Mark1

9/10 trolling. Would give full marks except part of the duty of a troll is to remain clandestine for maximum impact. This one was a little too obvious. Still not too shabby, though. Crazy to think that such a great deal which is advertised direct to the inbox of tens of thousands of people who are eligible, and an assload more who aren't, still needs cheerleading in a forum like this to get takers. You'd think they'd be busting down the door to be first for consideration. Odd.

Yes, Obama's a shitbag. Just like 99% of all the other politicians we can't help but elect time and time again. He takes credit where none is due when it's convenient for him and deflects responsibility where he can. A month ago I heard Trump talking about how "tremendous" his new economy was, as if he turned a sinking ship around in a month despite the fact that nothing of any significance has changed and everybody on this board knows that even if changes were programmed, nothing in government gets done in one month. A few hundred point jump in the Dow Jones as a "thank god it's not Hillary" reaction is not an indicator of a healthy economy, which is about all you can attribute directly to Trump economy-wise thus far. Essentially, Trump was inadvertently praising "Obama's Economy". Nobody mentions the ridiculousness of it, because as disgusting as it is, it's the way politics works. And for the record, Obama doesn't deserve credit for the "tremendous" economy either...it runs in cycles and a president has limited power over it. Clinton got lucky to be in office for the .com boom so history generally sees him as good economically (this board is not a barometer of broad public opinion), but if he were instead around for the oil embargo there would have been no surpluses...it's mostly just luck. Yet they all claim credit when they can. Same as Obama taking credit for ending Iraq when he's in front of the right audience despite it not telling the whole story. I'm not talking in terms of what Presidents say: we all know it's horseshit. I'm talking about reality. Obama did not yank us out of Iraq purely on his own accord despite what Rush Limbaugh might want people to believe given the current state of the region and the convenience of putting that on a political rival. That's all I'm saying. With respect to the J.V. comment: Plenty of you will probably not appreciate this, but I just offer it as food for thought. It's partially speculation on my part but is supported by comments Obama made during his tenure. There's this sentiment that him refusing to use "radical Islamic terrorism" and other similar catchphrases was a sign that he was secretly a Muslim, or in bed with Islam, or just too politically correct to generalize about a religion. I don't think it's that simple (and again, he said as much many times). This is open to different interpretations, but many Muslims believe the Koran requires Muslims around the world (with some exceptions) to move to a Caliphate's territory, live within the state, and support it (to include fighting for it if necessary). The Koran also describes the circumstances leading to Judgement Day to include the establishment of a final Caliphate, it's expansion to Istanbul, and then it's ultimate collapse after meeting the armies of Rome. If you do enough mental gymnastics, you can make the case that IS is the final Caliphate, and the U.S. is a modern day "army of Rome" (read as a generic army of infidels from the western world). The mandate to travel and support the Caliphate only applies if the Caliphate is true and legitimate. An easy way for ISIS to establish it's legitimacy, at least among impressionable idiots looking for anything to believe in, is to propagandize the prophesy. ISIS wants us to get involved because, again with the mental gymnastics, they can point at our involvement and say, "See, there's the army of Rome from the prophesy...it's coming true, we're legitimate, and it's your duty to come support us." It won't convince many, but it takes a very small percentage of 1 billion to double your numbers. The President of the United States using language that insinuates we're at war with Islam helps with their recruitment. Everyone reading this will think, "bullshit", but we're not talking about convincing you. We're talking about convincing illiterate idiots with dead end lives and nothing to lose. Referring to ISIS as J.V. is an ill advised attempt to marginalize them because the more insignificant they seem and the less we care about what they're doing, the harder it is to leverage our opposition to them as a fulfillment of the prophesy. That means fewer recruits. It turned out to be a massive embarrassment for Obama, but I don't believe it truly reflected his impression of ISIS as nothing to be concerned about. I was "in the know" at the time and could see us making moves behind the scenes that do not square with a belief that ISIS was nothing to be concerned about, despite that being his public message for a short time. Of course you could say that whatever we were doing at the time was wholly insufficient and that would be true, but there was no political will or public support for the type of strategic operations that would have been necessary to slow ISIS's growth until the executions and Yazidi massacres made it to international television. Whether you agree with the stance or not, Obama opting not to use certain language was calculated, and not simply a symptom of him being a pussy. I would note that Trump's own national security advisor, Gen. McMaster, recommended he not use the verbiage. Because Mcmaster operates in reality, where Trump does what he thinks will get him the most retweets from the cast of Deliverance.

