17D_guy

Weez is on point with this one. I've mentioned it years ago. Comm was RIF'd at least twice (possibly 3 times) before the 2014/2015 Hunger Games. I think it was '06, '09...perhaps '11? There's a large stigma in our communities about "being outside" and it being a detriment to your career. Go to school house - that's outside "the community" Go to AFPAK, RAS, etc. - same AF needs assignment (OTS, SOS, BMT) - same Joint anything - same Now...there are, of course, people who've "recovered" from these assignments. But the jobs are ALWAYS discussed in a negative light and as placing you behind peers for promotion and other opportunities. Could you imagine being a air-breathing operator and being told the stint you did as a lead IP was "detrimental to your career?" Or you'd never recover from FAIP duty, "sorry thems the breaks?" Welcome to MSG. Special shout out to cyber for still not following the flying upgrade path (FTU, IP qual, master IP's, etc.) Someday we'll get it together...probably atfer another pilot leads the domain.

Allies doesn't mean prison bitch; they get to vote for whomever they want...just like we do. Now...should our engagement change..ab-so-fucking-lutely.

Strong 2+. Fair warning, you will get extremely pissed off if you have any sense of honor.

Hate to say it, but in cyber the NAF made sense. Probably because of the diffuse, overarching requirements of cyber. Subordinate to AFSPC (or ACC when it happens) for ADCON, but reporting to CYBERCOM for ops stuff and TACON for our ops units. It took me moving to the ops side for it to become clear...some heavily obfuscated lines that don't become recognizable until you realize the 3 hats Wedge was wearing. We do a shit job training our Lt's to understand the point of the CC structure, and even worse joint. No HPO who bounces in and out is going to ever get it.

Yet the AF has built the fast track because we don't have enough rep at Joint jobs...wonder why?

I don't know what level of buffoonery that rises to.

I can apply for retirement this Christmas. I ordered name tapes yesterday, and tried a set on for purchase on Monday. I know you pajama wearers don't care, but all the rest of the folk I've personally talked to are super hyped. I can't frigging wait to get out of this gray abortion of a uniform. It never fit right, wore right and the shoes were starting to get them pressed and cleaned. I went through OTS Mar-Jun in the old heavy weight ABU's and hated life for how rough they were to do anything in. OCPs seem to fit the same as BDU's, which is fantastic. Plus...PATCHES MOTHER FUCKERS! Finally some unit pride and options for morale/friday patches.

At Hurlburt now for a short stay, what a lovely base. Isn't this exactly what the CSAF just released a memo on? Or does 1 SOW predate that and HAF is taking that line? "The memo said annual mandatory training on cyber awareness, force protection, combating human trafficking and the Green Dot sexual assault and suicide prevention program, which was previously done via CBT, can now be done through mass briefings." But my Cybers!

Finally read this, I'm sure it's been posted on here before. Good read that explains a lot of the recent discussion here. - Speed Trap: The USAF 24 - Year Pole to General Officer https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/576.pdf

@Champ Kind I honestly think we're starting to swing back the other way from the "everyone's a warfighter" nonsense that's been crammed down our throats. I think/hope these changes on the E-side with EPRs & PME are precursors to getting us back on track looking at mission/ops fulltime. I also think this uniform change is part of that. A change that makes sense for the majority of the force, saves us money, gives us something better and will force us to distinguish out loud that we're Airmen, not soldiers. I also think they're not going to have you zipper-suited-sun-gods not be distinguishable in your 2-piece. You'll get some flair, or perhaps scarves will come back, or silver pipping around the collar...who knows.

RUMINT//NON ATTRIBUTABLE In my discussions with the HPO-boss whose coat tails I was riding, this was spot on. As a Capt he worked for a "sponsored" Comm Colonel who was going places. That Col retired as a 3-star, but still has deep ties to our (now) Cyber community. That 3-star briefed a group of 17D's at a Friday Beer call that once he pinnned on his first star the MAJCOM/CV sat him down to ask if he was "in the game." My former HPO-boss retired because of a long-term family emergency. A very good dude, mentor and was doing good things about getting our culture changed. He had guys that he made sure got high profile assignments before he bounced to cashing fat checks. I did not work for him at the time, though we were in the same org and he looked out for me. My actual boss during that time was not a HPO, was "asked" to retire and didn't secure a strat on my OPR despite DoD level awards. Which...fine. However, they wouldn't even tell him why I didn't get one or what to improve on/feedback. Another Col I know said a lot of the same thing as the article, and also mentioned that I now needed to find another sponsor. When I was working Wing front office stuff this is what the execs would talk about and how when someone ducked out that was planned for higher position it put a 48 month ripple through the system. Apparently there's notional plans for all these HPO's and GO's that far out. JQP had a good article on it a few years ago. I'd like to note that the execs hated this whole thing and would have rather been flying. Having sat "fake exec" a couple times and talking with the real execs, the time GO's put in to grooming a not small, but not large, number of candidates for quick moves wasn't a surprise. Having spoken with a lot of Col's at my last job, and seen how much more of their life they give up to wear birds, and the same w/ GO's...I'm not sure it's a deal I'd make even if given the opportunity. I'm certain it's not a deal my wife would make. I will grant that I've been blessed with good Col's and GO's since May of last year, so perhaps they're doing more than some douchebags would instead of pushing things down to us. Also, for the tribal piece. I've heard this from every Col+ that I've talked with about promotion/assignment boards. They called it the knife fights, and Col's came in with the short list of people they wanted to protect/push. Sometimes they got all/some/none of their folks to where they wanted them. That part was very political, and there were serious/loud gripes when other communities would push around for prized positions (see - 11M pilot now taking cmd of 690 NOS). For Cyber there's also Cyber (Offense/defense), Mission Support and Combat Comm tribes, which are also distinct from Sq/Staff tribes.

