17D_guy

Generally we (military) have a very narrow viewpoint into what a lot of other citizens feel about certain things. This is further reinforced with choice of news source, and social media's echo chamber. HOw many people do you know (while active) that had legit non-service related disabilities? Some of us will, but our culture/environment isn't set up to put us in contact with individuals like that for the majority of 20-40+. I've married into the only conservative side branch of a VERY liberal family. Got one bro-in-law who's a union organizer, and 2 bro-in-laws who are legitimate hippies (ugh). ACA is very favored by most of that side of the family. Doubly so because they have chronic, genetic diseases that would otherwise keep them in poverty (wife dealt with this) or kill them as children w/o expensive, continuous treatment. Kids that have it now are doing awesome as adults, very motivated, paying taxes, etc. Even my wife who's strongly conservative has seen how it's eased the lives of her family members. Even my family that isn't military has struggled with healthcare costs and they're all very motivated and educated. We're in a very unique bubble with how we view healthcare ("free"), doubly so when we retire.

Keeping on. What's it going to do without all these pilots? Already offered my AFSC a bonus because retention sucks. Point was about the lack of feedback.

Ah, Indeed. But there's other quals and teams that get no recognition otherwise. Mistype there. SCIF...and no badges outside.

So, an interesting thing from the non-bag wearing ops world. We have a bunch of legit keyboard ninjas that roll around in my area. Since Skeletor took off all the ABU bling there's been little to distinguish legit cyber-operator from staff douches (me). Newish development, there's special tabs that go on individuals badge holders showing what cyber ops team they're from, if they've finished CNODP, or WIC. Cool colors, with Sq/Unit flash. All very military heritage like. I fully support it because we should have separate recognition for the actual mission hackers (pun intended).

Red dot.

Even then there's a lack of feedback to allow people to make informed decisions. Never strat'd below 2 in any assignment. I rx'd a wing strat (5/380) at my last base at the 6 yr mark. Come to staff (sold as a "good job to get in Ops community"), no strat on last OPR despite running (and being recognized for) several DoD level programs, and CGOTY for div, blah blah blah. Not selected by recent DT for a leadership position which I'd openly been asked about by the Generals where I wanted to go. Absolutely zero feedback about OPR, or future. Actually, that's not true, I was told first that "someone didn't take care of me" and then I didn't have enough high level strats, so it was inappropriate to get a NAF strat yet. Motherfuckers think I'm inclined to have a "all others" kinda career, they're sorely mistaken.

Always funny to me that we'd have junior cyber Amn crap on our admin troops when the admin bros/chicks do that above. Getting CSS' back, and admin troops actually knowledgeable about ops/ops support is one of the best things the service has done to fix Skeletor's nonsense.

Merry Christmas you filthy animals. A mod should probably move this conversation to the Cyber thread, but I'll give my brief thoughts here, then expand there if moved. No, cyber should not be a separate service right now. Probably not for another decade. Most of the Sr Leaders are former Comm-O's who jerk themselves off about being operators, without instilling operational discipline in their units. You ever have a flying Grp/Sq CC not do what was ordered by an operational CC/NAF and not get kicked in the dick? Happens all the time in Cyber. I will say Ops is Ops, and a Ops minded cyber-bro should be able to figure out how to plan/lead a conventional mission, just the same for a flier planning a cyber mission. I've watched Wedge do it, it's about enabling the team...not the individual. Cyber is very much a team sport. As is now, Offensive/Defensive Cyber as a SOCOM like force makes most sense. DoDIN-Ops (AFNET) needs to die in a fire. Our cybersecurity is both better (AF operators) and worse (PMO's, acquisitions) than you'd think. Most younger cyber guys thinks it needs to be a separate force, most older don't seem to care. There's a good band of us around the '07-'11 year groups that see it the way I mentioned above.

How was Skeletor good for the service at large?

Concur with all this. Had mine done and to the front office for rack/stack in line with normal AF bureaucracy timelines: Grp 2 months early + Wing 2 months early = on time. RUMINT - had a local leader sit on the board and that's what was mentioned as well. ALL records were reviewed for each member. This is happening more and more in Cyber as well. We've seen a ton of LtCol's/Col just bounce. Once guy in the run for much higher rank punched as a 1-star (family issues), same for a Col offered a Wing. Former Sq CC just made O6, frocked 6 months early and she said she was very non-competitive from a historical Comm/Cyber perspective. Our promotion rates are discussed as awful overall compared to the rest of the AF and historically. I have no proof of it, however a former CSAF mentioned it on a "listening tour." So the question of retention for us, doubly so with a very high proportion of prior-E's, is do you want to stick around and hope all that gets corrected? Doubtful, we're now seeing more Intel take over cyber Ops spots and we've got a MAF guy (not hating) slotted to CC one of our Ops Sq's. That's not even considering how bad Big Blue FUCKED the enterprise from about 2009 until last year.

This is no shit what the Army is doing with their cyber operators. 2-yrs+ training, finally MQT/IQT...stand road guard detail for Christmas. Our 1B4's which are our enlisted ops dudes is about the same.

I'd like to think this too. But in reality it's going to take that reformer, and a War with lots of needless, bureaucratic deaths to get them through and actually do something.

Dependent rate down $3 in my neck of the woods, but w/o dependent rate up $18. Seems this Mark1 might be on to something... Strangely the non-prior O-3's got a $20 raise (both of value/not-value). Guess I'm worthless to the org.

NFL and NASCAR declining? IMPOSSIBLE!

You can check here to see if you got credentials out in the wild - https://haveibeenpwned.com/ I've only got 1 set rolling around, from Disqus...notably from when I was commenting on JQP's site.

That derisive tone about it being a retention issue prove otherwise. Grow up and realize you have a bias in this issue, otherwise you wouldn't be so talkative on the subject. But, playing along--how about divorced dudes who now get dependent rates for their kids (who mostly don't live with them)? Technically they're single and "worth more" to the service...but get money of those "of less worth." You have no idea what they'd offer unless you were involved in the hiring process, or someone spoke out of turn. Person might negotiate for less not knowing what they could demand == more value for company. Or, perhaps they have a particular skill/experience and could negotiate for more. And you had no say in those moves? The company thrust it upon you as a requirement you were indentured to fulfill? Thank you for your sacrifice.

Are you sure?

Star Wars was pretty good. Go see it.

New AFSPC brown-noise solicitation message flying around. Seem like appropriate use of a Patch. #2) Aide to the Commander- Estimated start date: Jun/Jul 18- Desired rank: Capt/Maj- Desired AFSC: Any- Additional requirements: Weapons School graduate, SOS complete and on track for IDE

Huh.. for the Kindle and Mass Market version Horse Soldiers has been renamed to "12-Strong." Thanks for the list.

Same.

Can't speak for the pubs/flying pieces. But these EFB's are a wonderful threat vector.

Was not, Sir. I just love posting the video.

How many for cyber? We're having our own retention issues, and to get the cool training you incur a significant ADSC. We've also got our own devil's-money bonus. So I wonder what the pull in is given the drops announced in the other thread. We just finished our Vet day activities, and the number of people excited to celebrate being out was interesting. Not a lot of the nostalgia I saw from vets when I first joined. Though, I'm older and could be jaded.

Turn off NCIS grandpa...