When he made the red line speech he may very well have meant it and been more than ready to destroy Assad if the line was crossed. A year later when it was, the situation was different. Yes, he should have never made an absolute statement if changes on the ground in Syria could cause him to go back on it, but once that mistake is made his willingness to eat his pride and move forward logically, at personal expense, is correct. And given current personalities in play it would be refreshing to know a person capable of that was at the helm. Leaving Assad in power in 2013 is not an acceptance of brutal dictators if they're able to keep the "peace" through violence. It's a calculus that a horrible, yet generally sane and rational dictator who occasionally gases his own people when he feels it necessary for his own survival is unfortunately better than a group of zealots that is literally attempting to burn all of civilization to the ground in order to usher in Armageddon and the end times. Yes it's a shitty decision to have to make, but in 2013 it was temporarily the best option available. Has that changed? Maybe. I don't have a fundamental problem with striking an airfield to slap the wrist of Assad over chemical weapons. What worries me is where it goes from here with a child in the White House if we don't get the response out of him that we want. With ISIS and the Russians in play the stakes are higher than just Syria's future. It's slightly off topic, but I will also note that Obama did not decide to pull out of Iraq. He executed the withdrawal plan established by his predecessor which the U.S. was legally bound to. Why is it that anyone wishing to attack Obama has amnesia with regard to this? Obama attempted to broker a revised SOFA in order to leave troops behind, but Malaki, a man which Bush installed against the recommendations of nearly everyone in his inner circle, refused to budge on provisions that remaining U.S. service-members be subject to Iraqi law and justice. Obama deemed that unacceptable, as I assume everyone here agrees he should have, and proceeded with Bush's withdrawal plan. If you want to make the argument that Obama could have made it happen if he had the will to do so, it's speculation, but fine. However, Obama did not just come into office and turn the light switch off on operations in Iraq. You'd better append Dubya's name in your examples above. Relating to your other example, its real easy to look back at something that never happened and reminisce about how great it would have been. The reality is that it probably would have been just as much a mess as we're dealing with now. If Schwarzkopf doesn't tell the Iraqis that they can fly their gunships at the treaty signing then the Shia uprisings in the south gain traction. At that point Iran throws their weight behind them in order to support their brethren and get rid of their arch enemy. At the sight of this, the Sunnis take up arms and you instantly have a civil war with the U.S. in the middle trying to regulate it. Sound familiar? Maybe we should have ripped the Band-Aid off back then, but to talk about it as if it would have been a cakewalk is naive. I would also venture to say that the population back home would have been much less tolerant of 5000 casualties after the expressed goal of liberating Kuwait was complete. In 2003, no matter how misguided, the population still had memories of 9/11 and the GWOT to justify our presence there. You didn't have that in 1991.

Jesus Christ what a face-palm. First, Obama's red line was not a threat to mildly hamper Syria's ability to employ chemical weapons. It was a threat to depose Assad or significantly degrade the ability of his administration to defend itself, effectively ensuring it's collapse. Everything that I said Obama could not do IN 2013 given the meteoric rise of ISIS. What percentage of sorties was Russia flying in 2013 when everything I referenced took place? One sentence says all would have been alright if we just destroyed Syria's aircraft. Very next sentence says the Russians are flying all the sorties anyway. I don't know how to parse this nonsense.

