tac airlifter

Keep it that way and you will easily recover. Although this will always be on your record, there are lots of dudes who stay in great shape with a single failure chalked up to some freakish event. If you demonstrate consistent excellent scores, this will be a minor blip and a good L2 you can share with young guys when it's your turn to give advice.

Ragged: good advice above. I totally understand how this could happen, unfortunately we live in a time of exaggerated repercussions for this singular event. Are you someone who normally struggles with PT, or do you typically score an excellent? I highly recommend you rearrange your entire schedule and prioritize PT. No one will care that you were second in your UPT class if you are borderline on PT, so knock the retest out of the park and never let this be an issue again. Anecdote: my SQ commander failed a PT test, but he was a guy who normally scored excellent and had a hernea in the middle of the test. Freakish event, but he was told to get an excellent on the retest or expect to be fired. Kick ass on the next one bro, start scoring excellent and you can mostly recover (although this will never go away). Fail another one or have a record of barely scraping by and unfortunately it will be a huge negative discriminator for you that will definitely override however good you are at flying. Good luck!

Tanner Higgens Matthew Roland Ryan Hall Till Valhalla, we remember.

Would that location be a practical one to convert into a PCS assignment? I recall that discussion regarding the deid, but I would never want to PCS my family there.

Valid. Too bad they can't just station folks there instead of doing 6 month deployments to train.

Can families come to Guam?

What's your platform? ADO is awesome in most.

Designated hitter would solve that issue. Stateside bases could still be on shift for it; I'd volunteer for that. FYI, I did volunteer for RPAs at CVS just to stay ops & fend off staff. Denied. Honestly, all of these minor issues have solutions, it's all about priorities. If the AF cared enough to fix the RPA world, they could. But they don't care. They care about F35s and the future war with China which will never happen.

If all forms of review are flawed, what do you suggest?

I don't understand that statement. 2niner: I also signed the 20 year bonus. I like flying, and even though staff is awful I think I have a good chance of flying again. I'm not interested in the airlines, I like my AF mission. Also, ANG has no appeal to me. Just figure out who you are and what you like, then pursue that. Hard when you're young. If I could do it all over again while keeping the knowledge I've gained, I would be a WO in the 160th. I am glad GC posts on this board; arguing with him is fruitless. His opinions are the unvarnished versions of opinions I hear from GO's routinely. it's good he is so forthright; expect that attitude from all your senior AF management, but normally obfuscated by platitudes. Forewarned is forearmed. I have no illusions about the cowards running our AF. I chose to stay because no where else affords me the opportunity to kill AQ/IS; and although our organization doesn't value that, I do.

You know that not everyone who goes in-res wants to, right? About 30% of the folks at ACSC have told me they also would have prefered an option to decline while staying in the service; one girl even asked Gen Welsh why they force people to go in-res who don't want it. I went third look, with my only other choice being 7 day opt. I don't want to do that, because I still believe in the value of my mission. I'll suffer through staff for a chance to go back to ops. FYI, I volunteered for RPAs to stay in ops. Denied. wolfpack: good call and good luck.

AFG pilots are trained to employ. A better question is who lazed in the weapons. Or who cleared the strike and under what ROE.

Lawman, have you actually taken a course with a bullpup or been trained on them? I ask because training might assist surmounting the obstacles you mention. The Aussies seem to reload their AUGs at the same speed our guys do, as does the IDF. So I'm wondering if the idea of faster reloads using conventional designs is more a training issue than indicative of inherent design superiority. I don't know. besides, I'm not planning to deploy with it. It's for fun shooting with my son and maybe HD..... Hopefully a full speed combat reload isn't required for either scenario! Also, my "full speed combat reload" is probably slower than my "which end do I stick in? Hmmm I wonder if it's all the way seated.... Oops, guess not" range reload speed. its supposed to have a 4-5 lbs trigger pull from a factory upgrade, it's one of the reasons I waited for this vice buying the Tavor. And my son can shoulder it, whereas he struggles with my other rifles (although I did buy an AR pistol for him, he of course never "shoulders" it as the ATF would not approve). Also, at least agree that it looks like fun! I need you to help me justify this!