So.. it's like their version of Trump.

And here I've never gotten the medal plates in Tx because I didn't want to do the extra paperwork... 3 years running...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/11/politics/us-navy-seals-alleged-sexual-misconduct/index.html And the hits keep on coming.

My favorite thing is the "innovation idea" taskers that come down urging us to :cut the cruft and think outside the box." Then require us to route it through the entire chain, brief Sq/Grp/Wg CC's for it to get out of the Wing.

Oh god, I got a call from the poor bro that they tasked with setting that up. He got my info and gave me a call asking all kinds of network questions--bad ones. Took me a sec and I asked if he was a comm/cyber guy and he said "no, I'm a pilot" but someone had just told him "get it set up." I commiserated with him and told him to call AETC A6 and get some frigging help. Random pilot dude ain't gonna be able to run that through solo at a location without any infrastructure.

Someone's trying to fix his legacy. What a absolute shit.

Wait...this can actually happen? Everything I've seen (non-pilot) when someone does that it's a quick out the door.

Perhaps I should break this into it's own thread, but is there a notable difference between USAA and AAFMAA? USAA's always seemed extremely competitive to me.

Damnit...I should have done that.

Oh yea. Wedge at 24 AF is pushing it hard. Youv'e got that in a lot of the no-kidding Cyber Ops Sq's. On the DODIN/Base Support side...not as much. They've jacked with the career-fields and capabilities for about a decade straight. Hard to keep that and build up a culture of excellence. Plus, you can go from a hard charging kill our enemies unit to a Comm Sq...because we're all 17D cores. Think about that one for awhile and how that plays in with the folks who don't want to hack, and then the folks who don't want to do mission support! It's very slow going as we've got a wide array of senior leaders who think that putting Amn on "crew rest" counts as making them operators, but not holding them accountable for not executing an order because they think (as a SrA) they've got a better idea. I'm off to a legit kill the bad guys unit soon, so I'll be dipping out of the Win10 upgrades and such for at least a couple of years! Hopefully I'll pin on Maj sometime during this stint.

We don't call it weaponized Autism for nothing. Sure. Having walked the halls of Ops Sq's the culture is in the air. The expectation is worn on your patches on the pajamas all us non-air-breathing-operators crave. Everyone knows that the aircrew have spent X years training, flying, fighting. You guys have Sq bars, you're segregated from the rest of the AF by sheer pinnacle of your achievement. As I think you should be, you've earned it. I don't have that in a normal Comm Sq. I've got Airmen who never touched a computer besides MS Office for school that are working the core servers, all the way up to the guy who failed a credit short of a CS degree because he almost went pro in Fortnite. I've got officers who are geology/english majors who got Cyber because "needs of the Air Force." This is on par with the bros who signed up for real flying and got RPA's...but they have to "lead" Amn that are about the same age. How many officers in a Ops sq you know that can't get to work on time? I've had to separate 3 Amn for that. I had to deal with 4 sexual assault cases at the same time, when those finally wrapped up 3 pissed hot. So, the 17D that @HarleyQuinn mentions comes off as a douche from that single statement. I don't agree with ordering it...but it's nice to not get blindsided by some idiot failing at the last minute and having to report it to a douche Wing CC who thinks PT's the pinnacle of leadership. Which is where we been for about a decade. 1 story to kinda illustrate - Airman shithead was late to duty on a Saturday. Boss found him asleep in his car...suspicion of drinking. On Monday we (Super and I) pull him in for a conversation. I order him to stay silent (not self-incriminate), and tell him our suspicions and run him through the consequences. I tell him about the options to driving while intoxicated, and ask him to be a professional, he's a needed team member, etc. I release him to his supervisor and superintendent. 2 weeks later DUI.

13 hours was fantastic. Recently watched Wild Country on Netflix. Was pretty amazing.

Hold up...2009 hasn't even been announced for promotion

It's funny because the previous Manager E9s took all the shit offices tried to get rid of (ex. Practice Bleeding) and put it on top of a stretched Force...