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To help with VID:

Given my limited experience with the VA, 50% of the VA workforce could be Thanos-snapped off the books and I would imagine the impact to care or services would not be measurably different.

You quoted me and said "I literally answered this the other day", but the only question I had asked was if you were just going to complain every time reality doesn't align with what you wanted to happen. What is it that are you so intent that I reply to? Quote it or repeat it. So you're listing our military failures as justifications as to why we should give military support to Ukraine? Well, I'll give you credit: that's a completely new and unexpected way to look at this. I don't think anyone has ever made that argument. It might be the least intellectual point attempted in this thread, but at least it's original. I got nothing for you. If Ukraine has plenty of international volunteers, why do they have conscription? Why are we seeing countless vids of them abducting their own citizens from the streets? Again, this is just basic logic. Your points are really, really bad. "I'd totally help if it weren't for my ADSC." "I'd totally help if I were allowed to fly airplanes." Funny how all of the ways you say you want to help conveniently have conditions, while all the ways you can actually help have none. Show me one receipt. Let's reel it back in to reality: Your SQ isn't getting called. You're not going to help or make sacrifices. Russia isn't just going to pack it up and put it in reverse. There will be a negotiation. Both sides will make concessions. The killing will stop. Life will go on. We'll look back just as we do on AFG, IRQ, Vietnam and say, "Well...that was f'n stupid".

I’m all for finding efficiencies…more spending/employees doesn’t necessarily equate to better service. We’re running a $2 TRILLION deficit in what the Dems recently called a “good economy”…what is your plan to fix it? Of course pro-big government types don’t want to see any reductions…why would they?

