FourFans

...so long as you're looking for hostile re-naming fodder...

Do we need to run a drive like this in support of @Biff_T and @filthy_liarfighting each other? Let me know where to send the Fireball.

I've been personally wrestling with this. The answer for traditional reserve retirement: As a TR, if you retire with paperwork that says O-4, you get O-4 pay when you finally get it at age 60. My MFP troops were kind enough to show me that in writing...no idea the reg...to make sure the fight was worth fighting. After being twice passed over, I pinned on O-5 shortly before separating for the AFRC (long story). Fast forward to me with 20 good years (a few years after joining the AFRC) and ARPC started claiming that my DOR was my accession date into the reserves, NOT my actual DOR when I pinned on while on AD. Our personnelists were entirely perplexed, but it turns out that they can't call ARPC directly. Yes, you read that correctly. There is no pipeline for base level AFRC personnelists (at least mine) to contact ARPC directly. They had to submit a trouble ticket, just like I did. They got the same answer I did: "you need 3 years TIG" with no reference or reg that states your DOR becomes your accession date. Four months and much pain later: My personnelists finally found the AFI/AFMAN/REG that states with no break in service, you keep your original date of rank. POOF! Magically my retirement order is published to retire as an O-5 at my originally requested date. ARPC is a completely corrupt clown show run by GS's who will suckle at the teat until they literally die, all the while stating as "fact" what is actually "I think I remember from back in my day the reg said..." Two UTA's left.

Hey look: Science from the Gold Standard of study review organizations. BL: there is absolutely no evidence that masking limits the spread of viruses. Weird when science backs up common sense. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

Neither do I. But I met an Eagle driver once.

Try this phrasing on for size: Forcible insertion of anything into a 14 year old against the will of the parents or the child. Yeah. I get that vibe too. Apparently "No" doesn't mean "No" if COVID is involved.

I heard it was called snoodling...

Wow

In my defense...that statement is also true in many scenarios...

I think I disagree on that...but it's a near thing. I don't think a well regulated militia has ever been used to enforce the 1st amendment...or any other for that matter...in modern history. I think show-of-force has been an excellent use of the 2nd amendment recently. The deterrent influence of a good man with a guy gun cannot be understated. There is also the tactical truth that only a good man with a gun stops a bad man with a gun, but that's a low-level fact that rarely actually changes real legislation. Beyond that, I don't have the history data on whether or not an armed American citizen force has ever stopped or reversed a federal or state law enforcement action in modern history. Our citizens simply don't go armed and organized toe-to-toe with state or federal forces. In any case, I think freedom of the press and freedom of the speech is incalculably more important at a morale and practical level. History has shown that the ability to freely exchange ideas is immensely more powerful than the ability to display raw military force at least in the long game. Free exchange of ideas can in fact generate military force, even in an oppressed society.

Fascism according to Mr Webster: "A political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." Yeah, allowing constitutional carry is clearly aimed at putting nation and race above the individual (who can now carry his own weapon more easily) and DEFINITELY empowers a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader...who almost universally in history have depended on the removal private gun ownership. ...just on the off chance there's anyone here who cares about words and the means they have...

I stand corrected!

@filthy_liar Just so I've got this straight, you were an ALO in Oct 2001 who went into Afgh with the first wave. You claim to be a prior A-10 pilot, which means you're a early to mid-1990's commission - UPT - first assignment - then on to be an ALO. Following that, you had to immediately transitioned into B-1s as you were at Diego launching sorties into theater in 2005. With those combat feathers in your hat, you'd be a sure thing for O-6 in the early 2010s, and then possibly retire in the mid 2010's...which O-6's rarely do. So, as an ALO, a position attached at the hip to the DIV CG, command staff, and most definitely the DFSCOORD, who was your CG during the first push into afgh? I know that's decidedly not classified. The ALO never goes first unless the Div staff goes first, and they didn't. Most definitely not on 19/20 Oct 2001...even with that 30 minute time difference. Where were you during all that? What unit were you attached to? When you went into country, what herk unit hauled you in? I probably know them. You also claim to have been through Ranger School, when we didn't start sending ALOs through that school until...never...and didn't send hardly any AF (there were a very select few) through until post 9/11, most of whom were TACP and an enlisted troops. After that, how'd you transition over to the B-1 at a time when competent and experienced A-10 pilots were at a premium? Sounds like a rather unique path. You don't sound like the kind of guy that would be hungry to hear other peoples war stories with so many of your own to tell. The fact is: Your cavalier perspective and voice don't match any of the individuals I've personally known to tread the paths you claim to have tread. They were all solid, respectful, continuing-to-self-educate professionals. You come off as none of those. Those of us who've actually seen the elephant up close rarely come back story-thirsty. Prone to drinking...definitely. But never thirsty to relive most of those harrowing experiences in so slovenly and exaggerated fashion as you put on. Beyond that, you admitted to being banned here at baseops several times. Care to share the previous handles? If we're to have a solid thread of war stories, I think we'd all prefer to keep the BS out. You seem to fit that bill.