More like Obama made an idiotic move by declaring a red line, but then when it was crossed, actually made the correct decision to reassess the situation and move forward in a logical manner not dominated by emotion or ego. In the time between the red line being "established", and confirmation that it had been crossed, the situation in Syria had fundamentally changed. ISIS surged and made huge gains in that time. To weaken the Assad regime with military strikes would have only served to bolster ISIS's advance, as Assad's government forces were their primary resistance at the time. Destroying the Assad regime would have left a power vacuum that ISIS would have been in the best position of all the militant groups to fill. The Obama administration could have never said as much, but Assad went from our chief enemy in Syria, to the lesser of two evils. As such, targeting him was a bad option, and allowing the Russians to help broker a WMD transfer was the best among a buffet of shit sandwiches. Yes, it was foolish to established a "red line". But all those in the partisan conservative camp that love to attack him over destroying U.S. credibility are short sighted, simple minded, and exploiting a political faux pas for political purposes while tacitly implying that they expected him to make a stupid move with respect to Syria just to keep his word. I'm no Obama fan, but I'm able to admit I was happy to have someone in the office mature enough to eat their pride in order to do what's appropriate despite the personal hit they may have to take. I have zero faith that we enjoy the same with the current administration. I hope active duty members are willing to sacrifice their lives for a Trump dick measuring contest, because 4-8yrs is plenty of time for foreign actors to affront his precious ego. Get the popcorn out if Assad has the balls to call Trumps "bluff" and use chemical weapons again. A personality such as Trumps would have no choice but to escalate the situation. Escalation means weakening Syrian government forces, which leaves 15 militant factions on equal footing to fill the power vacuum with none of them quite having the strength to truly accomplish it. Cue the quagmire. Hopefully the Joint Chiefs have heads on their shoulders and are able to hold onto Trumps reigns. I'm curious to see how this affects U.S. freedom of operations inside Syrian borders and airspace as up until now we were effectively the enemy of Assad's enemy and left alone to operate as necessary.

Not an answer to your question, but I had to leave my things in storage several months beyond all my extensions and it ended up costing me ~$35/month. It's going to vary based on the specific contractor involved and how much square footage your stuff occupies, but $750 sounds exorbitant. Call JPPSO and find out where your stuff is, then call the contractor and establish how much they're going to charge you if the cost is transferred. You might find out it's not enough to warrant banging your head against the wall with JPPSO to grant the extension. Don't take my word on what follows. Verify it with JPPSO or read the JTR, but: My understanding when I went through this was that the government would still insure against damage that occurred during packing, transit, storage through the end of your extension, and delivery. They wouldn't cover damage that occurred during the time that storage cost was your responsibility. I think I asked JPPSO how I could be expected to establish when any damage may have occurred given that it was out of my possession the whole time. If I recall correctly I was told that, in general, if it wasn't a clear case of the damage having occurred during your period of liability (i.e. the warehouse burned down during that time), they'd cover any damage. I never had to test that theory out, so take it for what it's worth.

One night North of JBAD we were supporting a routine nightly DA from the bottom of an air stack 20 miles high. Upon infil the objective village came to life and a large group with small arms, RPGs, and recoilless rifles headed for the high ground surrounding the objective. We kept track of their movement with 25% of the capacity of one of our two sensors while supporting other tasks with the rest. When the F-16 flight finally finished yo-yo ops and got both birds back onstation from JOKERing out prior to infil due to a 15min slip in the timeline, we talked them on. The group stopped and set up a fighting position in the terrain above the objective leading the GFC to decide to engage prior to entering the objective village. Friendlies were still several clicks away and the targets were in the middle of nowhere. As a result, and because it wasn't a critical or time sensitive engagement, the JTAC decided to throw a bone to the F-16s. A way to get them in the game as thanks for showing up night after night and watching in the background while we took care of the meaningful engagements. In the process of 9-line coordination, the F-16s lost sight of the targets (which hadn't moved) and were unable to reacquire. We moved out, found them, and talked the F-16s back on. We then attempted to confirm basic fighter/gunship integration procedures to allow us to remain overhead at the time of strike, but it caused confusion on their part and the JTAC opted to push us off rather than spend the time to unfuck it. The initial drop incapacitated 2 or 3 of about 15 and the re-attack turned into a shitshow that never left home plate after the F-16s lost tally again. After giving the targets a 5min headstart to run in a bomburst pattern off the original impact site the JTAC got fed up, aborted the re-attack, and called us back overhead. Despite having been in BFE for the initial strike, the first round left the aircraft ~3 seconds after arriving overhead without aid of the assets that were supposed to have custody of the target. The remaining 12 or 13 spread all over the mountainside were cleaned up in 1/5 the time that it took for 9-line coordination on the initial strike, while the F-16s faded back into the background. I knew right then how different our worlds were.