Sunday March 6, 1836 At midnight on March 6, 1836, Santa Anna's troops began moving into position for their planned attack of the Alamo compound. For several hours, the soldiers lay on the ground in complete darkness. About 5:30 A.M., they received the order to begin the assault. The massed troops moved quietly, encountering the Texian sentinels first. They killed them as they slept. No longer able to contain the nervous energy gripping them, cries of "Viva la Republica" and "Viva Santa Anna" broke the stillness The Mexican soldiers' shouts spoiled the moment of surprise... Inside the compound, Adjutant John Baugh had just begun his morning rounds when he heard the cries. He hurriedly ran to the quarters of Colonel William Barret Travis. He awakened him with: "Colonel Travis, the Mexicans are coming!" Travis and his slave Joe quickly scrambled from their cots. The two men grabbed their weapons and headed for the north wall battery. Travis yelled "Come on boys, the Mexicans are on us and we'll give them Hell! "Unable to see the advancing troops for the darkness, the Texian gunners blindly opened fire; they had packed their cannon with jagged pieces of scrap metal, shot, and chain. The muzzle flash briefly illuminated the landscape and it was with horror that the Texians understood their predicament. The enemy had nearly reached the walls of the compound. The Mexican soldiers had immediate and terrible losses. That first cannon blast ripped a huge gap in their column. Colonel José Enrique de la Peña would later write "...a single cannon volley did away with half the company of Chasseurs from Toluca." The screams and moans of the dying and wounded only heightened the fear and chaos of those first few moments of the assault. Travis hastily climbed to the top of the north wall battery and readied himself to fire; discharging both barrels of his shotgun into the massed troops below. As he turned to reload, a single lead ball struck him in the forehead sending him rolling down the ramp where he came to rest in a sitting position. Travis was dead. Joe saw his master go down and so retreated to one of the rooms along the west wall to hide. There was no safe position on the walls of the compound. Each time the Texian riflemen fired at the troops below, they exposed themselves to deadly Mexican fire. On the south end of the compound, Colonel Juan Morales and about 100 riflemen attacked what they perceived was the weak palisade area. They met heavy fire from Crockett's riflemen and a single cannon. Morales's men quickly moved toward the southwest corner and the comparative safety of cover behind an old stone building and the burned ruins of scattered jacales. On the north wall, exploding Texian canister shredded but did not halt the advance of Mexican soldiers. Cos's and Duque's companies, now greatly reduced in number, found themselves at the base of the north wall. Romero's men joined them after his column had wheeled to the right to avoid deadly grapeshot from the guns of the Alamo church. General Castrillón took command from the wounded Colonel Duque and began the difficult task of getting his men over the wall. As the Mexican army reached the walls, their advance halted. Santa Anna saw this lag and so committed his reserve of 400 men to the assault bringing the total force to around 1400 men. Amid the Texian cannon fire tearing through their ranks, General Cos's troops performed a right oblique to begin an assault on the west wall. The Mexicans used axes and crowbars to break through the barricaded windows and openings. They climbed through the gun ports and over the wall to enter the compound. General Amador and his men entered the compound by climbing up the rough-faced repairs made on the north wall by the Texians. They successfully breached the wall and in a flood of fury, the Mexican army poured through. The Texians turned their cannon northward to check this new onslaught. With cannon fire shifted, Colonel Morales recognized a momentary advantage. His men stormed the walls and took the southwest corner, the 18-pounder, and the main gate. The Mexican army was now able to enter from almost every direction. In one room near the main gate, the Mexican soldiers found Colonel James Bowie. Bowie was critically ill and confined to bed when the fighting began. The soldiers showed little mercy as they silenced him with their bayonets. The Texians continued to pour gunfire into the advancing Mexican soldiers devastating their ranks. Still they came. When they saw the enemy rush into the compound from all sides, the Texians fell back to their defenses in the Long Barracks. Crockett's men in the palisade area retreated into the church. The rooms of the north barrack and the Long Barracks had been prepared well in advance in the event the Mexicans gained entry. The Texians made the rooms formidable by trenching and barricading them with raw cowhides filled with earth. For a short time, the Texians held their ground. The Mexicans turned the abandoned Texian cannon on the barricaded rooms. With cannon blast followed by a musket volley, the Mexican soldiers stormed the rooms to finish the defenders inside the barrack. Mexican soldiers rushed the darkened rooms. With sword, bayonet, knife, and fist the adversaries clashed. In the darkened rooms of the north barrack, it was hard to tell friend from foe. The Mexicans systematically took room after room; finally, the only resistance came from within the church itself. Once more, the Mexicans employed the Texians' cannon to blast apart the defenses of the entrance. Bonham, Dickinson and Esparza died by their cannon at the rear of the church. An act of war became a slaughter. It was over in minutes. According to one of Santa Anna's officers, the Mexican army overwhelmed and captured a small group of defenders. According to this officer, Crockett was among them. The prisoners were brought before Santa Anna where General Castrillón asked for mercy on their behalf. Santa Anna instead answered with a "gesture of indignation" and ordered their execution. Nearby officers who had not taken part in the assault fell upon the helpless men with their swords. One Mexican officer noted in his journal that: "Though tortured before they were killed, these unfortunates died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers." Santa Anna ordered Alcalde Francisco Ruiz to gather firewood from the surrounding countryside and in alternating layers of wood and bodies the dead were stacked. At 5:00 o'clock in the evening the pyres were lit. In this final act, Santa Anna's "small affair" ended. On the thirteenth day of the siege, Santa Anna’s forces advanced toward the fort before the sun rose. Awakened by the sounds of Mexican soldiers shouting, “Viva Santa Anna,” the Texian defenders quickly returned to their positions on the walls. Travis and his slave Joe made their way to the north wall to coordinate artillery fire on the Mexican troops. On the third assault, those troops began breeching the north wall of the Alamo. Mexican soldiers, who had also captured the south and west walls, followed the retreating defenders into the Long Barrack where a final stand was made. Before the sun came up, the last defender had been killed.

How are you not getting the concept that a stronger foreign power can lose to a more committed group on their home turf? Did you miss the past 25 years?

Russia will not turn around and go home because home is at their backs. regardless of how you feel, the Russians perceive nato seducing Ukraine as a dire threat to their country. They have complained about NATO expanding east since the breakup of the USSR; I have cited numerous historical articles, speeches, intelligence assessments, and videos in this thread proving so. it's a different sort of calculus for them than what we were operating under in vietnam, iraq, or afghanistan. i predict you will disagree with their rationale and reasoning, but know thy enemy and such.

