FourFans

Quote that for posterity...and all the new three letters have definitely learned that lesson...

H3 hearing waiver here. Yes. You can have HORRIBLE hearing and still be on flight status. The booth of pain is nothing more than a screener to see if you need to go to the real booth...which isn't painful at all. The real one is preceded by a device clammed to your head (not BQZip's mom) that plays sonar sounds and maps what your hearing should be. Then you sit in a real sound proof booth and you play the game again with high def speakers and not a headset, which tests the connections between brain and ear. The device maps what your hearing should be. The booth maps what your hearing is. The only reason they need the booth is to make sure your brain is actually receiving the inputs the ear is sending. Bonus: If you have a competent audiologist, the high def speaker test will have a "repeat this word" test, which is the result of a 30 year speech pathology study examining how hearing degradation impacts speech degradation as we get older. Basically what we hear turns into what we say, and it's very subtle. But once you hear it, you can't unknow it. BTW yes, at 40 years old I became a hearing aid recipient. Interesting sidebar: After having personally gone through that audiology and speech pathology wringer, it is clear that our current president relies on lip reading, an ear piece, and is stone cold Boomer def. The signs are easy to pick up once you know what to look for. It sadly explains some of his gaffed responses...(that, and the outright lies...fo example his academic record...no hearing problem there)...definitely not an excuse, and frankly a reason he shouldn't be in office...but I digress. God help us. TLDR: You can have horrible hearing. So long as you can still do your job (i.e. your D.O. signs of that you can still hear the RWR tones), you're good to go. H3 waiver takes about 3-4 months to process. If you lead turn it, you'll never leave flight status. P.S. Tinnitus gets you 10%. Hearing loss gets you 0% (but they pay for your hearing aids every 3 years...supposedly)

...so what we really need is an amphibious 10k forklift...

No. They don't. UPS just eased up on that too when they allowed beards recently. Of course UPS isn't hiring at the moment, but knowing UPS, that can change in a heartbeat.

Samuel L Jackson would be droppin the MFing Hades Bombs all over that bitch! How do we make this happen?!

Noted. I'll bet you're great at parties. Be aware that just because your perspective is jaded doesn't mean the rest of us have to adopt that perspective. Yes, the premise for going there was broken from the beginning. The leadership was, and is trash. Just because the task is misguided doesn't mean the workers have to be automatons with no judgment or power to alter the outcome towards good. Maybe you were. I'm sorry to hear that. I refuse to be and I did my best to make life and the mission better for everyone in my sphere of influence. You may have wasted your time, but I didn't waste mine. I know many who didn't. We are not defined by the negative view of the those who wasted their time.

Roth TSP 5-10% of base pay, 10% of bonuses. Split 70%/30%(ish) C/S funds. If not that, 100% C fund. Let it ride. If possible increase 1% a year until hitting 25% and she'll have million in that by the times she's in her late 30s. Should still be able to invest in the Roth IRA without hitting contribution limits (62,000 this year I think?). Definitely gotta get the match as bear minimum though. I know the 1% increase a year sounds like a lot, and it is, so that depends entirely on lifestyle/marriage/living situation etc. Just remember that you only get to contribute to the TSP while you serve, and the funds there are ones that financial analysts routinely drool over, especially the G fund for it's in-retirement value maintenance. A little deeper: The C is basically an S&P 500, which covers major US and is, effectively, international in diversification because all major companies on the S&P are international in scope and investment. Therefore no need for the I fund. The G/B funds are great for later in life, but unless in youth.

I have to agree with the point that if the gloves had come all the way off, killing those s-heads would have happened years faster than it did.

This. In spades. The work the military did within the absolutely abhorrent constraints our moronic political leadership imposed was as good as it could have been. It should have ended under GW. If not, it definitely should have ended under Obama. I'll not even address the absolute abortion that generates our current military and political 'guidance', as the word "leadership" in no way applies to them. Backing up even more, the concept of a "war on terror" was doomed from the very beginning, and never should have happened. Regardless of the idiots in charge, the boots on the ground did an outstanding job to get the job of identifying and suppressing bad actors as best possible within the shitshow that was the ROE. Amazingly, they were able to keep bad actors on their side of the ocean, even if they spread. They spread because they had to in order to come close to surviving. The destruction of ISIS was a fair enough example of having some of the gloves taken off. In any case, they were definitely kept on their back foot, and rarely had the initiative. It was not in vain. What's concerning to me is that we developed an amazing surveillance capacity to develop POL, and I can easily see those capabilities turned on our own citizens by a government that is quickly turning into a ruling class instead of one that derives it's power from the consent of the governed.

It wasn't for nothing. I'll come off the top ropes on anyone who says differently. For 20 years we kept the wolf on his side of the fence, and he didn't even THINK about making it to our front door. It was expensive in blood and treasure in modern historical terms, but unprecedently cost effective and unbelievably useful in long view historical terms. Not only did we secure our own and our allies safety for 20 years, we put the ever living fear of God in anyone who would challenge our military strength. More importantly, we can back up that fact. Unfortunately it feels like a waste, and I understand that...thoroughly...I was there, but it wasn't wasted. The mental and emotional health of the men and women who did the heavy lifting hinges on embracing the facts, not the feelings, and is far too important to simply throw out: It was all for nothing. That's a lie. Stop propagating it.

Wear sunscreen every flight, even if you wear a helmet and visor.

Is that 6.5?

I like where you're going with that...

Dude. It's the SQUADRON BAR. Get off your high horse and have a beer. Better yet, don't, and leave.