Reasonable given that this is typically a 30min long process for a single seater.

They aren't. But I would argue that the Constitution and what it represents goes beyond the letter of law that it establishes. There's a spirit of the law that's just as important. If you have enough time and money you can get a lawyer to write up legal justification for just about anything. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. It's probably not a good idea to turn away an infant attempting to enter the U.S. for life saving surgery just because they happened to fall out of their mother's vagina while she was on Iranian soil. It's probably not a good idea to abandon a guy who put his life on the line in Iraq to aid U.S. operations there as an interpreter. Despite the fact that you can probably legally justify doing so and none of them are explicitly afforded protection under the Constitution as non-citizens. If the last 15 years have been any indication, you can legally justify holding people in an offshore military prison indefinitely without charge or any method for adjudication, presumably for the rest of their life given that the "end of hostilities" in this vague thing we call the "war on terrorism" isn't ever going to come. That doesn't mean the whole idea of it isn't an affront to the Constitution, regardless of whether the Constitution applies to them in the strictest legal interpretation or not. And no, I'm not suggesting we turn them all free. I'm suggesting that the spirit of the Constitution frowns upon operating prisons as if they were out of the Count of Monte Cristo, even if it doesn't involve infringing on U.S. citizen's rights.

History would suggest that an attack by someone from the countries affected by the executive order is low probability (although inevitable given enough time), but it won't even take an attack by someone from these countries. Any Muslim who isn't a natural born citizen will suffice to illustrate the need for the government to clamp down. In fact, a natural born Muslim citizen that lives in a community saturated with immigrants that could have influenced them will probably be good enough for Trump. He will absolutely say "I told you so" and look to capitalize off of it. And as you said, the event necessary for this is inevitable. It's the same playbook as WWII internment camps, the PATRIOT ACT, and the anti-gun movement every time there's a mass shooting. Use fear to drive your agenda. And the populace falls for it every time. I find it sad that the stereotypical Trump supporter being a red-blooded, rough-and-tumble, non-PC, Chevy Duramax Texas Edition driving, military and freedom loving dude is apparently the least willing of everyone to accept the risk that comes along with living in a free society. I hope that the executive order stays hung up in the courts for at least 90 days because at that point the administration should abandon the fight. They'll have had the 90 days they wanted to investigate the problem and come up with solutions to properly vetting immigrants and there will no longer be a need for the temporary measure. That's what it's all about right? Anybody want to place bets on the administration dropping the issue, if that circumstance comes to pass?

The will of the people doesn't factor in to it. The DNC (and RNC) are private organizations that can do whatever they like. If people don't like how they act I suggest they quit supporting their candidates (no, seriously, please do).

On the gunship side, just think where they'd be if the situation hadn't been partially relieved by the fact that they could consolidate 3 squadrons into 2 near the height of the hemorrhaging. No worries though, AFSOC. Usually when personnel issues lead to failures downrange for the gunship it doesn't turn out to be a strategic blunder that makes front page news for months on end...

Who said you couldn't be polite? You don't have to be a dick in asserting your rights. Sure, no matter how polite you are the cop will take it as a challenge to their "authority" (rather than a beautiful application of the document they also swear an oath to), and they will needlessly escalate the situation in response to it, but that's not on you. I saw it every day from my coworkers in the time before I realized that the profession would not allow me to protect and serve as I envisioned it would. A cop who has that as their goal (and stays true to it) literally cannot survive in today's law enforcement community. And yes, they're out to get you. Any cop who is honest will tell you the same. Don't ever talk to the media. Don't ever talk to the cops. That is, until there is a wholesale movement towards actually being public servants.

