Hacker

You do -- it's your rating and experience as a pilot. Dunno about you, but I didn't really study the pay chart that closely when I was hungry to join the AF and become a pilot. In fact, quite the opposite, at the time I knew very well that there were much more lucrative jobs as a civilian pilot...but that wasn't the motivator to join. I highly doubt that if you froze/reduced pay, there would be a significant decrease in the talent walking through the door. There will still be a long line of very motivated and capable people hungry to serve their country and have the opportunity to get the finest flying training and the opportunity to fly high performance iron. Ultimately, it's still 'the service', and none of us joined to get rich.

This was what I was getting at.

It was actually Testors that originally came out with the F-19 model in the late 80s...

Where in the military is a copilot called a "First Officer"?

What is a "First assignment FO"?

Just to set this straight, all it means is that he was assigned to a unit which received an AFOUA with Valor. Everyone who was at Al Udeid for the opening shots of OIF in spring '03 was awarded this -- they did not have to see any enemy action to wear it, since it was the Wing that it was awarded to. There's nothing deceptive or disingenuous in any way about his wearing of it.

Another great one from the line of thought that says, "if you can keep your queep straight, the tactics will take care of themselves."

Might as well pay up now, then. There ARE DFCs for merit. There ARE DFCs for heroism that do not have a V device (although a 2004-ish CSAF memo retroactively authorized these to have a V device). There ARE DFCs for valor that have a V device.

I would pay good $ to watch that Captain walk down Disney Drive at BAF and render that perfect, crisp salute 69 times, each way, on his way to the BX and back. Then I'd love to debrief his salutes at the end of that journey that were too 'dead fish'.

As much as I'd like to find some reason to make fun of the kid in that story, I can't. Quite the opposite. I'm proud to know that, regardless of how cynical I get about the Air Force sometimes, there are young GIs like him who will do the right thing when the time comes. Going out to fight on the line in PT gear with your M9?? Fuck yeah! Git Some! Helluva lot better than the guys in IBA and K-pots cowering under desks during the IDF attacks.

The AW forum just has a very low threshold for idiots, and they relish the opportunity to ban folks who march into that territory. It's quite a sport over there.

FWIW, this is part of the PM exchange I ended up having with Mouse regarding "the point" of IFF and his criticisms of the current program:

Too bad this isn't AirWarriors....else we'd see the "banhammer" out soon.

Originally, it was 3 (RND, CBM, SPS). In 2001, RND and CBM consolidated to VAD. The 2005 BRAC eliminated VAD, and returned the 49th to CBM, the 435th to RND, and opened up the 434th at DLF and the 3rd at END. That was a BRAC decision, not a USAF decision. There were LOTS of USAF people who opposed moving IFF from VAD, and who opposed opening up the two new squadrons -- but it had to be done, anyway.

Correct - overseas long tours do not reset the overseas short tour date.

By "the OP", do you mean Gen Welsh? Seems to me that he's thinking more clearly than any other 4-star in the USAF in the last several years by even acknowledging the problem and actually asking for inputs from the rank and file.

"AIR POWER IS THE POWER OF AIRMEN" That is all.

https://www.armytimes.com/mobile/index.php?storyUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.armytimes.com%2Fnews%2F2011%2F05%2Farmy-mission-helocopter-was-secret-stealth-black-hawk-050411%2F Current conspiracy theory, naturally, has to include Groom Lake...

This one was too funny and well written not to pass on to the rest of the baseops.net communuty. This could probably go in the "Leadership at the Deid" thread, or even the "I Hate Reflective Belts" thread, but since it is from Iraq and deals with combat showers, I figgered I'd piss the mods off and start a new thread for it. Names obscured to protect the innocent.

Well, it was a couple-year window at least ('03 to '06 ish, IIRC). For all the time that I've been in previous to that, it was standard-standard just like it is now. Yup, I was one of those dudes....I squandered a perfectly good AETC assignment where I could have been busting out ACSC and a Masters with relative ease, then when the policy changed I had to do both of those while in an operational assignment at the base with my MWS' highest OPTEMPO. FML. That was the point where I realized I needed some clarification on which of those 'vectors' from senior leadership I was supposed to follow and which I was supposed to scoff.

The policy was something on the order of, "if we want you to have an advanced degree (including PME), we'll send you to school to get one as your duty", not "we'll send everyone". Big difference.

The UK has been slowly gutting their defense forces for a decade...and with results that have positively reinforced those political decisions. Unfortunately, nobody stepped back to look at the big picture. Sort of like what the US is doing.

This was Jumper's strategy...but TMike erased that strategy. At least someone at the top thought that was the right line of thought enough to actually make it USAF policy for a little while. Long enough to screw some officers at promotion boards years later, at least, heh heh.

So, which academic institute of higher learning will not teach AF leaders that they have to crush AF heritage to move forward? Which one will teach them to stop being a bunch of PC pussies and allow the ACTUAL warrior spirit to grow instead of being beaten into their perverted warrior-monk image? That's where I want 'em to send our senior leaders after they close AWC. Serious note: which academic institution has any concept of application of airpower? As retarded as AWC might be, it's still dedicated to singularly producing airpower leaders. Although I'm sure ERAU, UND, and Perdue think they'd be perfect replacements...just ask one of their grads!

The flyby was planned. All the details that normally go into this Group's planning process for flybys (which that squadron does literally dozens of every year) were planned. The plan was briefed to the CC and the OG prior to leaving home station. Leadership did not attend the flight brief because it took place as part of a long multi-day cross country. Plenty of people "thought to ask" what the plan was. It's a big stretch to go from one of the flight members saying that #1 "didn't give them a target altitude" to your feeling that "it wasn't planned and there was no oversight". After the flyby, since the SQ/CC wasn't on the cross-country trip with the formation members, how else would you have suggested he ground them other than via telephone?