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I've got to disagree with you on this one. Look, my leadership was dog shit when I was court martialed, they basically trusted one misquoted OSI statement and assumed I was guilty for 6 months. But one thing they did well was keep silent publicly. And I wouldn't have expected any sort of public vocalization of support. They had no idea if I was innocent or guilty. You don't back a potential criminal; you quietly provide support to an innocent-until-proven-guilty person until the process is played out. But when you have a video that shows, at a bare minimum, a very uncertain situation that probably didn't go the way you would hope it would, then you should not be making any statements that imply your subordinate did the right thing. Because how can we trust in the process when one of the people who is a literal avatar for the process, the police chief, is not acting in accordance with the concept of blind Justice? I don't think a police chief should be fired because one of his guys fucked up, unless and until the process shows a leadership failure. But part of the police chief's job is public relations, and reflexively supporting an officer who, to my eyes, looks to have murdered an innocent man, is a failure of his position. The tragedy in all of this is that policing very much does need an overhaul in the US, which is an argument from the left. Unfortunately the left has only bad and completely misdiagnosed solutions, whereas the right, I believe as a result of the left's unfair crusade, is reflexively supporting the police to the detriment of potential reforms.

Not from an exercise...I can assure you.

Point of order, this picture should be in the “What’s Right With the AF” thread. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It is such a fine line to walk as a Commander, you just never know. We had a guy get arrested for Child Porn. Everyone liked him and it seemed very out of character. He professed his innocence and a lot of people publicly defended him. When it was over he set the all time DoD record quantity for Child Porn being found on a computer...Gigabytes...including stuff with toddlers. As a Squadron/CC I got a call from the 57th Wing/CC around 0200 one Friday night..."why did one of your troops abandon his pregnant wife on the side of I-10 in Florida?...she just called the command post!" The troop in question was a bit odd, he had a few minor slip-ups but nothing major. That being said everyone thought he was guilty. Fast-forward a restraining order and a long investigation, it turns out the lunatic wife was three days from being his ex-wife when the event occured. After having been separated for over a year (bad on him for waiting so long), she was finally served papers which led her to act out. She was NOT pregnant, in fact she had a hysterectomy three years prior. She was living in Jacksonville with her drug dealer boyfriend (who actually dumped her on I-10). As soon as my troop was cleared he went on a quick TDY and when he came back the still almost ex-wife (the courts put the process on hold while he was investigated), had moved into his house...along with her drug dealer boyfriend! I had to move him on base for three months while the courts finished the divorce and she was evicted. Turns out, thanks to my first shirt, the troop had done EVERYTHING by the book, including paying spousal support based on the Florida support calculator. You just never know.

72, I have a little combat time on it. This is the plane that did the semi split S in Desert Storm. Then pegged the g meter. Parked at Cannon now.

Hey @Biff_T, want a job?

Sort of and I should clarify...The accused is always assumed innocent from a legal perspective. However there are some additional burdens/limitations on those holding G Series orders: 1. A commander should never default to public statements of innocence or guilt. 2. Commanders and designated Magistrates (many don't realize that the MSG/CC is also a federal magistrate at some bases), have some limitations and requirements that don't allow for absolute proclamations of innocence. As an example a commander will assume innocence and won't administer punishment without due process with all the protections (representation), the accused is entitled to have. However, they may also authorize pre-trial confinement. 3. Serious crimes outside the bounds of NJP go to a Courts Martial which purposely is usually removed from the commander's purview. I had a bad rape case and the defense convinced the judge to bar me from attending the proceedings. I had flown with the accused for many years so they used that to keep me our of the courtroom. I was never going to attend anyway but it was interesting when the judge sent an the order of to the Wing HQ. Make sense?

I mean, let's put it in perspective: the discussion of land lost in the last year is 0.2% of Ukraine's land mass (As of this morning at 6am: 552 sq miles out of 233,062...Source). I am sure any countries leader worth a damn would say their definition of victory is to regain ALL invaded territory. It isn't very realistic for him to publicly say he is okay with Crimea being the sacrificial lamb. Behind closed doors in a negotiated settlement? Maybe it'll be different. But I can't fault him for his patriotism. I think well equipped Ukrainians can regain land from the Russians, after all, from June to December they liberated 199 sq miles. Russia has "only" occupied 294 sq miles from this April to May with their major offensive which coincided with Ukraine's major artillery shell shortage. Meanwhile, an underequipped Ukraine is still managing to schwack oil depots and major infrastructure in Novorossyisk and a refinery in Tuapse, not to mention the attack on aviation assets in Belbek Air Base, to name a few recently. We will see how they do after the next shipment of equipment arrives.

