JS

Or that rank amongst Lt's is like virtue amongst whores.

Yes! I think I, and several other people have posted numerous times in this thread confirming that they are approving TA for a second master's degree in IR or a foreign language. Yes, someone on this board (ME, at least) has been approved for a second master's degree in IR (Troy University). Check out this thread for details and policy letters on getting approved for TA toward a second master's degree. Also, check out the several of the posts on page 15 of this thread too for first hand accounts and tips on getting TA approved for a second master's degree.

TA for a second Master's degree (in international relations or a foreign language) is definitely legit and is happening. In case nobody mentioned it, check with your Ed Center for details. They can get the approval from SAF/IAF and then process the TA requests.

I have also found that a lot of the controllers, while pretty capable and good guys/girls, don't really have much of a clue about flying operations of the aircraft themselves. For example, as a Herk guy, I had to spend about five minutes trying to convince one of the controllers that there are other planes in the Air Force inventory besides the C-17 that can reverse taxi. They didn't want to take my word for it at first. They also don't really know why some of the Bones or tankers spend a few more minutes on the runway while the Herks and DV planes seem to hit the runway rolling for takeoff. Not saying that the SOF job should be to educate the controllers on reverse taxiing, but I found it enlightening learning about their jobs just as they seemed interested in mine.

I am not necessarily disagreeing with you, but what makes you lean toward thinking that a Norwich degree would look better in the civilian world as compared to a Troy degree or an AMU degree in a subject like international relations? I mean, it is not like we are talking about top-10 schools in business or engineering. I would guess, and this is just opinion obviously, that an employer looking at the resumes of two guys applying for some sort of management job at a Fortune 100 company (not necessarily related to international relations), would probably not put much weight in either degree. Now if you are applying for a diplomat job with the State Department, maybe a different story. I only ask because I strongly considered the program at Norwich but didn't feel that the cost/benefit payoff would be there if I ever got a "normal" job on the outside.

Ha ha. Funny shit. But seriously, is that 1800 local or zulu time?

I apologize for derailing the thread from a comparison of guard/reserves versus active duty to one comparing experience levels of tanker/airlift guys. I agree with some of the previous posts that the instruments approaches are not the problem - anyone on this message board with wings on their chest is expected to be able to safely and properly shoot any standard instrument approach into any airfield, worldwide. In my opinion, an instrument approach is an instrument approach is an instrument approach. It is after the approach and landing that an experienced crew will really earn its money. For example, if I were working in the planning cell at the Air Mobility Division, and we had an injured C-130 with a few legs of their mission that needed to be picked up by another airlift asset, and there happened to be a tanker available to do that mission, I would be hesitant to task that tanker to pick up those legs. Although tanker crews are totally capable of carrying passengers, pallets and patients, if I were to assign a KC-135 to leave their main base in "Southwest Asia," drop off passengers and pick up pallets at airfield #1 in Afghanistan, head to airfield #2 in Afghanistan to pick up a few aeromed patients, and then head back to the main base, I think the crew would have difficulty completing that mission (on frag) if the AC had only been to 5 fields in his career, with 4 of those fields being stateside. Put another way, would the crew know about the local quirks with the ATOC guys at airfield #1? What would they do about the notorious fuel delays at airfield #1 that would put them behind frag? What about the well-known aeromed reg-quoter, mission inhibitor at airfield #2? How about the airfield diagram that looks like it was written with a crayon at airfield #1 or the local fighter procedures that affect your taxing and parking at airfield #2? Or hell, what about the ATOC gross stupidity and double-blocking debacles at the main base in Southwest Asia? I could go on, but you get the point. My solution, I think sending a McConnell tanker crew to spend the night at C-springs, pick up the Air Force band to bring them to Travis, and then drop off a few pallets of B-1 parts at Ellsworth on their way back to McConnell would only make them a better crew able to handle the intricacies of dealing with all of the ground issues you can run into in the sandbox. I know some will probably argue "well, that is not the job of the tanker, we are there to pass gas and land at our 1 airfield." And they would have a point. A typical tanker crew has a helluva lot more experience passing gas to fighters than a Herk or C-17 does, but tankers are qualified to carry passengers, remain overnight at strange fields, carry pallets, and so on. That is why I think off-station training and dealing with all of the associated ground agencies on the road is an important set of skills to add to the airlifters experience.

