nsplayr

I'm not suggesting this in any way, but that full tank of gas is totally optional...I'm just sayin'... My gripe at the weight station was they made me take my dog out of the car because he was "moving around" and it threw off the measurement. I said BS, I hauled his heavy ass all the way across the country! Anyways, GL man.

What you wrote maybe isn't entirely clear. When you started, you should have gotten the empty weight of the big truck and trailer without anything on it. Once it was loaded with all your crap and your wife's car, there's your full weight. I'm not an expert so IDK what the regs say on transporting vehicles if that counts just as part of your total weight moved or what but to me, those are the weights you need to determine how much crap you hauled.

Linky no workie.

For me at least, my commander is highly competent in the aircraft so it's not an issue. I'm also young and YMMV with different squadrons. I don't even think that's the biggest issue people are seeing, it's that dudes who prioritize CYA and box checking are promoted and dudes who are out there kicking ass and taking names are passed over to a certain degree or more likely punching out after looking at a long dark tunnel or further CYA and box checking. It's the slow vectoring over time where dudes who are most worried about their own careers and "play the game" most effectively get on the golden boy track and dudes who kill the enemy most effectively look like just another Captain Bag O'Donuts because out evaluation system doesn't seem to adequately value primary job excellence. And I also don't think the problem is with SDE (or as you said senior service colleges). Those seem to be valuable and CH already spoke to his very positive experience. The problem is where doing SOS both in correspondence and in residence is a major discriminating factor for promotion. Other than the commissioning-source re-hash of ASBC, is the first real PME a person will go to and while I have not had the privilege of attending Shoe Flag yet, I've heard less than stellar reviews. Why are CGOs, the supposed tactical experts, doing practice bleeding for something that isn't even that valuable? Do CGOs need to get "strategic breadth" or do they need to be in the vault studying their weapons system? Assume "both" is not a viable option (that is the AF's current stance) because time and effort are finite factors and you can't make two different things your #1 priority. That's the rub. Why are masters degrees, no matter what they are in or how hard they were to obtain, valued above being good at your job? The current system assumes everyone is good at their job and thus discriminates based on who also has that AAD done. That's simply not true and it's part of the problem.

Threeholer, All of your last questions are valid and you seem to share the same opinion on PME and DL masters degrees that the rest of us do. The system should evolve from one that promotes based on box checking to one that both incorporates legitimate educational opportunities that are applicable to strategic thinking (and strats based on those), but importantly, also includes more emphasis on primary job excellence. The more I've discussed this overall issue in various settings the more I'm starting to believe the core of the problem is simple: the AF assumes everyone is excellent at their job and thus has to move to "secondary" factors to rack and stack folks. We all know this is false in two ways, A) there is often a wide spread (STS) between the guys who are sh*t how and the dudes who can't fly (or finance or contract or turn a wrench) their way out of a wet paper bag, and B) even if a guy is obviously bad at his job, his OPRs/PRF will often be compiled in a way to minimize that so not to have one of the Commander's guys "left behind." There's not an easy fix to either of these problems (realizing not everyone is a winner and writing honest assessments), but to me the problems are at least becoming increasingly clear in my eyes. As OverTQ alluded to, no, the CC doesn't need to continually be the best pilot in the squadron and I'd much rather have him be good at Commander business rather than crew dog business, but the idea that a person can rise to the position of Commander without ever having been even decent at crew dog business is a foul on the entire system. I'd argue it is exceedingly rare where a person is a sh*tty pilot but would make an excellent commander of a flying squadron based on other "officership" type qualities, and even then that person would have a credibility problem leading troops in wartime. Being good, even excellent, at your current assigned duties at any level of responsibility should be an absolute requirement to move on to the next higher level, bottom line. In the ideal system, if you suck at your job you don't get promoted; there's no amount of boxes you should be able to check (PME/MA/volunteer/d*ck sucking/execing/etc.) that should allow you to escape the fact that you can't flourish where you're planted. As your level of responsibility becomes more and more strategic and less and less tactical, your job follows suit so at a certain point if you can't move beyond A+B=C of the tactical world then you will not command or make strategic positions. At that point perhaps relevant, useful PME and Masters-level strategic study are factors that should influence the decision of whether to promote or not. In today's system it seems to me and to a lot of other that those "strategic thinker/well rounded/MA-educated/officership" considerations are coming up when a dude is a f*cking lieutenant trying to plan ahead for getting on the right "vector" as a young captain so he can get a school slot on his first-look major's board. That's exactly the wrong time for those things to be important; it's the time when that guy should be fully immersed in the tactical mission of his unit, because his primary duties lie at that level. This is amplified even more when you're at war and the Boss is putting pink bodies in iron to go out and kill the enemy, because guess who is likely to be sitting in the seat? What skills do you want that guy to possess at that point in time?

