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They booed the U.S. National Anthem, and we took the gold. #Suck it!

I've never been shot but I've flown a few helicopters and I think it's a tremendous accomplishment to fly a bus into a hot LZ with a few bullet holes in your body. Good job Slover.

I think he was a F-4 WSO, then UPT, then F-111, then A-10, passed over for Major, hired by the Reserve A-10 unit in New Orleans, hired on at United but invited to leave during training (lying on his application?), invited to leave at New Orleans for flying violations and personnel conflicts, tried to get hired at Columbus Reserves but blocked by the NOLA A-10 folks, hired at UPS and fired after a conflict on a Asia flight with the other two pilots that resulted in them locking Runner out of the cockpit. After that, it is a mystery that I'm sure we will learn more about. Quite the resume, if you ask me. Maybe he was a plant to screw up the Chinese PLAAF.

I copied something I wrote on another site and occurred in the 92-93 timeframe. As a Flt CC,I took 6 A-10s from Shaw to Little Rock to support the Army doing Army things at Ft. Chaffee near Ft. Smith. Runner brings a jet back with a broken windscreen. No worries, that front panel would occasionally Crack from the window heat. Well, that wasn't it. He had hit the grounding wire on some high tension power lines. No call. No controllability/ damage check. He argues he did nothing wrong. The front windscreen on the Hawg is 7 layers of laminate that will stop a 23mm cannon round. That windscreen is supported by a very stout I- beam looking frame. The grounding wire hit on top of the AAR door, slid over the windscreen cracking the glass and shearing off windscreen attachment bolts before scratching the top of the canopy. The wire completely missed the engine nacelles and rudders. Any other jet and he would have been sliced in two and he thinks he did nothing wrong. Arkansas Power and Light was replacing that wire and sent us the piece with gray paint on it and said it was 292 feet off the ground which was below his cleared altitude. His excuse was rising terrain despite that handy, dandy radar altimeter warning which was not used. He also almost put a Vark in the dirt during Desert Shield after screwing up a LGB toss. You might have seen the video updating your altitude chamber.

The Struggle is real.

EPIC SAVE!!!! by Connor Hellebuyck😁

Story time!

In all seriousness, the threshold for getting an MoH as a living serviceman is incredibly high. And there's not one shred of doubt in my mind that this administration would happily violate the customary burdens for qualification so they could say that their operation had one more piece of flair on it. If the guy lives up to the standard set by previous recipients, then by all means. But getting shot and continuing the mission is not enough. And unfortunately for that pilot, everybody knows Trump is going to be pushing this as hard as he can, regardless of whether or not he deserves the medal.

Most of the prep for flatbed loading is complete ✅

Nice looking Piper. "Someone tell me what to do."... I would sure like to know more about his flight training. Wow.

Sounds like typical big tech. We want those sweet DoD dollars, but we want to pretend like we stand for world peace and non-aggression. Fuck them. They should feel privileged to serve the military that created the world they profit so richly in.

ID to vote??? Racist, sexist, and a crime against democracy !!! ID to shovel snow? Absolutely required in the workers paradise by Comrade Mamdani. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/josephchalfant/2026/02/21/mamdani-snow-shoveling-n2671695

Looks like it was shot down

A recent T-38 class patch from Vance.

Got my RIP for Vance, IPT in November (requested later date). No info on IPT location.

Picked up my dream pistol, 1943 Remington Rand M1911A1, all parts are correct. This pistol was never overhauled or passed through the CMP. The holster is from 1918, has an unlegable name and service number written in pencil on it. I purchased that separately years back.

So he was a Loadmaster? Now I'm confused.

