Lawman

If you are ever in Scotland, find an Innus &Gunn. It is quite easily the most amazing beer I've ever tasted. They age it in old whiskey/rum barrels depending on dark or lite and the weakest beer they make is 6.8%.

I don't know why you need a guy whose job is to be the gym towel boy.... Seriously do you guys not have E2s and such in trouble? Additional duty for infractions in discipline short of ucmj action should be more than enough at any base to cover the stupid shit like putting a dude at the gym for safety reasons or keeping the grass cut at HQ. we have 24 hour gyms down range at nearly every major FOB I've been too, and they are always locally "owned."

Roll Tide?

The couple times I've had somebody suggests we just tie down the fleet instead of going through the trouble of hangering them for forecast winds (typically some new E4) I show them a picture on my phone of a pair of wings still chained down with the middle of the plane missing and tell them to go find somebody with a tug license.

What kind of wind restrictions/taxi limits do you guys have anyway?

Far as I know he just had to pay some transfer fees/taxes. Me I'd have a hard time not flipping it and putting a down payment on a house.

One of the Saudi students at Rucker handed his stick buddy the keys to a 4 month old M5 when he finished the course.

Anything she can get parts and service wise either buy through the PX or have shipped to her PO Box. Just getting an oil change on the economy in Germany will run you a few hundred dollars.

Ive got as much sympathy for them as I do for all the Contractors that spent the last however many years making 6 figures to manage a Warehouse full or Water Bottles with a staff of 8 at Bagram thinking that job was gonna last forever.

Your out of your mind. ACU has the feeling of cardboard and the issue t-shirt is unwearable in theatre because it melts to the skin. The reality is somebody somewhere fell into the digital fad with ACU and let somebody sell them a bag of goods. "Don't worry, with modern digital tech the colors won't matter. This will confuse the eye and you'll blend right in.... It's like that movie Predator." And then checks were signed and the Army believed it could wear 1 color scheme everywhere and look smart. Now after a decade of ass pain the "new uniform" info is trickling out, we will get Rees different patterns. One woodland, one desert, and one for garrison. Should be great to see how much that issue bag costs the average soldier in the days of sequestration.

No sympathy from me. I can't even count how many times I've heard somebody utter the phrase "oh ye of little faith."

Pak GLoc has been pretty much closed for almost three years now. We still ship stuff like toilet paper over it but pretty much any and all military end user equipment is a no go. It's either left in country as TPE or airlifted home.

So... What your saying is we need better people skills.

Alternate ending... This turns into the new Yugoslavia and we spend 5 years slowly winding into involvement and 20 years of actual involvement with no idea what we are trying to accomplish.

Yup. Most advanced helicopter gunship on the planet.... Just got dual VOR with ILS this year. And still has an NDB. But no GPS certification.

It's like going in the back with the stripper and getting one too many dances... Sometimes shit happens.

Good luck man. Every Walmart ive been too in recent years has a small cadre of old retires who know the schedule and are there stranding around like vultures to buy up as much as they can...... Doesn't really piss me off till I go to a gun show and see the same ass clowns selling the ammo marked up 5 bucks a box.

One of my IP's was a Vietnam pilot with 40 years of service (guard guy). He had been a scout pilot in Vietnam and after hearing his story of the day he was shot down 3 times in the same area we were just in awe. Especially when he was talking about trying to get a bird that was down for MX up so he could go out a forth time. Dude could barely walk the flight line to the birds, but he could make a one man air show in the helicopter.

Ill be long dead of some sort of chronic lung disease from spending too much time around Burn Pits and the Poo Pond at Kaf. But yeah you are spot on in the mantra of this isnt the way it should be and us ######ing ourselves up to help it continue isnt fixing the problem.

I had one in flightschool that would always deviate out on a long crosswind to fly over the residential pools during the Summer and catch the nude sunbathers.

Warrants can IPCOT (In Place Continuation of Tour) and 6 years is actually more the norm. Doing 3 and punching typically lends you no rewards or support from the Battalion/Brigade as far as getting the right jobs/schools for that next promotion board your looking at. So we've got a lot of guys that are locked in for all that bullshit. One of those deployments wasnt supposed to happen, but when another unit failed its NTC rotation so badly that they were deemed undeployable this battalion got the bad news. Our favorite part is that our Brigade HQ went home on this deployment about 3-4 months in to it and left all their battalions here. So on Paper it looks like as a Brigade we will get our 18 month mandatory dwell time.

How about being part of a Battalion that was deployed for 15 months... home for 10... deployed for 12 months.... home for 16,,,, Finishing deployed for 10 months... planning to be home for 13.5.... and already on the patch chart to redeploy for 9 months (just short enough to not get R&R). 18 month dwell time? Bueller? Keep in perspective guys when your talking about "how much this sucks" most of you are doing it from the greener grass. Not saying 4 month or whatever you do isnt shitty. Just saying when somebody comes up with the "well guys it really isnt all bad for everybody" go ahead and punch that guy in the dick for me.

Outside of Legs none of these are accurate. I support Osprey with an Apache and we're slower than the Cobra... all he needs support on is the actual Infil/Exfil we arent escorting anything flying around above the coordinating altitude in a low threat environment and thats the only time a MAGTF would be on its own. All your doing in between the boat and the RP is flying in formation with a Tiltrotor. We have a radar, it doesnt do shit for your weather capability. If you cant see you cant see be it with FLIR or NVG. They arent going to shoot if they cant see so putting them in the air to make rotor noise is what idiot ground commanders do because "Its my asset and I want it" type attitude. Cant Fly high... show me any time you've had troops above 14000 feet. Thats pretty much the limit for altitude on where rotor guns can support. Loiter time. Rotory is typically longer than Fixed wing. Ill go 2 hour in the stack while Vipers and A-10s are yo-yo'ing after 20 minutes. If you want constant coverage during FARP turn arounds thats as easy as tasking teams to do battle handovers. Threat. CMWS works, extremely well by the way. And Hellfire gives you more than enough standoff for any kind of light AAA. The helicopters that get shot at the most and take the most fire are down at 300-500 AGL because they have to be not because its tactically superior as a tactic. There are plenty of ways to mitigate risk.

C'mon dude. Just because it briefs high in our current environment doesn't make it high. S2 and safety officers combined with nobody wanting to be "that guy" who's battalion lost a bird drives the risk levels now. I'm a cross FLOT aircraft. Designed to face off against the Russian horde, and I've got some E5 briefing my missions moderate because somebody saw what they thought was a HMG or a pkm on the ground in the last 3 months. God forbid we ever go up against anybody not wearing man dresses and sandals again. First time somebody whispers the words Roland, or Guantlet around S2 we will need the president to sign off on the risk assessment.

Congrats on your position and Im sure it was an awesome experience, but you cannot seriously call that anything but the exception not the rule. Heck there is a CW4 "In Command" of the Task Force in Egypt last I heard, but its not a job Id start as a warrant thinking I was ever going to just get. Technical Tactical expert, thats why we're here. We have one CW5 in my brigade, and Ive never even met the guy, and he sure doesnt put his name on my OER. Every platoon leader 1stLt in Aviation... every Captain in charge of an Shop in aviation, all the way up from the very start they are told "Here are your soldiers," when they take the job. Nobody ever tells a CW2 or newly minted CW3 with the same level of aviation experience "These are your soldiers." Thats what Im talking about when I say command.