Wow! That sucks. The totally explains why the tanker guys that come to the Herk world or even the T-1 world totally suck (just kidding, sort of). On real-world missions in the box we usually hit around 5 different fields per day, not to mention the 5 different fields I went to last week on my two local training sorties. I am not totally familiar with the tanker world, but a good friend in a tanker unit was quite astonished that we have UPT-like cross countries where we can just take a plane, if is not allocated to some aeromed or army training mission, and go wherever we want as long as it meets the UPT standard of being a military base or joint-use base. This opens up the game to everywhere like Nashville, Birmingham, or Minneapolis international airports to smaller places like Stewart airport in NY and certain exotic Navy bases on the different coasts. I was actually kind of shocked that they did not allow the tanker to explore the country on weekend training missions - especially considering that it is a self-sufficient aircraft in terms of not needing a power or air cart. Heck, you can even tanker (taboo word, I know) gas to the point where you wouldn't even need to fuel up at an overnight stop. My bud told me that they have been trying to work deals like that to broaden their training horizons, but have run into some resistance. In Rainman's honor, I will blame the whole lack of experience in the tanker world on that omnipresent group of assholes known as "the leadership."

This has been a great discussion with some great points. I think you might be lumping the that KC-10 experience with the rest of the ARC world. I don't know how the KC-10 guys get away with that, but the ARC Herk world is a lot more intense. After this next trip to the shit/sandbox, I will have deployed with the Reserves every year for the past 4 years. Only one of them was a 30-day "stint." My understanding (and personal experience) is that AFRC is rotating reserve units on 120-day rotes with no chance of breaking it up into smaller chunks for the full activations. The "voluntary" rotes can be broken up into 60-day chunks (sometimes), which makes it about a 90-day total activation for our guys after you count processing on both ends of the world and travel time. I am not trying to say that we pull the same weight as active duty - we don't. But we also don't get paid the same or have the same benefits/retirement as active duty. As others have mentioned, it is very difficult to manage a "real" job in addition to spending a few weekdays and two weekends a month at the unit. I guess it all boils down to each unit or airframe being different. If you really want out of active duty and want the Gucci lifestyle of little to no deployments, then perhaps the KC-10 units are for you. But if you think that by joining an AFRC or ANG Herk unit will mean you won't deploy - think again. Again, in my opinion, this is the trade-off for reservists not being compensated for full-time work. I look at the good deals (and I agree that it seems that the current strategy is to get ARC guys to volunteer for exotic TDY's and then simply force active duty to take the shitty ones) as sort of a consolation prize for not being able to access my retirement until I am 60 (or 59 and some change now, I guess).

Although I have not quite been in for 10 years yet, my plan is to finish the marathon. Another thing to keep in mind is that the 10 year clock starts ticking after UPT. For me, it was almost two years by the time I was done with commissioning, casual (8 months), and then UPT. That makes my minimum commitment time about 12 years. I might think differently in a few more years, but it seems like it would make sense to finish the last 8 when I get to that point.

Yup. Pretty straight forward. Follow the instructions on the letters to get it approved by SAP/IAP and eventually get with your education office (they will have to manually enter the courses into the vEducation area of the portal since the portal won't allow you to apply for TA on a second master's). Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Just curious for any bums out there - do you have any type of disability insurance for your bum pay? I am not talking about basic Tricare health insurance or VA disability after retirement, I am talking about protection for your income (assuming you make a living as a guard/reserve bum). Just thinking with kids and such now a part of life, what would happen if I got into a car wreck on my civilian time away from the unit and was unable to fly (and thus work as a bum) for say, six months? At my unit, bum life is good as far as pay and the flexibility to take time off whenever, but I hadn't really thought through where my paychecks would come from if I were unable to bum at the unit.

Google Chrome is pretty neat - and a little faster than Firefox. I got out of the loop in 3 seconds because Chrome gives you an option to cancel the script.

Yeah, over the past few weeks there have been a ton of swapouts. The newness of some of the guys is laughable. A few weeks ago, I heard two guys talking to each other out loud in the Cadillac about how astonished they were that there were no toilet paper holders and that that TP was sitting on the floor or just hanging from the coat hanger. Amateurs!!!!! Then, the other day, I saw a dude moseying around from shower stall to shower stall looking for just the right one. Amateur rookie!!!! With a few weeks of experience he will know that 3 Left, in the back, is a pretty good one. 1 Left doesn't work, 2 Right the door doesn't shut, 2 Left looks good, but the head is cracked and the water trickles out, 4 Right's main water handle just spins freely, so it is hard to get the right temperature, 4 Left has one of those half-wide curtains where the don't ask, don't tell dudes can check you out, 5 Right has a broken door...well, you get the point. My prediction is that the "non-compliance rate" of reflective belts, etc. will be dismal with the new guys there and there will be another major crackdown in the chow hall in the coming weeks.