Oh no, you're entirely correct. He can. That's not what's happening right now though. The IRR is different than the Retired Reserve. There'd be a bloody mutiny if he tried to recall the retired reserve right now.

So, new English translation: If you RETIRED, You're good.

What are your long term goals? Screw the 5/10/15 year plan crap, what do you want to do in life? Do you want to be the best fighter pilot that's ever lived? Do you want to be a pilot that makes a difference in peoples lives? Does it not matter at all what you fly? This is important: don't hold back or logic eliminate something. What's your dream? You want to fly Marine One someday? You want to be the first man to step on Mars? What is it? All the numbers and all the rest need to be secondary to the driving force. When a measure becomes a target (such as the AFOQT), it's no longer an effective measure. What's your real target?

That's nice and all, but the platforms need to change with the environment. Permissive environment allows CAS, and I think we should keep the capability to do that, but specialization that doesn't take into account the evolution of new technologies is doomed to specialize perfectly to fight the last war. If there's something the US is great at, it's fighting the last war. I think the A-10 should say, but with an evolved role. Likewise the AC-130. I think we still definitely need them, but not as they were. Neither of those platforms are going into the shit on week one of a high intensity fight with China. Imagine an AC-130 over Ukraine right now...in YEAR TWO of that conflict. Any Gunship guys here care to speculate how that would go? I'm genuinely curious. I thought that was interdiction? Do you think we stealth platform could do that properly? F-35 simply doesn't carry the right load to make that worth it.

But, Gotta call a spade a spade: that sound's pretty pessimistic. If financial security and work-life balance were your known goals when you started...why the hell did you join the military? Let's be honest, we all made some rash quick decisions with long reaching consequences when were in our 20's. But I'd say you're doing yourself a disservice with that hind-sight 2020 type of analysis where you say you hated it but imagine that you didn't have a poor attitude. Being miserable is 90% perspective and attitude, and 10% situation. What you choose to focus on is what you focus on. If you focus on the suck, yeah, you'll be hate it. So say that mil flying was only worth it to get to your civilian job is really, really, jaded. If you were so unhappy, trust me, your peers knew it regardless of how much optimism you painted over it. We've all known that guy. I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it. I was there too, and yeah, there was a LOT of suck. But no amount of wallowing in misery ever improved it, so most of us chose to enjoy what we could enjoy, missed birthdays and holidays included. Frankly, dudes with the "get me out of here" attitude were the ones that poisoned the well and tended to bring morale down. I've worked with enough of them to know that invariably it's something else going on in life. Whatever it is or was, you're not alone.

It's all perspective. Most of us here are either in or past our mil experience, and it's always easy to poke holes after you've seen behind the curtain and understand all the mis-steps and mistakes that you did see until you were inside. In the end though, I think recruiting for the military will always be difficult. It should be. "If it were easy, everyone would do it" and we don't want everyone. In the same right, the US military has routinely produced men and women with strong character and solid teamwork skills. It has to do with volunteering to do for other what they won't or can't do for themselves. That take nobility. It always will. What is concerning is this line, which is ABSOLUTELY true. The quality of the members of the military will continue to be of noble character simply because it requires volunteering. The effectiveness of the force, however, can only get betrayed by it's political leaders...as happened in AFG and is still happening with the social woke experimentation bullshit. If someone is joining solely for the benefits, yeah, they're gunna be sorely disappointed that it's not as benefit rich as working for Apple, Google, or Starbucks. Frankly, it shouldn't be. Baristas and coders are in the business of service and providing a product for the prime purpose of getting paid to do so. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are in the business of visiting death and destruction on our nation's enemies. Hardly a comparison there. As to who someone becomes after serving even one four year stint, the results are undeniable. Sure, not all job skills transfer. But self confidence, decision making skills, and the ability to work in a team always do. At the heart of all this is that people need significance in their professional lives for them to care about what they do and who they are becoming. I've definitely seen that need in people I work with in my civilian job. Men and women want to know their work has made a difference. Military operators rarely come out the other end of their service with that problem. What we do matters and THAT is what will ultimately keep younger generation continuing to volunteer. There will always be bad leaders, politicians messing things up, and GO's that are completely worthless. That's what makes the good leaders stand out so much. The work will continue to be awesome and unique in ways that you simply can't get outside the military. I've been completely honest with my kids. They're not at decision time yet, but my 14 year old son has already expressed interest in the cool things about the military, and even expressed that he'd love to fly the A-10. I'm all about it, but I refuse to push him either way. The best any of us can do is be honest and transparent. The job will sell itself to those who we need. It always has, and always will. Hopefully, our political leaders will unass themselves, continue to fight for benefit improvement, and work for their people, instead of expecting their people to work for them.

Somehow, @BQZip01's mom was involved.

@HuggyU2 or @Scooter14

Had an interesting discussion with an Army 19D (scout) recently. He said they are quickly becoming of the opinion that they want to do their own organic "CAS" with mini drones and switchblade type munitions that are not reliant on GPS or any other agency. Makes sense for a scout to think that way. It spurs an interesting conversation: When do we decide that man-portable tech has advanced far enough that CAS is no longer a USAF fixed wing requirement? Look at Ukraine. Lots of videos of drones dropping small/accurate munitions and getting it done in a contested environment without CAS.

You should know: General Chang is actually James "Don't Call Me Jimmy" Slife

Got nothing to add, just wanna say that I admire you guys in what is a a sincere, intellectually honest, and thought provoking discussion. So refreshing