st night beach party. On one deployment my dad had a new guy in the back seat and having had a nice tailwind on the way down he arrived with a lot of extra gas. He decided to give the new a quick "area fam" which was just an excuse to do an airshow over the beach while the bros set up the grill and "graded" his performance. When he landed the deployed commander was waiting for him as he shutdown and said "you are directed to report to the Wing/CC's office tomorrow at 0700 in your Class A uniform. Back then you were always supposed to have your Class As with you but for some reason his was back in the office at Bitburg....oops. My dad was a large dude and there was only one other bigger dude that bothered to bring his uniform and this guy was 6'6". My dad said he had to fold the jacket up on the inside and pin the sleeves, same with the bottom of the pants. He was the Squadron Patch at this point and helped start the Fast Fac program when he was in Vietnam with the Triple Nickel so most of the leadership at other bases knew who he was, including the Wheelus Wing King. My dad had five DFCs at this point but the owner of the uniform was newer and had not completed a Vietnam tour so his ribbons were a bit "sparse" which the Wing King immediately noticed and make a snide remark about. Over the next few minutes the Wing King very loudly chewed his ass. The base had some sort of conference center and senior officers often would rotate down for conferences. As luck would have it some senior Navy Admirals were there for a conference and had their wives in tow... Unknowingly pops flew right over their outdoor social at 50' pushing 600 knots. Pops said he took the ass chewing and was dismissed so he turned to leave...as he got to the door the Wing King said "Stop!", then with his back turned said "DAMN FINE Flying!!!...now get out of here." He never heard another word about the event except from all the bros that were at the beach that day.

bro I think you might be biased here

Great post until you got to Ole Tom, I sadly have lots of scar tissue with this turd. Had the unfortunate occurrence of dealing with him when I was in the ASG program and again at War College. While he has written some good books and won two Pulitzer prizes, he is EXTREMELY myopic and rabidly averse to any feedback or push back on his thoughts...oh and is single-minded in thinking warfare is only about those on the ground. Some of the other gems he has proposed since writing Fiasco, Bring back the draft, get rid of American Aircraft Carriers, Politics is an irrelevant art not a science, He launched a personal attack and wrote an op-ed attacking a War College classmate of mine when his paper was about pushing back against illegal orders was published. In short, the paper was about pushing back against immoral and illegal orders and accepting the consequences for doing so. Ricks accused the offer of pushing back against civilian control of the military and wanted him out of the service. Luckily others stepped in to debunk Ricks who in my opinion didn't even read the article. Add to these my personal favorite that he said to my face "Airpower and what Airmen did in Iraq and Afghanistan was of no consequence or interest to me."

occams razor fellas.... Your assumption of the problem is inaccurate, your suggestions are thus moot. To wit, we dont have a shortage of IPs in AETC. RegAf mismanages their bodies on qweep, but lack of bodies we do not have, for the status quo production. The point of replacing us green suiters with blue suiters is straight up DoD wanting to short labor costs, especially legacy costs such as retirement and VA ratings. They cant scale it because the offer has to be miserly in the first place. The air force wont dare staff their core production on majority airline aspirant civilians either, highly elastic to airline hiring conditions. Thats the point of the ADSC on the green side in the first place. Theyve done it historically on the mx side and the blunders have been repetitive and evident. The engine issues on the t38 are the latest example of that reliance on civilian hands with little recourse. Maybe they can take a page from swa DEN ground chief, on how to threaten civilians back to work in a sellers market lol. At any rate, the only remaining cohort left is the retirees who dont want to do the airlines/91k, stacking a non-ART base rate GS on top of a green retirement. But without the first payer retirement it doesnt pencil out for the majority who are not in the jelly of the month club, especially in Del rio (did my 7 years consecutive, before the one regaf vml cycle apologist comes to tell me iT aiNt dUht bAd). Thats why it aint scaling, and it wont. There's just not that many weirdo birds of that condition willing to sunset in the upt locales for what they can get at a sim outfit in a big city with nice suburbs or exurbs, if homesteading is the hangup. And your assumption on mil appropriations for aetc is also erroneous. We throw loads of mpa to those who want it in the associate side of upt units. We already carry an outsized per capita share of the production load, leverage which quite literally justifies our yearly survival going forward. The problem is the planning offered for long tours is impractical for airline guys. Typical regaf stupidity. Offer 365 carte blanche on october 10, when in the summer of the prior fiscal they told you not to bank on any mpa for the upcoming fiscal. Then act surprised you have no takers wiling to upend their family lives on command. Absent the usual suspect outliers (e.g. airline guy with kids divorced from upt townie and that late 30s female mid life crisis that seems to be going around military marriages as of late, sticking to a year long mpa to save on the kids child support on nights away basis, while notching the "best job in the world" ....for a 4th year in a row....digress), theres just not enough volume there on the fringes. I appreciate this might seem like a cool retirement hobby for the second career crowd, but this program wont scale. And for full disclosure, for the sake of my ability to complete my active duty retirement i hope it continues to die on the vine. Im certainly not going to cheerlead for my own paycut. We're all rent seekers in this life, cast ye first stone, and that goes especially so for civilian defense contractors. Happy holidays ya filthy animals.

He’s retired, has been for a couple years now. Isn’t active on this board anymore.

Guys.. he’s a troll! He’s one of us, and a good troll at that. Sadly what comes out of his posts are the sentiments shared by many of our senior leaders. Everyone relax and pour a cold one!