It's a witch!!!! I'm pretty sure I had been around for years under this handle before PYB showed up, was booted, and then continued for months to return under aliases. To have a sleeper account with more pedigree than his original "known" account sitting around posting idly for years just to wait for the day he could pounce on an NFL ratings thread...I knew that guy was bright, but that's just god damn genius I tell ya. The reference to flashing a CAC at inland border checkpoints is specific to a thread matmacwc and I both posted multiple times in. I gave that hypothetical in particular because I thought it might ring a bell with him, not because it's a crusade of mine. But since we're on the topic...if you want them to go away, don't bother with the political candidates. Do your part to "obstruct" them within the law, and if everybody else follows suit, there'd be a 30 mile backup on the highway on days one and two, and on day three they'd be gone after the citizen outrage over the delays. They persist precisely because the majority just comply (read: bend over and take it) and "law enforcement" and state/local officials can deflect the noise from a vocal minority. The Supreme Court has ruled them lawful checkpoints (although I'd take issue with the ruling, it's a conversation for another time), but nothing trumps your 4th and 5th Amendment rights. They can stop you (briefly), and they can ask you a question, but you're under no obligation to respond. And thanks to the Constitution, you can't be compelled to do so. Now of course, if you're going to take that tact you need to study the law beforehand, because anybody failing to assume the position for DHS to ram it in, is immediately going to get the full business. You're going to have to refuse, and know that you're lawfully able to do so, through all manner of lies and threats and directives to do things that you're not compelled to do. All under threat of being put in a cage if you fail to do so. Not because they actually think you're an illegal with 18lbs of coke stuffed up his ass, but because they're playing a game that they were taught to play at the Academy, and you're not following the script. It's their job to re-establish dominance and get you back on script...and we're back to that problem of the way "law enforcement" serves and protects in this country. There's another 4 paragraphs for you.

Never seen a second of broadcast of the channel in my entire life (excluding clips shown on other networks). That's not hyperbole. Not one second. I assume you must have some familiarity with the network in order to make your statement, so I'd say that relative to me, you might as well be Rachel Maddow herself. Your assumption about my political positions based on my statement couldn't be more off the mark. It's born out of past personal involvement in law enforcement and my sentiment has been shared in depth in other threads (you were commenting in a few of them as well, although it was a long time ago and I wouldn't expect you to remember). It is not a fundamentally anti-police position. It's a pro-Constitutional rights position. Unfortunately the police are, by orders of magnitude, the largest violators of Constitutional rights in this country. It's ingrained in what they do on a daily basis. They're trained to do it from day 1 of the Academy. Given this board is full of military members, my opinion should be the prevailing opinion within the community. Instead, most here would rather just flash their CAC to the DHS agent at the illegal inland "border" checkpoint in order to get hurried along. Not even willing to slightly inconvenience themselves to avoid trampling all over the document they purportedly volunteered to give their life for. Sorry, but with respect to this issue, relative to me, you're the left-wing communist.

Short bus preschoolers could have formulated a more legitimate poll. I don't set a high bar for sports page writers, but the guy who picked this up and wrote an article around it should really be forced to have his dick concussed by J.J. Watt. The poll provided options and asked respondents to answer "yes" or "no" to them. This type of poll is among the worst, and no survey looking to produce reliable, "scientific", results utilizes this tactic. Unfortunately people are dumb as shit, and it's equivalent to leading a witness. Exacerbating this is the fact that the poll did not ask respondents to indicate if THEY had curbed their viewership, and if so, what motivated THEM to do so. It asked every participant of the survey to speculate on what they BELIEVED was causing the drop, whether they had stopped watching or not. You would expect the results to skew towards a story that was discussed on every news and major sporting event broadcast in the month of September whether it had anything to do with it or not. If I had to guess, Colin Kaepernick's first start this season probably saw a massive ratings boost, not a decline. A small percentage of people who like what he's done would be more likely to tune in and hope to watch him succeed. A large minority would tune in to hopefully watch him fail in spectacular fashion, and a massive majority wouldn't modify their behavior either way. It's too bad also, because the way police in this country do their job (and are trained to do their job), deserves to have every player, coach, and fan in the stands on their knees in protest. But with every news broadcast and idiotic NFL protest player suggesting the atrocious policing is all a result of widespread institutional racism, the actual problem is going to persist unchecked for decades more.