In other news: "Retired sweaty beats the tar out of retired force support flight commander."

I'm fairly certain all of us know exactly how you feel...

go re-read and edit your last posts...AFTER you sober up.

Fair enough. That's hardly the rule though. It still seems to me like taking gripes public via social media invariably generates unintended consequences. It's a sad commentary on the state of our leadership that toxic situations like that one had to make it to social media to get solved.

For example?

I don't disagree that the battle is uphill, however the alternatives of tolerating the BS (which will only lead to more BS for us to deal with) or worse, giving up and accepting the support noners running the wing, are completely unpalatable to me. I refuse. I'm not going to email Mini direct, but I sure as hell won't let the FSS queens walk all over me and the people I'm responsible for. It's up to operators to make sure the mission comes first. Yes, I want Mini to push for real changes in the system, but I'm certainly not going to wait for him or someone else to do it. I personally won't change the whole Air Force, but if enough of us stop putting up with the BS, we will. As to the Facebook activism, yeah, no. I've never once heard of someone changing anything for the good by spouting off on facebook.

...it's ok to make those generalizations if you're a boomer. Get off my lawn.

Agree. False. One man standing up for what's RIGHT turns into a bunch of men standing up for what's right. It's called leading.

Quoted for posterity, because I think you're 100% correct.

Let's get specific. Yes, I live in the airline pilot bracket of life, however I have friends spanning multiple demographics from church, parents from my kids school, and others that I've gotten to know throughout life. The friends I have in the low-income bracket are working at technical skills such as starter positions as plumbers assistants, handiman jobs, low-skill construction, and standard non-union service industries such as walmart, food service, and hotel workers, as well as primary school teachers (teacher's union...what a mess that is). Those are the ones I personally know and have heard their stories in significant depth. I also know that they need to get paid and almost all of them go to work if they can physically make it there. They don't skip work to spend money they don't have doing things that cost a lot of money. They do complain about the people you have observed, but from the people I've talked to, those are the exception, no the rule. I also know plenty of airline pilots who use every single sick day they have...and are rarely sick. So yes, that'll happen in work environments where sick-days are issued. People will ALWAYS game that system...but typically jobs with significant sick days are not low-wage. Conversely I've definitely observed a sincere decline in the quality and apparent availability of workers in the services field across the world (specifically hotels, restaurants, and entertainment industries), like you mentioned, ever since COVID got people paid to stay home. Welfare is a hell of a drug. But I don't think that's the standard, especially not in the US work force. We tend to notice the inconvenient things in life, not the worker who stocked the shelves or worked in the warehouse, and did so while feeling less than healthy. In general, people work to get paid so they can move up to better jobs. Judging the whole work force based on the lazy few standouts is false logic, and sounds a lot of like a grumpy old boomer perspective, such as "kids these days are all lazy and useless"...which is really helpful to absolutely no one. You've referenced "people you know". Care to elaborate the demographic you come from and what these people you know do for a living? Do you work in that field, or are your observations 3rd party? You also mentioned GS employees. Are you one? I ask because the view you're projecting, and your style of conversation, come across as rather cynical and founded on feelings, not facts. Telling people they are wrong with no factual or even anecdotal support is cute, progressive, and very millennial and all, but also entirely worthless. By the way, are you aware you can respond to multiple quotes in one post?

Working class America. Perhaps get out of your echo chamber.