pawnman

Especially at night.

Reminds me of the Futurama political rally. "The apathy party! There's a platform I can get behind!" "Nope, too much enthusiasm, you're out".

That kid is pretty awesome. Did I hear the end of the story right? They're going to display his boxers in a museum?

Thankfully we have guys like this young airman. Where the hell do we find people like this Sgt First Class? You're being mortared, and your first thought is trays and trash? Unbelievable.

So reading that, my understanding is that whatever I leave my deployed location with becomes my new maximum, above 75 days, with the threshold set at 120 days total. Does that check?

So, who are they going to send the bill to? I'd be real tempted to provide a fake name and a fake address for a POC if I were the American Legion.

Banhammer is just a term for, well, mods banning a user. Sort of like what happened to Dave.

So, who's making the popcorn? This looks like it's about to get good. 8 posts in, and Dave's already making a name for himself.

Dyess.

Well, there's two types of test. There's the no-kidding test squadron at Edwards, flying the newest of the new and making sure it won't fall out of the sky, then there's the Operational Test guys at Dyess where you are essentially wringing out the last of the bugs and writing crew-dog level briefings for the new stuff 6-9 months prior to the ops squadrons getting it. Edwards requires an engineering background (I don't know of "Computer Engineering Technology" counts or not...I'm a business major) and test pilot slots are fairly competitive. Operational test does not require an engineering degree, but there are some experience constraints and you'll need to stick around your ops squadron long enough to upgrade to instructor (typically at least one deployment and 700-ish hours).

I thought for sure I was being Rick-Rolled...have to agree with you on this one.

Assuming you can. Between deployments, OREs, ORIs, TDYs, and various spin-ex's, I've had many of my leave plans cancelled.

Will there be an investigation like there was for his wife's flight?

It would not have surprised me if reflective vests became the standard.

Weren't you able to talk any sense into this guy?

Just ask the shoe who interupts your shower for the reg. If he can't produce it, be sure to get his name and rank so you can email him later.

And the newly gardened traffic circle.

That's another one I think of when I hear "combat showers"... "There's a water shortage on base, keep your showers to 3 minutes" "Really? Because I walked past a pallet of water to get here...can't you just dump that stuff in the reservoir?"

I've had the opportunity to work with them, and they are phenomenal. I'd buy them a drink in any bar in the world!

So...we all still have to fill out this inane paperwork on the even smaller off-chance they'll RIF a rated officer that they wouldn't grant VSP to? That's not good news. That makes this whole process even more stupid. Let's call it what it is...a chance to throw out people with UCMJ actions. Because short of that, you're probably not in the bottom 5% of the USAF.

What you say makes sense to me...but as a B-1 guy, I was dual-qual'd from the day I graduated the FTU. Don't sell the degraded ops short...there are plenty of situations where GPS may be denied to you, and several where it may be denied more-or-less permanently.

It isn't pure oxygen, it just concentrates oxygen from the ambient air.

Goddamn you, SATO office!

I can't speak for my fighter brethren, but I know the B-1 community has just lost 6-9 senior instructor/evaluator WSOs who got out right at their ADSC. Why? Well, when we got home from our last deployment, we walked into a series of monthly OREs...including Saturday training that wasn't part of an ORE, but designed to get us ready for an ORE. After six months away from my family, my wing saw fit to deny multiple leave requests and weekends. Meh, part of the job, right? Well, I'm on my second 6 month deployment, and when I get home, we're all going TDY to Dyess because of some runway construction project at Ellsworth. And when we get home from that, we get to do some more OREs in preparation for a phase I ORI. Perhaps I'm a little cynical...but I sort of feel like the fact that my squadron, including 300+ MX guys, deployed successfully, and the fact that our sister squadron will have deployed successfully before we can go home, meets the intent of a Phase I ORI. Instead, I expect leave requests to be denied again, I expect to once again miss my daughter's birthday since I'll be TDY 2000 miles away, and I expect that I'm going to lose several weekends home with my family before I deploy over the holidays again. If I'm really lucky, I won't be chastised for having "too much" use-or-lose leave. Your "Dear Boss" letter pretty much covers it. We've been doing more with less for so long, those of us who are left behind are burned out.

Wow. Our SQ/CC had already figured out everyone affected by the RIF back in March. I just turned in the first draft of my RRF to my flight commander three days ago.