Here is another clip from a few seconds before the one posted above. Sorry for the horrible quality, but it is a recording of my computer screen because I could not transfer it from the government computer to my personal laptop (for those at the Deid, most of the skit is now on the Media Web under Movies...Comedy...Mancia [name spelled wrong]). For those who can't access Youtube or can't make out the wording, here is a transcript: "Hey, what's up with having to wear the fucking retarded reflector shit???.......[solid 15 seconds of screaming and cheering]........I'm going to get in trouble for it, but this is for you. People tell me all the time, 'thank you for saying the shit we want to say, but can't," this is for you.......FUCK THE VICE COMMANDER FOR DOING THAT STUPID SHIT!.......[clip ends with screaming and cheering of thousands of fans]" My only problem with the whole thing is that somehow the Vice Commander took the fall for a policy that I have personally heard the general take credit for on three occasions. Oh, well, I guess it is the sign of a true fast-burner in the Air Force to be able to come up with such a morale-killing, stupid policy and then let someone underneath you take the blame for such stupidity.

Update from the other night. The base was visited by Carlos Mencia, Jesse James, and Kid Rock as part of the "Tour for the Troops" program. The concert and performances were awesome, but the highlight of the night was Mencia's comedy skit at the bra. For those who are not familiar with him (I had never heard his work before), he is an extremely politically incorrect, f-bomb dropping comedian who apparently does comedy skits on HBO. Word on the street is that he is very "intelligent," with a college degree in engineering. Apparently he did a lot of research for his material, and was evidently tipped off to the goings on here at the Died and had read the AF Times article on reflective belts. When the skit started, he had the Vice Wing CC (of infamy from the emails he sent out requiring guards be posted at all Services facilities to check for reflective belts - see posts a few pages ago) a few rows back off the left side of the stage, and the general (wing commander) was in the middle of the crowd, by the second support pole for the bra tent. Anyway, his opening salvo unloaded a several minute, curse-laden, lambasting of the stupidity of the reflective belt policy and several personal attacks on the Vice Wing CC himself. I have a short 1-minute portion of the attack on video, and am working on getting other portions of it. For those who can't access youtube from a government computer, here is a transcript: Just before this video clip started, he called the Vice Wing CC a fucking idiot for having such a stupid fucking policy in a place with very few vehicles that you can see coming from "8 miles away." As he pointed right at the Vice CC he said (and I quote from the video) "It's not like there's a lot of traffic in this bitch! By the way, you know what, Vice Commander, what you should do is get rid of that fucking rule, and here's why - if anyone does get hit [by a car,] they're fucking dumb and shouldn't be here in the first place..... [interrupted by several seconds of 2,000 people screaming and cheering]....even if you were actually walking with someone who was mentally retarded, he would be like [in a typical retarded, Corky-sounding voice] 'hey, that car gonna be here soon'" He later took another stab at the fag belt policy by talking about how impressed he was with the troops because we always follow orders - even the stupid reflective belt rules. After that, Kid Rock gave the performance of a lifetime, and he too cracked a few jokes about the stupidity of the reflective belts. I believe he said something to the effect of how great it was to see all of us out here serving, and that he couldn't miss seeing us because of all of the reflective belts. Next Kid Rock said "the general told me I could have anything I wanted out here, well here is what I want. General, I think you should lift the 3 beer limit here." I must say, I am going to leave this place with good memories of combat missions, reflective belt stupidity, and vivid memories of the other night. It may sound kind of funny, but it was truly a night for the ages here at the Deid to see a professional comedian personally call out the Vice Commander and his reflective belt policy as thousands of cheering airmen screamed with delight, followed by Kid Rock echoing the same thoughts on the stupidity of the reflective belt debacle. Some pictures from the event:

6.1.2. Eye protection: Eye glasses, sun glasses, and ballistic glasses (clear or tinted) must meet the requirements of AFI 36-2903. The glasses may be worn with or without restraining straps. At no time will sunglasses hang around the neck, be worn/positioned on top of/on back of the head, or hang from any uniform, including the PT uniform. 6.1.2.1. Sunglasses/ballistic eyewear will not be worn indoors, unless directed for safety reasons (protective eyewear is mandatory in the BPC racquetball courts). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not sure how long that has been in the reg, but guys a while back were just wearing their sunglasses inside to avoid getting bitched at, so that is why they changed it, in my opinion. One small thing that a lot of guys are doing now is just hanging their sunglasses from their ID holder (if they have those ID holders that hang from your neck). It says the sunglasses can't hang from your uniform, so that complies. I also found another little trick that is bound to get some attention some day. When I workout, I run my earphones underneath the collar of my t-shirt and have it drop out at my waist to go into my MP3 player. At the top of the headphone cord, there is a plastic piece that holds the right and left earphone together. When not listening to music, I can pull the headphones tight to my neck and hang my glasses from it. With a quick glance (or even a sustained look), it appears the glasses are hanging from my t-shirt and will surely elicit a response some day. Sorry, but I get bored and have to keep these ass-faces on their toes. And lord have mercy on the sole of the douche who tries to correct me on a reg that is not a reg.