"I normally don't have a burger, a brat and a steak, but it is 4th of July. And I need the energy if I'm gonna start blowing crap up later."

Exactly. My last feedback session with my flt/cc involved him telling me, through gritted teeth, to get my MA finished up and to get SOS in correspondence knocked out ASAP. He's a former fighter dude and honestly I could tell what he wanted to tell me was to stay in the vault and concentrate on my upgrade, but he's saying what he has to say to keep his people competitive. The pendulum has swung way too far in the direction of queep and like it's been said numerous times before, being good, even excellent at your primary duty does not factor in to you being promoted almost at all, which is absolutely insane when our primary duties are as important as they are and our MAs in Basket Weaving and SOS completion certificates are as worthless as we all know they are. Like Danny said above, I don't exactly need to spend time "grasping the bigger picture" here as a CGO in a flying position during wartime. I like education and would probably pursue masters work even if it wasn't required, but that (and entry-level PME) should not be the focus and they are because you will not get promoted without those boxes checked. There are 6-9 thousand FGOs above me who can get working on the bigger picture and another 6-9 thousand O-6+ who can actually be in a position to affect broader strategy. Someone needs to give almost their entire focus on cultivating and maintaining tactical excellence and that person should be the crew dog flying the line every day.

Tac, I don't want to be rude, however, your post fills me with an overwhelming urge rip off my shirt, grow a huge beard, crush some heavy deadlift, or punch a Nazi in the face. Yes x 1 million. I know several dudes who are fangs-out mish hackers who have continuously stiff-armed the queep and are seeing their careers suffer for it. Likely to be "not continued" in the future. There is a fine line between principled stand and failing to take necessary self-preservation measures and perhaps they could have given a little more in terms of doing what's needed to stick around, but the sheer amount of BS has crushed the souls of many fine warriors who just want to kill people for a living and don't give a sh*t about a MA in Basket Weaving so they can make O-5. In the CAF and SOF especially, I want dudes who fly because it's the fastest way known to man to go from sitting peacefully in the TOC to finding and violently killing the enemy. That quality is not prized or even considered when it comes to career progression/advancement/awards/etc. The last time I checked the "paying your dues" part of our job was college/OTS/Zoo/ROTC/UPT/MWS qual/Q1 mission checkride/AC or flight lead upgrade/IP/EP. Once those are accomplished you have made it to the NFL-level of warfare and the focus should be on the mission rather than the career. In the end, no matter what you fly, none of us in the service are hoping the red-eye from Charlotte to Denver or chasing ambulances.

Speaking of Mustache March, looks like this former Lex Luthor-bald actor/politician and current crazy person has gotten a premature start of Novemburly.

Well said. P.S. - piddle packs FTW. If you sh*t on my plane you're off the team.

You're guessing wrong. This can't be adequately discussed here so I'll just stop. The point of the article I think was positive, that we're leveraging some relatively high-speed women in a limited role that allows us as a whole to take the fight to the enemy more effectively. Everything else here is just chaff that need not be rehashed again. From the Army's official website on the program (emphasis added): So everything about "fighting your way in" to a hot objective is moot within the intended scope of the program. Yea sh*t happens as Rainman so bluntly stated but CST members are not "operators" and seem to receive about enough advanced training to adequately defend themselves if sh*t actually does hit the fan unexpectedly. All of which is not entirely new but it's good that the idea is being expanded/normalized.

