pawnman

Can't remember if I posted this one in another thread, but: We're giving some retired guys a tour. This is a reunion for their WWII B-24 squadron, including a retired 1-star. Half these guys did time in Nazi POW camps. They're all pushing 80...hell, some are probably past 80. I'm really enjoying myself, because these guys have way more interest than the average civilian, and they're full of their own BTDT stories. So we go out to the jet. They've parked it in the ERCC spot...essentially, a huge paved area (several football fields...HUGE). There are no other planes, trucks, ground equipment, or hell, even personnel around. But they've roped off the jet, leaving a small gap near the nose as an ECP (are you kidding me? We're doing a tour for 80 people, and we all have to hang out inside these arbitrary ropes?). We have a B-1 doing a flyby in support of the event. The flightline is off the tail of the jet. We've got 70-80 elderly WWII vets milling around inside the ropes. When we bring their attention to the flyby, someone knocks over one of the cones. Whatever. There's six aircrew 80 heroes, and nothing worth stealing. Some 2-striper SF guy rolls up in his car and starts hassling the vets about "Who knocked this over" and "why are you over the line". Eventually he finds one of us LTs in a bag and we promise to deal with it, calm down. I think this one's resulted in some face-to-face talks between our SQ/CC and SF's SQ/CC...because that is a damn embarassing way to treat those guys. I'm only sorry that I wasn't the guy in the bag the SF troop talked to, because I'd have lit his ass up right then and there.

Marginally related, but: You older guys know when you show up to a squadron for MQT training, your the "Fuckin' New Guy", or FNG. Well, apparently FNG offended the Wing/CC that we are no longer allowed to wear the FNG nametags. We are now "TNG's" (Tiger New Guys). I had my FNG patch, and the SQ/CC said "dude, do you want to be a fuckin' new guy?" What I said was "It doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother you, sir". What I was thinking was "HELL YES, I've been waiting my whole damn career to be an FNG, don't take that away!" I now have a TNG patch.

Thank god our base so far has been applying some kind of notch to this. Flying = flight suit. Mission plan = flight suit. Duty dog = flight suit (because you have to drive on the flightline, I presume). Sims = flightsuit (in case the computers catch fire, I guess). We typically have about 4 people in the squadron wearing blues on Monday, even though the Wing/CC has been over to take a look every Monday since this started. I've been lucky so far...I've been on duty or simming every Monday since this started.

Maybe if they didn't pull so much traffic watching duty, they'd have enough SF for the important missions.

Kinda sad. I flew with (a named BG) at Dyess (he was in senior requal, I was in IQC). He seemed like a down-to-earth guy. Hell, he even did more paperwork on mission planning day than most of the wing leadership did when they flew.

Our SQ/CC was in his blues on Monday...complete with his callsign on the nametag. Small victories.

If you're going to go DNIF, go early and tell people early. Most schedulers won't have a problem with you going DNIF, they have a problem with you telling someone 5 minutes prior to the brief. As others have said, if they give you a difficult time, start getting other people involved...Flight/CC, the docs, ADOs if you feel it's necessary.

Unless you fail your PFT and don't get winged because you haven't run or done a pushup for a year.

Didn't this happen a few years ago, and didn't alot of SQ/CC's fix the problem by putting everyone on stand-by every day? Either way, I'm flying on Monday. And word around the squadron is flight suits until SQ/CC says otherwise. In his own words, "At any time, I could ask any one of you to fly".

I can tell you we're not wearing blues on Monday. No one at the squadron has even heard of this nonsense, and they looked at me as if I had sprouted an extra eyeball when I asked them about it.

I saluted a few as a 2Lt at Pensacola. Sometimes it's hard to tell if that's an anchor or an oak leaf from a distance.

I thought the only "special benefit" we got was that if you collect a retirement check, they keep your social security check up to the amount of your retirement.

I thought Full Metal Jacket was required viewing for military members.

They're pulling a few from the B-1 community.

This dude typifies shoe clerk. If you've been around for a while, you would understand that shoe is not a term applied to anyone who doesn't fly, or any enlisted dude. It applies to jackasses like this guy who, from his computer safe and sound in the US of A, felt the need to try and publicly humilate this deployed aviator. In short, the guys who turn wrenches...not shoes. The guys who pack the parachutes...not shoes. Hell, the finance guy who does his job and gets the travel voucher processed in a timely manner...not a shoe. The guy who checks sock colors at the mess hall, snaps at people for wearing sunglasses on your head, or writes to the magazine to express his displeasure with a tab patch...SHOES, each and every one. Even a pilot can be a shoe, though I'm guessing it's rare until you're wearing a star.

Totally missed the point. It's already a shitty location. No need for sock Nazis and the Disco Belt Patrol to make it worse.

Or claim their tax-free status.

Doesn't ROTC also offer full scholarships? I thought they were called "Title I" scholarships or something like that. But then, I didn't do either...I finished college on my own, then went through OTS. 4 years of asspain condensed into 12 weeks...every time my friends talk about their commissioning sources, I'm convinced anew that I went the right way.

F***ed up beyond all recognition. That was my dad. He could curse a blue streak and drink most people under the table, and I rarely remember seeing him without a cigarette while he was in. I also doubt he ever checked the color of someone's socks or told a pilot to remove a tab patch.

No problems on the treadmill. ElRoy, I don't think I have the motivation to run a marathon, and that's what your training schedule looks like to me. I'm not looking to increase my endurance much beyond finishing a 1.5 mile in a decent amount of time. I have less than zero interest in running 5k's on the weekends. I get what you're saying, that you have to run longer to build endurance...maybe I'll toss in a longer run once a week, at a little slower pace than my normal routine. But dear god, running a 1/2 marathon? No thanks. I have a hard enough time keeping to my own little workout schedule.

I know some folks aren't fans of the treadmill, but in TX in July, running outside is brutal. I've been doing 2 miles on the treadmill, 3 days a week. Each time I go, I bump the pace on the treadmill up one more notch. I started about a month ago at a 9:30 mile pace, and I'm up to a 7:45 mile pace. My goal is to run a sub-11 on my next PFT (due in Nov, so I have some time).

I don't think there's a limit if you're black. If you're white, it only takes one event (Elliot Spitzer, anyone?)

In other news, Blackhawk helicopters will now be called "African-American Hawk" helicopters, and we will no longer wear black t-shirts with flightsuits, they will be "onyx".

I know several who do. WSOs as well, and maintainers.

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. Nothing to do with flying, but plenty to do with modern economics and politics. He's the guy that proposed the "McDonald's theory of conflict prevention" (no two countries with a McDonald's have ever gone to war with each other), and he expands it to the Dell theory of conflict prevention (no two countries who are part of the same supply chain, including China and Taiwan, will go to war with each other). Agree or disagree, he says alot of things that make alot of sense of the current climate. Another good pair, both by Robert Wright, are The Moral Animal and Nonzero. The Moral Animal is about evolutionary psychology, how our behavior in our everyday life is shaped by the survival traits that allowed our far ancestors to survive. Things like making friends, lying, anger, jealousy...he shows how they all have survival value. Nonzero is about how we gain more from working together than in competition...both on the biological and societal levels.