Sure, and sorry for the delay. In Iraq circa 2006/7 the Army's #1 airlift request was getting stuff flown into Taji. There was a lot of fighting around Taji. I did a bunch of -130 deployments to Balad, and one day I happened to be the guy picked to fly the AMC/CC around the AOR. I asked him why we weren't flying into Taji, being that Army commanders at LSA Anaconda (Balad) were always asking us the same question, being told to call AMD, and subsequently being told no. He told me that he owned the pushback against authorizing us to fly into Taji, and he was extremely proud of it. Army helos were regularly taking SAFIREs IVO Taji, and he believed he was protecting his people (me) by denying the request. "Why would I make you fly somewhere unsafe?" But the Army had to resupply and operate out of Taji. It's in the heart of the Sunni triangle and at the time, security in that area was crucial to US strategy. Because AMC refused to fly into Taji, the task was left to Army helos and ground convoys. They are significantly more vulnerable to attack. It's pretty hard to hit a herc on a Pen-D with an RPK. It's not hard to use an EFP on some 21 year old kid driving truck #23 of a huge convoy. By embracing risk aversion for his fleet that AMC commander put more people in greater risk. Stated another way: his risk aversion didn't actually decrease risk, it merely forced another to accept it. And the people forced to accept it were far more susceptible to the dangers. When I pointed this out, I was completely blown off with a sarcastic comment about how his priority was my safety..... Etc.. It's a foul philosophy. There's absolutely nothing special about me and I'm sure a lot of dudes reading this have similar tales; but I hope this story illustrates the principal I was attempting to convey.

I'm considering an X95. Never owned a bull pup, but I find the concept intriguing.

Assuming that person is allowed to carry off base, why not let them carry on base? And how exactly do you propose to protect us against the random nut jobs who carry illegally? This whole "cold light of reality" thing is nonsense. You have no idea who is carrying next to you legally or illegally off base, and no idea who is carrying illegally next to you on base. That's the cold reality: you have no idea who is doing what. So why make rules that only responsible people will follow, to their detriment? Your attitude is irresponsible.

who is fingers?

Richmond is plan B if I can't find a good outfit in Norfolk area.

Can anyone recommend a program near Norfolk, Va? I'll be starting from scratch.

You're certainly entiltiled to your opinion, but all my experience says otherwise. Most of the BS ROE you lament originates from the military itself. Rules on top of rules to make extra special certain we get no where near any red lines. And there will never be war without "Political games." Never. War is a political action, and even the super rare total war scenarios like WW2 were suffocatingly political. Good senior leaders need to find a way to adapt and overcome political obstacles as we do in tactical scenarios; that's the GO fight and they mostly suck at it. Might be they have to take a stand and get fired if the true obstacle really is a politician. How often does that happen, versus how often a line guy makes the ultimate sacrifice? There are definitely some military leaders who are tearing shit up and held back from above. LTG Thomas said in an interview recently that he is told no 9 out of 10 times. He also admits we are losing badly across the board. He is a leader and not a manager, one of few. Leadership like him is the only reason I've stayed in the AF. We have one like him who posts here sometimes. Most of our management has a graduate degree in risk aversion. They got their rank by being the guy who never took a chance and always found a reason to say no, thus avoiding any incidents on their watch while simultaneously leveraging career ending paperwork on the few who take a chance that doesn't work out. I was drowning in those types when I was in AMC, and they absolutely got people killed.... More on that if you care. They are the reason we have failed to follow up any gains and consequently stay mired in indecisiveness. Ive seen the same thing in AFSOC, though to a lesser degree. But we are losing. It's someone's fault, and that someone is not the folks on the line doing the fighting. It's the people "highly respected at the pentagon" because that respect is gained making life easy on bureaucrats.

Cooter, I don't know anything about Miami, other than the city is awesome but you'll need to stay strapped near Homestead. Why don't you reach out to Fozzy Bear? He left U-28s for some kind of cush contract tanker pilot gig in Miami, and has been there over a year. I can link you on FB if you don't know him personally. ill be jealous and lonely in Norfolk!

Chang, thank you for coming back. I haven't yet agreed with any of your posts but representing the official big blue opinion is appreciated. I mean that. But for what it's worth, "respected at the pentagon" doesn't have any credibility with me or the other rank and file. The established leadership cadre, our most professional and highly educated in history, has been losing wars the past 15 years. Win something and their professional accolades might matter. Till then they are just a bunch of losers trying the same thing over and over wondering why it won't work while our enemies gain ground. McDew recently came to ACSC. Privately he said he does not think he will be CSAF next because the person who will be nominated already knows. Whatever that cryptic statement means..... i will say he gave about the most professional and articulate statements I've heard from any senior officer. Not that he was amazing, most of them just aren't impressive.

Anyone know when a decision will be announced?

AETC student MLR was given 48% I/APZ DP allocation. If AMC got over 50%, good for them. Seems like about 50 is the going rate in AETC and AFSOC.

Concur with muscle above, do it if you value that experience. I wouldn't, because it's not something that interests me. But if it seems cool to you, go for it. Sounds like 18 months and 2 PCS, consider second order effects on your personal life. Also you should ascertain if there is a required follow on or any type of payback. Once you gather the info, decide according to your tastes. Good luck! Having a choice is a blessing.