Huh? Yea, exactly.

Eh...I am willing to give them a pass since they said "Women Special Operators." If you are in ops and assigned to USSOCOM, you are a special operator or SOF to me. Special operators conduct special operations, what else would you call it? Being an "Operator" colloquially is obviously very different and I don't think the article implied that they were breaking necks or bear crawling up mountains like the bigfoot-ninjas we have out there. And if it was slightly on the sensational side, it's a headline, that's the idea I guess... Overall, good on these ladies because debriefing/searching the chicks on the objective can be extremely valuable in a situation like this one where the primary target (senior IMU guy) put on a burka in an attempt to escape.

Thanks for posting guys, keep it up and tell the guys further back to come on here and continue posting drop results. P.S. - drop results on a Wed night? What's up with that? Congrats to all.

Already discussed in part here.

IDK, I'm in the "equality crowd" and I don't really want any of our guys (or gals) fighting their way in to a target. Surprise & speed > gun battle. Generally works out better that way anyways WRT actually getting the target. I've heard of this for some time, is this really new or just new on the SF side?

I think so. I agree that in my community we're pretty equal and at HRT we've had several 12XX in the chain of command recently. Have heard this is not the case in AMC primarily. Hell, a lot of former AMC navs who are now in my squadron have recognized that they weren't exactly mission critical to some of their former platforms (i.e. tankers, RC-135, AWACS, etc.) and that's exactly why they came down here.

Can't go wrong with the classic Ruger 10/22.

Sooo...he's an RJ nav? WTF was he talking about half the time...

Obama to announce plans to begin withdrawal of 30,000 troops Wednesday night. Stay tuned. I won't miss the B-huts one bit but then again I think some of us are still gonna be there for a long time. Maybe he had this on his mind...

Most of these are very libertarian views and while I can respect that and see where you're coming from, I don't think that would work either. I firmly believe that the government can and should do things for the benefit of the people beyond the limited scope some of you guys are looking through and that it can be a force to help shape the private sector into productive ventures. For all it's faults (mainly politicizing government employment), I think the Works Progress Administration overall (and the Civilian Conservation Corps in particular) were fairly successful in putting people back to work for public good before WWII fixed that problem more permanently. To Rainman, I obviously haven't thought out the details so perhaps the way I described it wouldn't work based on the points you made. But to me, you have these three problems of unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, and unearned benefits in the form of long-term unemployment checks. There has to be a way that you can attack all three of those simultaneously without it being framed as a "big government take over." Although judging by the comments about how FDR was a total failure, that the government should only do defense and a few other very limited tasks, etc., I think that is unavoidable.

Big first story is the 747-8 just landed there a few hours ago. U-S-A, U-S-A!

Either call or check out that Attachment 14 to the AFI. It has an email address where you can write and ask for the most current list. GL in your search.

Here's a story from AF times that mentions language pay and has Mongolian (google skillz). Also try calling the AFSOTC Language Center at 850-884-1697. They do a lot of good work on Hurlburt for SOF guys here who need or want to learn languages for jobs and the people who work there (mostly civilians) are extremely nice, helpful, and it's a low-threat environment. I'm sure they could answer your question with more authority. Edit to add: found the AF Strategic Language List for FY09 (not sure if there is a more current one). It's attached here. Also go here for more info/links/programs that you can shake a stick at. Also see Attachment 14 to AFI36-2605 for official guidance on how to obtain the current list of languages and the formula for determining how much money you get.

There is plenty of support for these kinds of investments outside of politics because they make sense. It's like tying together entitlement reform and job creation, two things we desperately need. Unfortunately there has been political opposition to any new spending even on things that make sense; these kinds of initiatives are the ones that need to grow even if we're cutting discretionary spending on the whole. Using a scalpel rather than a chainsaw is always better because this is the kind of program that gets cut by the chainsaw. Private sector employment and innovation + federal incentives and seed money + making people work for the good of the country = win. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO are both for stuff like this, and they pretty much hate each other.