Like when the U.S. military paid the NFL millions of dollars for them to make it seem like they were voluntarily honoring the troops during their games by having them on the sidelines and whatnot? Granted, it almost certainly has a bigger long term recruiting effect than any 30 second TV commercial ever would, but it's still sad. Precisely zero people (or one, if you're going to claim that it's you) don't watch football games because of bad officiating. People who are outraged over bad calls are necessarily heavily invested in the game itself. If they weren't the bad calls wouldn't bother them, so some bad calls aren't going to affect viewership. And the ratings sure as hell aren't down because of anything to do with players making fools of themselves while "disrespecting" the National Anthem.

And if they moved to Kirkland all the squadron members could get a pallet of 3 lb. Chunk Light Albacore Tuna cans for less than $599! You can't get that shit at Creech without paying to freight it out there. That's a big QoL boost.

I guess it's true: there really is no such thing as a no-shit free lunch.

That's what is so f_cked up about the fact that there is a shortage in the first place. We were all there in our high school/college days believing that there couldn't possibly be a better job in the world than flying bad ass jets in the Air Force. I knew people who at the time would say they'd do it without pay, or from the Minot AFB's of the world without hesitation. And they'd happily climb over the dead body of their own mother after stabbing her in the back in order to make it happen. That kind of enthusiasm is strong enough to withstand quite a few atomic morale crotch shots without wavering an inch. All it takes to keep a person like that on active duty to 20 years is just mediocrity from upper level management. Not stellar leadership, not an above average effort, just mediocrity. And yet here we are. The Air Force can't produce enough pilots each year to replace those that are beating back their peers in order to get to the Air Force ejection handles first. That took active effort on the part of the Air Force to pull off. It's an amazing enough accomplishment that it should be a case study at all the professional development schools. You (and your peers) pulled that off, Chang. Bravo.

I see you've attended the official AF course on statistics...where last year one person in an organization of 300,000 had a fatal motorcycle accident and this year there have been three. That's a 300% increase in carelessness leading to death and a sure sign of complacency! Everybody panic. Or it may be completely meaningless given the sample size. Either one.

I'll bet you guys were stoked when you regained the ability to wear high heels on check rides in the aircraft.

You guys all have it backwards. He wants you to have a maximum of 7 teeth meshed counting from the crotch.

Disparaging 99.9% of the population in the same breath that you attempt to point out the problems behind disparaging particular sectors of military aviation. Nice. I've seen some ungodly incompetent and dangerous people make it through the program. And it wasn't like they flew under the radar and nobody noticed. Everybody knew they were incompetent and dangerous, and yet they graduated. The reason? Because the standards aren't as high as people on the qualified side of the line like to represent in order to inflate their own self-worth. You hang out with Brabus too often.

Does nobody remember that this is not the first incident? I haven't seen any media outlet include it in their coverage. There was an incursion back in October that was 'pushed' back by F-16s on the Turkish side. They could have downed the Russian aircraft then, but did not. Instead they took the passive approach and Erdogan released a statement which made clear that they would not hesitate to defend their borders in the future. Russia apologized and said it wouldn't happen again. Now it has, and Turkey responded exactly as they said they would. Not much to complain about from the Russians, regardless of whether it complicates things. Additionally, when you're a country which has made a routine out of military aircraft flights near foreign airspace for the sole sake of seeing how much provocation you can get away with, you lose the benefit of the doubt when one of your aircraft accidentally strays over an international border.