Gravedigger

When this all kicked off several years ago that's pretty much what it was. I was at a briefing given by a cyber Lt Col talking about their CENTCOM ops, he said "we've got Mountain Dew and pop-tarts all over the place, but these kids are doing great work." They basically grabbed the nerdiest guys they could find to get this started. Built most of their own stuff, and started exploring capabilities. Like most things, Big Blue stepped in and tried to normalize it, and now you've got PE and theater degrees leading some of these mission areas. The problem has not gone unnoticed. Because it is under AFSPC, I have a feeling you'll be seeing a lot of changes coming. Space now requires a technical degree, the cyber A shreds will soon too IMO. Cyber WIC will be full up in the not too distant future. Undergraduate space training and IQT has been completely overhauled; it will be much more technical, in depth, and actually challenging. Cyber is changing too.

If you've got access to JWICS you can read more there. Even on SIPR you can find some decent info. Look on SKIWEB and read the daily cyber events summary, it's also posted in the AFSPC daily events. Skip to the parts that mention offensive cyber taskings. Like Gen Hyten mentioned, cyber is somewhat like space in the sense that it has taken a while to get the masses to appreciate the capabilities. There are a handful of very satisfied users out there, in both domains, but the general population only sees and hears about the mundane and boring things like email, migrations, servers being down and other crap like that. They think that defensive cyber ops is a firewall and anti virus software. It doesn't help that the Air Force calls the entire career field cyber ops, when in reality the majority of 17Ds are just normal comm people. Only a handful, relatively speaking, are engaged in offensive and defensive cyber operations (the A shreds). The major problem prior to this announcement was that international players are highly invested in cyber because it is literally the easiest and quietest way to inflict the greatest damage. It costs a lot of money and requires a ton of technology to take out a satellite, for example, particularly in GEO. But why take out a satellite when all that is required is to take out the ground segment through cyber attack. The same logic can be applied to a lot of things. Bottom line, this is a good move. I'm a bit of an AFSPC homer, but even still this needed to happen. What will be even more beneficial is when the flying community, space, and cyber all come together and truly understand the synergies that can be realized. The Red Flags that have attempted that are just barely scratching the surface. /rant

And the occasional breast exam on Channel 9. Fair enough.

Well we all know you can't spell manslaughter without "laughter."

It was on tosh.0 about a year ago. The remix is much better.

Seriously, I told every single Capt-select last year to register for the old course while they still could. Three easy tests with help vs. five tests, papers, and guided discussion? Those who didn't take advantage will regret it when they actually have to do work later.

Ahh so, you are correct. I swear I saw an email, or 600, about that too.

When I emailed my masters transcripts it took about 4 days before I saw it update on vMPF. Co-workers were all around a week. Several weeks seems like something is not right.

That's an awesome bike, but good God those tires are knobby. No wonder you get such poor gas mileage. How effective is that windscreen? That's the one thing my bike really needs.

My personal favorite is the Prisoner of War Medal, which falls directly behind Organizational Excellence and just above Combat Readiness and Good Conduct.

So what should they get? That's what this whole discussion is about. You said pilots who saved lives were given Air Medals. What about non-pilots? I never once said where it should fall in order of precedence, but I do think it is supposed to be difficult to earn and rarely awarded. You can't honestly believe that falls bellow the Bronze Star, which without valor means little more than you are a Lt Col or Chief that deployed. Also, this medal doesn't diminish the sacrifice of a guy that has been injured during combat, in any way. You guys are comparing apples to oranges here. A LOM doesn't diminish a Purple Heart's significance because they are completely unrelated. Where does an achievement that has a significant impact on the safety of our nation and/or saving the lives of others fall? To me, it's above a Bronze Star, and has nothing to do with valor. It is entirely effects-based.

My wife and I are dealing with this right now. I am PCSing to Virginia in June, and she was hired to be an instructor at USAFA after getting her masters. The Academy has approved her to go to a civilian school, however she has to find 100% funding for tuition. She has applied to pretty much every graduate assistant program at the school, but no luck so far. We have offered to pay out of pocket for the degree, offered to use GI Bill...no luck. Has to be funding from the school or she has to go to AFIT. No offense to AFIT, but I think the cadets would benefit a lot more if their instructors had masters degrees from...well, real schools.

It's always good to give praise in front of family members whenever possible (ceremony, tour, social function etc). Having the family feeling pride and recognition for the person's hard work and long hours goes a really long way.

Getting rid of Gen Kehler (missileer) and getting Gen Shelton (career space/astro engineer) was the best thing that could have happened to Air Force Space Command. Gen Chilton was a great leader and working some good things, until the missileers crapped on everything he accomplished when he left. In the last 2 years we have ditched flightsuits, cut ties with ICBMs, increased training requirements/difficulty, raised the standards for people entering the career field, and increased the capabilities we provide to the warfighter. Unfortunately, with the budget the way it is, it might be a while before you guys get your own MAJCOM. Hopefully though you will get some new leaders that understand cyber as an actual warfighting (even kinetically) domain. I do feel bad for you guys though, because now that missiles is its own AFSC and separate from space, they are going to be looking for a lot of places to send the excess missileers after their first assignment...guess which career field is looking for bodies?