Denaturalize and deport her sorry butt

Got it. I definitely did not hit a nerve. Thanks for clearing that up 😂🤣

Honey, put your dick away. If you're too emotionally invested in this to read simple commentary, then you're probably not worth talking to at all. But for the fun of it: the simple reality is that there are a metric fuck ton of incredible people who have done incredible things after being shot, and all but a very small few of them went home or into the ground without a medal of Honor. Now maybe you've never read any medal of Honor citations, but I have. The bar isn't just high, it's in fucking low earth orbit. Maybe this guy deserves it. But for better or worse we have a president who believes any and every institution, convention, tradition, and norm should be upended for his own vanity and glamor. And if that means he can get a medal of Honor attached to his Venezuela mission, he's going to do it by any means necessary. That attaches a very real and very unfortunate skepticism to this particular citation. You can sit at home with your thumb up your ass and not think about it, but I choose to. And since you're on a message board where a bunch of people talk about shit like this, I will take your "aggressive STFU" and file it with some of the other asinine things you said here over the years. XOXO

We all know some MoHs are politically-driven even when the acts themselves are noble and worthy of recognition. U.S. Army Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds, who famously refused Nazi demands to single out Jewish American soldiers while he was a prisoner of war in Stalag IX‑A during World War II, is being posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for this act of courage. By no means am I trying to undercut what Edmonds did! A German officer held a pistol to his head and demanded that he identify the Jews. Edmonds refused, warning the officer he would be prosecuted as a war criminal. The officer backed down, and Edmonds’ actions saved about 200 Jewish‑American POWs who otherwise could have been killed or sent to labor camps. This could be in response to David Rubitsky, a Jewish American WWII veteran who believed he had been denied the Medal of Honor because he was Jewish. On 1-2 Dec 1942 during the Battle of Buna, Rubitsky singlehandedly defended a bunker with a ".30-cal. machine gun, a .45-cal. pistol, a rifle and grenades." Allegedly, he beat off the Japanese after a 21-hour battle in which he killed 500 to 600 of the enemy, including wounded men he later shot or bayoneted. However, a 23‑month U.S. Army investigation concluded that there was “incontestable evidence” he had not performed the actions he claimed, thus the Medal of Honor was not awarded. I'll let you judge if CWO5 Slover was deserving... "During combat operations against a heavily fortified hostile objective in Caracas, Venezuela, Chief Warrant Officer Five Eric Slover distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as the flight lead pilot of a CH‑47 Chinook helicopter during the joint U.S. mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. On 3 January 2026, Slover led the first assault aircraft of Operation Absolute Resolve as U.S. special operations forces executed a nighttime airborne infiltration into Maduro’s secure compound. The target facility was defended by thousands of hostile personnel and protected by Russian and Chinese integrated defensive systems, presenting an extremely high‑risk aviation environment. Despite these dangers, Chief Warrant Officer Five Slover pressed the assault to deliver the ground force that would seize the objective. As Slover descended toward the landing zone, his aircraft came under intense, concentrated machine‑gun fire from multiple directions. Within seconds, he was struck four times in the leg and hip, sustaining devastating wounds that shattered his leg into multiple pieces. Although gravely injured and in excruciating pain, Slover refused to relinquish control of the aircraft. Blood flowed down the inside of the cockpit as he steadied the aircraft under fire, demonstrating extraordinary composure and iron resolve. Fully aware that failure to insert the assault force would jeopardize the entire mission and risk the lives of every service member involved, Chief Warrant Officer Five Slover continued the descent and successfully delivered the U.S. special operations team into the target compound. His unwavering commitment, even while seriously wounded, enabled the ground force to fight its way into the stronghold and successfully capture President Nicolás Maduro, bringing to a close a high‑stakes international operation months in the making. After ensuring the commandos were safely inserted, Slover maneuvered the damaged aircraft away from the landing zone while continuing to bleed heavily and remain at risk of losing consciousness. His actions directly contributed to the safe extraction of U.S. forces and the overall success of the mission. For the duration of the flight, he placed mission accomplishment and the lives of his team above his own survival, demonstrating valor on par with the highest traditions of American military service. Chief Warrant Officer Five Eric Slover’s fearless leadership, selfless devotion to duty, and willingness to face certain death exemplify the very essence of heroism. His gallant actions under fire reflect great credit upon himself, the United States Army, and the United States of America." That said, how this was completed in less than two months whereas a Purple Heart was just recently awarded for a combat injury 13 years ago tells me that there was political objective behind this award!

@jonlbs That extremely over-simplified, distilled version of the event is all you’re going to get - it is what it is. I don’t see this one as unwarranted (though I understand the speed at which it was pushed through is almost certainly politically driven). Like all awards/medals, including the MOH, there will always be people who easily could have/should have received them and didn’t. That fact doesn’t immediately negate the validity of someone else’s award.