Was VA care not adequate in 2019?

I don't think this will change how you feel, but for the record you were completely wrong. if I were you, I would be asking myself: what other strongly held opinions do I have based on things I assume to be true but are in fact, not true? How else am I the victim of a propaganda machine?

Dude, you write some gaslighting stuff here.

Can you bang out a list of the five things you did this week in ten minutes? If it’s for your boss or your chain who already has some context on what you do for the sake of keeping them informed, definitely. No big deal. But if it’s for someone with zero context or knowledge — maybe even Grok AI that knows even less — and if they don’t understand it or like it you lose your job… oh, and they’re coming at it from a place of wanting to axe you? That’s much harder. Not the same things.

"I work in a SCIF so how could I possibly answer this email" is passive-aggressive BS. Anyone working in a SCIF in uniform still has to generate annual performance review fodder. This is an insignificant fraction of that wordsmithing goat-rope, yet knickers are getting twisted. Spare me.

WRT RIFs, the AF keeps forgetting there is a place for iron Capts and Majs. They don't need the shiny jobs and tend to be your best experienced flyers. And they cost less. Efficiency!! Once they become non promotable, the filters drop off their mouths.

I have a Henry Big Boy X in .44mag. It's slick, fun, and not accurate at all. It'll shoot hot ammo reasonably (assuming you don't want to shoot past 50 yards or so), but the softer stuff is atrocious. I haven't gotten a can for it yet, but that's the plan. I basically wanted a lever gun that looked like it came out of the Fallout computer game.

The number of times that I’ve been told “millions” is just “budget dust” makes me think that finding noteworthy and brave Americans to honor in addition to the rest of us not having to relearn base names is a happy compromise. I also remember the time and money wasted on changing patches and signage from USCENTAF TO USAFCENT mid-surge ops in OIF. This is nothing new, just more shit to keep people divided up and distracted from other stuff.

The party of fiscal responsibility is too busy spending millions to own the liberals. "I PinKY pRoMIse It'S nOt AfTeR a CoNfEDeRaTe TrAiToR." https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/03/politics/fort-moore-fort-benning-defense-secretary/index.html But once they run out of obscure corporals to allegedly rename stuff after and civvies to fire a RIF would be right in line with the continued self destruction of our agencies.

I think Nato's biggest accomplishment is the interruption of wars between the various NATO countries that occurred every 20-50 years going back centuries.

Copy that My druthers, the new strategic tanker would be a 747-8 tanker.

From the article Clark linked, obvious there are valid counter arguments (like azimuth with the anti-ice fluid covering the window). But he makes some good points about how we did it at the dawn of the jet aviation with slide rules for the first time ever. "I have yet to have a boom operator give me a justification for this new virtual boom operators system. If aircraft contractors say it will cost way too much to physically attach a boomers station to a 767 then the USAF should ask them how they did it with ease at the dawn of the jet age with the KC-135, and then again with the KC-747 in the 1970s, and then again with the KC-10 Extender in the early 1980s? What magic wand did Boeing and McDonnell Douglas have back then and where on earth did that magic wand go because we really need to find it. It seems as if with the loss of that wand, our drive for simplified, low-risk procurement solutions based on proven systems and successful practices was lost as well. Also, consider that Boeing will elaborately modify their commercial aircraft for military needs. Huge radomes, massive antenna fairings, weapons bays and just about any other modification you can imagine have been done to Boeing airliners over the years. So grafting a rear window onto the a 767s tail seems like a small request in comparison. Why change a proven, robust, and known system that has safely worked for over half a century? 3D goggles can break, stereoscopic cameras can go dark and control consoles can malfunction, but a window is always on. I am sure Boeing and Airbus have some big cost analysis describing how somehow such a system will save the USAF money over decades of service, but really, that is very hard to believe as it requires new training simulators, lots of high-end hardware to install and maintain, and most importantly, development time and money. In actuality, those reasons may be exactly why this new aerial refueling interface exists in the first place, because it will it will mean big development, support and upgrade dollars for defense contractors for decades to come, something a mechanical boom, some levers and window cant provide."