Right, so you're cool with giving cyber dudes Air Medals then? I'm not arguing medal precedence here, all I'm saying is that there are people outside of the flying world that are making a direct and significant impact on the fight and there was not previously a way to recognize those unique contributions. Nobody is trying to take away or diminish medals awarded to flyers or ground troops. They are simply looking for a way to recognize a change in the way we fight.

Stuxnet is a good example, but there are many more directly related to saving lives and ending those of our enemies. Those of you in the know realize that cyber capabilities have directly saved the lives of boots on the ground in a very real way for the last few years. Your anger towards this medal in the name of injured soldiers shows that you have no clue what cyber tactics are being employed in theater today. I'm going to go ahead and say there are many cyber operators that have had more impact on saving a life than most pilots on this board. The same could be said for many RPA crews. But this medal isn't just for the normal stuff like killing bad guys and saving lives. This is for truly remarkable achievements in those domains. Seeing the things that don't qualify makes me very curious what will actually get the nod. Now if only there was some sort of medal for satellite ops...ehh, nevermind we don't actually work that hard.

So would Army Warrant Officers get a bachelors degree or masters after completing their flight training? In all seriousness, some of our space courses are accredited and count towards masters credits. We have a SrA that has 6 hours of masters credits for Advanced SATCOM and Advanced Orbital Mechanics and doesn't have CCAF yet. The solution would be getting each phase of training accredited and then you would only be left with a handful of courses remaining by the time you were CMR. I don't think any school, including Air University would say that UPT is equivalent to a complete degree program, but it should get you pretty damn close. ETA: I just realized I have been a baseops member for 9 years as of today. Damn. Cheers!

That's a sweet Ducati! I rode my bike to work for the first time this year and it was about 65 and sunny when I rode in; drizzle and 34 on the way home at around midnight. Wouldn't have been so bad but I have ventilated BMX gloves. Lesson learned, the weather in CO can be deceptive.

Damnit. Every time this thread is bumped, I'm hoping the post will say TIB has been canned. Such disappointment.

For the female types, Mike Hunt.

Changing your phone number blows. Hardly worth waiting a year or two for a phone upgrade.

Absolutely not true. Should be one of the many items on your list of PCS entitlements from vMPF initial assignment briefing.

Gents I'm just not sure how they will ever be able to completely drop AADs from records. Would they shut down AFIT and all other advanced degree programs? They would have to to hide degrees, otherwise the training reports still exist as does completion status. What about the many jobs out there that require a master's degree? How do they manage the people that have to have a masters or PhD for their assignment? I don't like the system and I despised wasting two years of my life on something I didn't want, but I honestly don't know if there is a reasonable solution.

Not going to comment on this case, but our military legal system is in need of an overhaul. I sat on a separation board that was very intense and involved a ton of emotional testimony and evidence and really messed up actions by the member's Sq/CC. The CC clearly had it out for this guy. Anyway, after several days of court and hours of reviewing evidence, we the panel unanimously agreed the commander was targeting this dude and that he should be retained. Two weeks later the CC denied reenlistment, that was it, dude was out of the Air Force. What a fucking waste.

I don't understand this issue. Are you guys not allowed/able/willing to just tell the culprits to stop sending you redundant and unimportant shit? Through the many years of reading this site, I have continuously tried to figure out why things like this and reflective belts and pushed up sleeves and unzipped pockets and sunglasses on foreheads and the like were so heavily enforced at flying bases. I have decided it is because of two things: 1. Pilots don't lead troops until too late in their careers 2. Support people at flying bases are jealous. It just blows my mind that the vast majority of you guys are pilots and officers stationed at bases commanded by pilots, in groups/squadrons commanded by pilots, yet you don't have the power to squash the queep. It's honestly unbelievable. MOTHERFUCKERS YOU'RE IN CHARGE. When we went from wearing flightsuits to ABUs last year, some new MSgt came on the ops floor and told all of the crewmembers to take off their fleeces indoors because it was not authorized. The mission commander (a Capt) then told the MSgt "no." The next week the Sq/CC sent out an email saying that members should wear their fleeces indoors if they were cold per Wg/CC direction and to exercise common sense on similar issues in the future. That was it. Not a word has been spoken of it since. Cool story, I know. My point is maybe the Air Force at large and particularly where you work doesn't have to suck so much. It really is a shame to see so many good people opting out because of shit that should be a non-issue. To compound that, if the climate is what it is now, what the hell is it going to be like with the good/sane people leaving? Freightening.