There are three sides to every story. The O-6 who was involved and who told me the story said that the Major was asked nicely (4 times) to correct his sunglasses. He caught an attitude with the SSGt and then the LtCol, he refused to show give either of them his ID card, and eventually the cops were called. The version I heard was that he was "sent home," but I assume that is what they say about everyone who get into a little trouble. I am no defender of the shoe clerks, but if a first sergeant comes up to me, which happened to me a few weeks ago, and says (while I am in PT gear and he has no idea what rank I am) "Sir, can you please take your sunglasses off your head?" You really don't have much recourse besides the fact that you are wrong, he is right, and he is being professional just like he was told to be.

Is it normal to not be able to see my SDP statement more than 2 months after I initially deposited money into it? I know the $10K went somewhere, because it was deducted from my bank account, but mypay says I don't have an SDP statement.

Just talking in general about the violent crackdown on the passive resistance to the reflective belts - the major getting arrested and sent home, the LT getting the tray ripped out of his hands (which, by the way, the above mentioned O-6 who I quoted said that never happened. In true Stalinist form, that event has been erased from history - sorry Disco_Nav), the Marines not getting served food, the airmen getting denied use of the Caddilac for not having a reflective belt on, etc.

Same ass-clownery as always out here. I guess it seems that the hyper-zealous enforcement of the gay belts has subsided a little, but I did see someone get thrown out of the gym the other day (not sure why, it didn't have to do with reflective belts, and surely it wasn't because his shirt wasn't tucked in. Maybe he was out of uniform in a subtle way that I did not notice). During the Tiananmen Square incident here a few weeks ago, I asked a reliable higher-up (O-6) why the sudden violent crackdown on reflective belts that resulted in physical contact and people getting arrested. He said it was because they did a "survey" and found that there was a 40% non-compliance rate of wearing the reflective belts around the parking lot in front of the chow hall. I personally find it hard to believe, unless they are talking about civilians too. So I guess compliance is back up, and the REMF's have won another victory - until next time. Bottom line, Baseops.net is not blocked, the commanders call was not about this website or reflective belts (it was about other criminal incidents that he felt should be highlighted to the entire wing officer corps), and it is the clown show as usual at the Deid.

Along the lines of posting on this board and facebook etc. – I would recommend that people (especially at the Died) not post to this site from a government computer. I have heard higher-ups mention this site, along with “the blogs (presumably the militarytimes.com blog about reflective belts).” I have also seen emails from the shirts to commanders reporting back the goings on of the internet and this site in particular. A friend is a computer guy and he has noticed that when you log into a government computer at the Deid (probably the same back home), they run some scripts that start a hidden keylogger and remote viewer that allows the comm guys to see what you see on your screen. This stuff has been out there for years, no doubt, but think how easy it would be to track down someone who posted something remotely controversial or sensitive on this site. The general simply asks the comm guys to find out the local IP address and CAC card associated with that login for anyone who accessed 216.246.55.211 (this website’s address). From there, they simply run the remote viewer and see that login “JS” is being viewed on a government computer that was logged on by by a CAC card registered to Major Hugh G. Rection. From there, the keyloggers have already recorded everything, and it is an easy kill – all with comm tools (pardon the pun) that have been in place on the network for years. The wifi at the Deid is presumably more difficult to track since you don’t have to register your laptop. If a crime was committed, of course, they could figure out the MAC address of the perpetrating computer, and very easily figure out which access point that computer got its IP address from. With that information, they can start searching computers located near the trailer with the wireless access point that gave the culprit its IP address. Not rocket science, but they would have to actually check your laptop computer for your MAC address to attribute anything to you, so I only post to this site from my laptop computer on the wireless here at the Deid. Unless I commit a no-shit cybercrime, I don’t foresee anyone physically searching my laptop computer. Just some food for thought for the LTs who are calling out generals, or the captains who are posting official emails from leadership on this forum.

<br /><br /><br /> The Officer's Call actually had no mention of reflective belts, PT gear, or any of the other general buffoonery associated with the Deid. He basically mentioned a few internal Deid issues (that probably shouldn't be discussed here), and reminded the officers to keep up the good fight, maintain integrity, and set the example. Really wasn't as big of a deal as initially thought. If anyone really wants to know more of the boring details, please private-message me and I can elaborate.

THIS IS THE BASE COMMANDER OF AL UDEID TRANSMITTING FROM A REBEL'S ACCOUNT. THE REBELLION HAS BEEN CRUSHED, AND ALL REBELS HAVE BEEN LIQUIDATED. SLAM 1 OUT.