pawnman

Bingo. I'd rather be in a more austere locale, with the threat of enemy fire, and be REMF free.

Unfortunately, every time that's been tried, poor Sgt Snuffy goes VFR direct to his commander, and the ranking officer gets hammered by their own commander for being rude and not following the rules. Whether they were being rude or not.

At least they haven't added 6. No food or drink within 100' of the lake or its facilities.

Just like they enforce blues on Monday...you think your commander doesn't know who did and didn't get above a 90 on their PFT? Then again, your commander may feel the same way about this as you...in which case, lucky you. Just saying.

If they make it mandatory, I'll do my best to start scoring an 89 on all my tests. I had a personal goal of hitting 90 on my next one (the run is the bane of my existence, but after 3 months of running every day in a deployed location, I'm seeing real improvement). But if they make it mandatory to wear a goddam patch on my PT gear, I'm going to lose alot of motivation to strive for those "excellent" scores.

Bitching is a standard military passtime, found in common all across history and in every culture with a standing army. I did see the thread take something of a turn though. I'm guessing 90% (or more) of the folks on here love their primary job, flying. They love their aircraft. I think what they hate (I know it's what I hate) is that the USAF has gotten to the point where, even during combat operations in a deployed location, the flying becomes secnodary to whatever queep the leadership has decided to heap on us today.

36 hours? Yeah, give it a week or two.

I think people find it's easy to reminisce about a past they weren't there for...because the only stories the old-timers tell are the exciting ones. Case in point: one of my buddies has a grandfather who served on B-17s during WWII. When they left for missions, there was a certain way their duffel bags were supposed to be secured to the foot of the bed. Well, grandpa's duffel was apparently not quite secure enough and slipped to the floor while he was flying over Nazi Germany. When he gets back, some Major had left a note on the duffel to come see him. Said major then spent 15 minutes chewing out gramps for failing to follow the rules and secure his duffel bag. This after a raid in which many of grandpa's friends were shot out of the sky by enemy fighters or AAA. It's easy to glamorize the past, but I have a feeling there have been shoe-clerks ever since the first cave man realized that a group of people with pointy sticks was more effective than a single person with a pointy stick.

Which is doubly ironic, since there are about 8 seasons of it on the government computers that make up the Mediaweb.

I had a similar issue with the EWO guys at Randolph. I think they started to catch on by the end of the course, though.

I still love the my aircraft even after countless MX cancels. While there have been days where I've said "Man, I have to go fly today? I don't feel like flying", I've never gotten off a jet after a flight going "Man, I wish I hadn't flown today". Low-level is my favorite. And that little piece of zero-g you get at the top of a pop-to-level bomb run. But mostly, I just love the amount of death and destruction we have access to, and the fuel we have to deliver it to anyone in need.

Bingo. The only way to defeat them is on their own level.

Affect vs. effect. Your vs you're.

I'm pretty sure the reason we don't wear bags/BDU/ABUs out on the town is because the USAF feels that they don't look "professional" enough, i.e., they are "work clothes". There's nothing in any of the AFIs that limits you from wearing your blues for shopping trips, to the bar, to a restaraunt. If you're really feeling left out of the free stuff train, wear your blues. Then you can be in regs AND get a ton of free stuff. Assuming you're willing to wear blues to the mall. I have to tell you, in the times that I've stopped by Wal-Mart after work to pick up milk, or the mall to pick up that last-minute birthday/valentines/anniversary present, I've never recieved free stuff.

Well, since we're de-railing the thread into grammar pet peeves... I hate it when I get a leadership email that's a page long, and at the bottom, there's a "BLUF" line..."Bottom Line Up Front". No, it isn't...you put it at the bottom, jackass. If it were truly "BLUF", you'd have opened the email with it, not closed with it. Does anyone else get taskers with a suspense of "soonest"? Just curious...that one also gets on my nerves.