Crimea is currently under effective siege. If it wasn’t the Russian Black Sea fleet would still be in harbor there and the biggest airfield on the Island wouldn’t have spent the last several days on fire. If this ends at the tables as all wars have, negotiation positions will make all the impact in what final terms are. The lunacy is people like Gearhog demanding that there is some kind of righteousness in the west abandoning Ukraine to its self like it can then enter those negotiations with any kind of leg to stand on. Germany tried that in WWI with the allies basically saying “sign this or else” and the inability to continue fighting. They were done because means = 0. Russia would simply demand absurd amounts and swallow the largest land mass in Europe through ineptness by the west, and then look at the Baltics (which Putin thinks are his by right) like “who is really gonna stop me.” We should cease our more active efforts of support only after hostilities have ended, not as some sort threat of withholding it to beat the peace out of the a Ukrainians. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I count 63 bodies, but I thought the wedding only had 54 casualties?

Her given name was Crisis. It happened real quick when she got to Hill. She’s cool, doubt it was her doing but it’s very hush hush as to how/why it happened. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Ouch…shouldn’t we all be defaulted the benefit of being innocent until due process says otherwise? Maybe it’s a certain level of semantics, but “innocent until proven guilty” should mean it when we say it. I understand that precautions had to be put in place at times, and you couldn’t assume the accusation/issue should be over and done with until an investigation/due process has run its course, but if you’re not giving the immediate benefit of the doubt to the accused, (what I define as innocence), then I have even more serious concerns with AF leadership than when I was still AD (and I definitely had still had some serious concerns here and there with certain leaders). Maybe I’m just misunderstanding you or words mean one thing to me and another to you? Perhaps this is how the UCMJ reads and I’m just very ignorant of the matter as I was never in legal or a commander?

As I stated I don't defend flyusaf83's statement, indeed a wrong assessment. This is where we differ, I would expect a police chief to defend the law. As a Squadron/CC, Group/CC and Wing/CC I had troops accused of VERY serious crimes. I never defaulted to guilty or innocent, instead I made certain they had every protection provided by due process and the appropriate support mechanisms that all troops are entitled to have. I never made a public statement defending their actions before conducting an investigation. Body cams have changed the game in many ways and they are often viewed in exclusion without context. If one used just the body cam in this case it would certainly appear the shooting was not justified, in fact it was murder. There are certainly other factors in this case that must be investigated, at the top of the list is the female who guided the offer to the apartment and from her call and description to the officer painted a picture of ongoing domestic violence when in fact Roger was int he apartment alone.

I get your point, but you're recommending basically succumbing to an admission of guilt before the investigation is complete. Not saying he was correct in his statements, but you're rushing to judgment. Due process is still necessary no matter how much "evidence" is presented on social media. Anyone in the military who has been subjected to the "guilty until proven innocent" approach should be very cognitive of that. There's always more to the story...and a process to uncover the truth!

Because it demonstrates how you are ignoring the many historical examples of asymmetric victory to support a simple and somewhat childish argument of Russia is bigger and is pressing forward, so they must be winning. Did the North Vietnamese win against the US? Did the DRA win against the Soviets in Afghanistan? Did the Taliban win against the US? Did we win against the British? I will not argue the fecklessness of our political class. But we still have an incredible military with incredible weaponry ands intelligence to offer an ally. The very fact Russia hasn't won already, especially after a six month pause in support, is proof that this is not a simple matter of Russia capturing 86 km² of terrain. It's one thing to not want to spend the money. That's simply a fiscal priority. But the "side" arguing against this doesn't seem comfortable with their fiscal position, so they have to twist the conversation into the "impossibility" of success. That's now a military argument that you don't seem able to make effectively. There is a huge difference between "should we" and "can we."