Sua’s minimum is 5, ideally 6 or more hits for a MOH, and preferably would’ve got at least one practice approach in upon RTB.

He was shot FOUR times including in the leg and hip, but flew on and conducted the air assault.

And hot Mexican chicks

Hey everyone, please take what I’m about to say with the smallest piece of a grain of salt. I have a buddy who got picked up for officer training school and is there right now and graduates in a few weeks. When he got picked up, he got selected for RPA even though his number one was manned Pilot. He sent me a message this morning and said that he was just offered a Pilot slot and he took it in ots. I’ve heard of something happening like this before a few years ago, but it was super rare. I asked him how this happened and that I was super happy for him and he said that him and nine other people were pulled into a room with the commandant and the commandant informed them that the Air Force needs 150 more pilots and that he’s giving them the opportunity to switch from the job that they currently have to Pilot. With that being said, I don’t know that it would affect any alternates that may have been selected for this board, but if the Air Force exhausts all of its pipelines for training that could be an opportunity for more people to get picked up if they were an alternate and that’s just my assumption. This is not based on anything official.

An AFSOC C-146A Wolfhound struck a concrete barrier while taking off in the Philippines causing substantial damage to the aircraft and some injuries to the crew. When this appeared on my feed my first question was what the hell is a C-146A? It's a Dornier Do 328 twin turboprop aircraft that's part of the eclectic coterie of Key West Agreement sized aircraft that the Air Force operates with a diaspora of aircrew in far-flung corners of the world. When I worked at ATA years ago I used to jumpseat on these all the time, I cannot remember which airline operated them but they had a fairly modern glass cockpit layout at the time and had a unique navigation system. Instead of INS, IRS, or Ring Laser Gyro they used a system that would triangulate multiple radio Navaids for a position solution. I don't remember what it was called but the crews seemed to really like the aircraft. The Do 328 was short lived in US Airline service and quickly replaced by Regional Jets so I'm sure the AF picked up some of these for a reasonable cost.

Yeah... But.... She's pretty hot.

So we thinking we're getting a mass drop of assignments tomorrow or are we all getting emails back Monday saying they'll be coming "soon"?

The irony is the incident also comes almost 30 years to the day since Cuban defense forces shot down two small civilian planes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue, a US-based group that searched for rafts carrying migrants from Cuba to the US. Four people aboard were killed in the 1996 incident, triggering outrage in the US. Coincidence? Maybe not...

🤣

Gen Douglas MacArthur got a MOH just by escaping Corregidor so not having himself be taken prisoner like his whole command by the Japanese. I'm sure FDR did it just to get some good out of a disaster.

Okay, I wouldn't have...but my brother would have

Wonder how many army pilots have taken bullets and continued flying? Did they all get MoH’s?

Lol. Sure you would have. You're just old and lame now. I don't know many rowdy young men who wouldn't want to say they chugged beers with the FBI boss.

Well deserved and earned.

Mexico is perhaps the most perfect example of gun laws being absolutely useless and only screwing over good people, and the root cause of violence problems being a lack of positive societal norms/proliferation of dogshit societal norms.

Mark Tape: Mamdani will be found in the future to be putting a lot of this tax money in his own pockets.

I find myself the lone survivor of this thread…no matter. UCT 26-06 2x MC-130 2x HC-130 1x LC-130 4x F-15E 2x B-52 1x B-1 1x EA-37B 1x RQ-170 1x RC-135 Nav

I was in New Zealand recently and on a whim, I managed to go out and fly a Pacific Aerospace CT/4 trainer. Fairly unknown in the US... I don't believe any are airworthy here. This one was the first of two prototypes, before it went into production in NZ. It was built in 1972. The pilot I flew with was one of the handful of former NZAF A-4K pilots (only 168 total), and is a pretty accomplished warbird pilot. We did some sightseeing, AHC, and light aerobatics. It was "different". Really enjoyed getting to fly a piece of NZ aviation history.

Wendover is a former B-29 base, too, so we have been looking at that.