I was also under the impression that part of the G-ex was to give you a feel, or a return to familiarity, about what xx G's feels like. So when the pilot is really cranking the nose around, he has an immediate reference "That feels like 5 G's..." I've never been in an air-to-air fight in a fighter, but I can imagine that you want to spend a minimum amount of time looking at the G-meter instead of looking at yoru adversary.

If you can't accomplish it every week, what about once a month? All you really need is the cooperation of the boss and scheduling to minimize flying for one day a month. Then throw a party. Some ideas from bomber-land: 1. Threat of the day briefing - based on something that has recently happened. For example, after a guy in the squadron cracked his skull on a hatch, our threat of the day was "sharp edges". 2. Stories of stupidity - share the buffoonery of your squadronmates with the whole squadron, flying related or not. We also have a vote for the best story, and an "award" for the person who did the dumbest thing that week. 3. FNG quiz - some kind of humorous question to ask the FNGs. In our squadron, if the FNG gets it right, he gets to single out a field-grader to take a shot. If the FNG gets it wrong, he has to take a shot...and when one FNG drinks, they ALL drink. This is best accomplished with a designated MC. Ours are always accompanied by a Powerpoint slideshow with humorous pictures to highlight the stories/quiz/etc. In short, I understand that not every squadron has every Friday free to accomplish all these things. But I'm sure you can find time at least once a month for it, right? Feel free to steal any of these ideas, they're just examples to show what may work. And there's always non-alcoholic alternatives available at the bar. Finally, don't think you need the ENTIRE squadron to be free that night...just look for the max participation you can get.

Interesting...in our squadron, you get questions if you AREN'T walking around the squadron with a beer past about 1500 on a Friday. And this is prior to the "roll call" in the bar.

I think we've got two separate issues here. The first is the ridiculous PME which, while dumb, is not that time consuming. I finished SOS, start to finish, in less than a month...and it would have been a shorter timeframe, but you have to wait three days between tests. Studied the gouge for 30-45 minutes, took the tests in about 15 minutes apiece. Total time investment, about 5 hours...while deployed anyway, so what the hell else was I going to do? The other (and I think, larger) factor is how rated officers are used and abused. I don't know if it's strictly because of the extended service committments, or because of our specialized skillsets, or because we have done this two ourselves by being the type-A, can-do, never-say-die people we are...namely, no matter how they screw with a flying squadron, no matter how undermanned, underfunded, undermaintained we are, we still do the J-O-B. We have trained the people above us that there is no cut that they can't make, no deal that is so bad that flyers won't find some way to accomplish the mission anyway. But I'm with you...it does seem that those in shoe-clerkery jobs get better deals more often. Maybe it's because they can be spared. Maybe its because a finance officer is a FLT/CC in his first job, while in a flying squadron that job typically falls to a senior instructor. Maybe it's because the finance officer just has more time on his hands to look for the good deals and talk his boss into them. I don't know. But it does seem that the USAF has lost some perspective on exactly who is the pointy end of the spear and who is support. I wish I had some useful advice to impart, but I don't. All I can do is empathize with your plight, and remind you that almost any one of those shoes would give up all those good deals to do what we do on a daily basis.

We still have a squadron bar, complete with doofer log and the "slow leak" award for the person who has done the dumbest thing that week (flying or not). As for the ROE, I'm right there with you. I'm ashamed to admit, but after almost six months of having the ROE crammed down my throat, my first thought when a JTAC says "Stand by 9-line" isn't "Alright, gametime", it's "Oh crap, I hope this isn't on the news before we get home". I hear stories from guys as recent as last year who never came home with full bomb bays, and more often than not, came back Winchester. I've spent most of my time as a giant, 4-man Predator, using the pod to provide recce to the JTAC. It's sad that we've now gotten to the point where we are actually pushing back on our JTACs and ground commanders...If anyone knows whether or not they need a bomb, it's the guys taking fire on the ground. It also doesn't help that flying in combat is now just expected. It's barely worth an OPR bullet anymore...the fact that some finance guy processed over 200 vouchers last year is assessed to be as important (OR MORE SO) than the fact that you flew 50 combat missions. Welcome to the new USAF.

No, he kicked it back and told you to fix it, without telling you what was wrong with it.

Absolutely. The USAF is all about shutting up and coloring. I mean, where would we be if people started questioning the status quo? I bet you never saw Billy Mitchell or Jamie Boyd question the decisions of someone placed over them. You certainly never saw someone like Robin Olds think outside the box. Nope, they were pure followers, through and through, with no original thought or actions. Yesiree, I sure am glad that the USAF I joined has given up on all that innovation and taken all the decisions away from me. I won't have to do any thinking until I'm a Lt Col, and even then, only if I'm a DO or SQ/CC.

This one's been around for awhile...but it seems an appropriate addition to the thread.

Apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere in the thread... Boxhead (or any other UAV pilots)...can you walk me through a day/week/month "in the life of"? I saw Boxhead's "I drive to work, kill bad guys, have lunch, kill bad guys, drive home, watch Seinfeld" comment. I've heard some things about the life that are actually sounding appealing, but I'd like to get the straight info before I apply to become a permanent UAV pilot (18x, I guess?). I suppose what I'm look for is, how's the quality of life, at work and outside it, as a UAV pilot? How often do you deploy, and to where (if you can say), and for how long? What's the area like at Creech/Cannon? I'm considering the possibility...just want to have some more information before committing to anything.

SHACK! There are several people in my squadron who, with varying levels of seriousness, have discussed getting out when their committment is up. Are they getting out because they hate flying? Because they deploy too much? Even because their ground job sucks, and we work long hours at home station? Nope. Every one of them has said (and at least one case, used the exact phrase), "This is just getting too gay for me". It's these queepy, one-size-fits-all rules and their enforcement that are sapping morale and making people who otherwise love their job consider finding employment elsewhere. REMF, with all due respect, I fully understand and endorse reflective belts for the flight line, or for running in the street. But am I really safer wearing one under the Bra? Is it really necessary to wear one on the running track, surrounded as it is by concrete barriers? I'd add the tucked in PT gear as another example...but turns out AUAB was just ahead of the curve on that one and it's now USAF-wide. The quality of our PT gear, and the sense in wearing it tucked in, is a matter for another thread, although I will agree that if it is the ONLY off-duty uniform available, there is no reason to make it such a pain to wear (no sandals, no crocs, no "finger shoes", etc). There are many times I opt for the flightsuit even off-duty, simply because it's easier to get by with. I don't have to wonder if my shoes have too much color on them, or if I'm wearing my MP3 player on the proper arm. So, sir, yes, I agree that rules need to be followed. But loyalty is a two-way street, and I'm not seeing alot of top-down loyalty here at AUAB. What I am seeing is aircrew pulled off sorties for exercises (to make sure we're ready to deploy, I guess?), or to fill sandbags (again, I guess CE ran out of people?), squadron leadership pulled away from leading their squadrons to enforce these policies because the SNCOs keep getting their feelings hurt, and just a generalized feeling of "queep" that I haven't been a part of since OTS...I feel like many of the rules are just there to HAVE rules, and that they do NOTHING to enhance the mission, good order and discipline, or morale. And indeed, are actually contrary to said goals. Finally, sir, you're half-right in your observation about being corrected. But I have seen it done properly and improperly. As an officer in the USAF, I outrank all the enlisted guys. That means there should be a "sir" and a respectful statement when correcting some deficiency, not a SSgt barking "get those f-ing sunglasses off your f-ing head" at me. I've seen those corrections made respectfully, and I appreciated it. I've seen them made disrespectfully, and I've resented it. I submit that probably 60% of the problem is the perception by aircrew that the enlisted ranks don't respect them. I've heard the phrase from a table full of double-D's in the chow hall that "Fliers aren't real officers anyway". So I'll continue wearing my reflective belt everywhere I go when it's dark. Just realize I'll continue to think it's absolutely dumb and unwarranted in places like the DEL, the track, or inside the chow hall.