nsplayr

You're right, but it should factor in values. I don't think this was really a hot-button, emotional, knee-jerk reaction issue...it came as a pretty big surprise when the story broke. Apparently they'd been working on it at the Pentagon for a while. Great example chief...that totally negates your point. There is no rule that prohibits women from playing in the NFL. None. You're right that no woman has played in the NFL nor would one playing be very likely, but they're banned by performance, not by policy. That's exactly what the new DOD rules will be, limits based on performance, not on arbitrary policy. It's exactly what I think there should be; its not that I think there should be or in reality will be a bunch of female SEALs running around anytime soon, but if someone wants to try by God let them and see if they measure up. The Marines just tried this, failed out the women who didn't make it, and looks like no butts were hurt anymore so then when dudes fail out. That's the ideal model so let's make that happen. Yes, combat, I'm aware of what we're talking about. If you wanna throw spears for putting this into place talk to the Joint Chiefs who recommended this to SECDEF apparently without any newsworthy fanfare (unlike the DADT debate). But I guess those guys don't know WTF they're talking about either WRT combat... Valid criticism and I share your dream. It's really a Dr. King-type dream, that one day my children and their children can serve honorably in a military like that of Starship Troopers, where tits and ass flop around freely while covered in hot water and soap

Guess we just disagree then. "Violating societal norms" has been done several times in the past within the U.S. military and there has yet to be the "unit cohesion-pocalypse" that had been predicted before each change. Women, blacks, female pilots, women on submarines, open homosexuals, etc. There will be problems, as Mr. Smith points out, and we'll have to find ways to mitigate them. Hell, there are problems the AF is experiencing now with crating a "professional work atmosphere" and women have been in the military since 1948. Some of it is BS and some of the problems in the future will be raised by BSers who in reality can't hack it, no doubt. So while I don't dismiss Mr. Smith's example (that sounded like it was horrible BTW), in my view the problems that will arrise are not so great as to preclude equality of opportunity. Pretend you wanted to do a job in the military, you thought you could hack the requirements, but were barred from doing so because you were a man. Imagine that job is really 240,000 jobs, many of which are the best tickets to reaching the top (i.e. combat arms in the Army), assuming reaching the top is your goal or maybe you really just have a hard-on for that job. The Golden Rule applies...put yourself in the other person's shoes and tell me how you would feel.

I can only assume this is who you mean:

Good on the Marines for leading the way on this, they're ahead of the SECEDF's direction so are potentially better positioned to know what to expect compared with the Army or smaller Navy/AF ground components. If they fail out or can't hack it then thanks for playing and in that story it talks about how those women's feedback was that it was harder than they imagined. In practice it may be hard to uphold the standards yet keep everybody happy (and lawsuit free!) but in theory if someone can hack the standards there's no good enough reason to bar them simply because of their gender. I'm hopeful the services can figure out a way to make it work like they always have whenever stuff like this has come up in the past.

Blame the copilot, seems about right.

Story here. From the article:

With minor corrections kinda sounds like some of the gyms I've worked out at while deployed. Not that I minded.

I am a big fan of all three of the recommendations cited in the article (haven't read the book to get the full explanation, but they sounds good in the cliff notes version). 1. Commanders get hiring authority - I know several people who would love to do the job I'm doing right now. I would love to do several other jobs out there in the Big Blue world, some occupied by those same people who want to get where I am. Alas, "not releasable" from your functional on both ends means we either soldier on working a good or different deal down the road (possible if not always probable), or get out. I've known a couple who chose door #2 recently and I will strongly consider that when my commitment is up too. To me it's a desirable fix since the system we're used to is based on very long contracts where you sign away your balls to The Man, coersion to take OK jobs rather than roll the dice and get a really bad deal, etc, all things that are not particularly efficient or which lead to creativity being looked at as a positive attribute. Obviously not an easy fix, especially in the rated world but present in most career fields, due to expensive and time-consuming training pre-reqs to do many jobs and the limitations on the training pipelines where dudes often get bottlenecked even when there's a slightly above-level of accessions into a particular community. 2. Better evaluations - I don't know a single person who likes our current evaluations system, can't see why this is not an easy kill. I'd bet almost any alternate system we tried that incorporated even some components like peer evaluation, non-inflated strats, striking voodoo coding burried in push lines, masking things not related to job performance, etc. would be better than what we have now. 3. Lateral entry - I'm also totally for this; gives dudes an opportunity to take their talents to South Beach if they so choose but return to Big Blue if things don't work out or things change or especially if they gained new experiences that bring new value added to the service. Probably would need to be rid of year group promotions and 10-year commitments to make this happen but then again doing away with both of those things sounds good to me too. Promote guys when they are ready to promote (could be real fast, could be real slow, could be average), not when "their year group is up for a look." That's my bar napkin reasoning from some Capt in a flying squadron. Hopefully puzzle palace and White House types get some of this type of feedback and maybe I'll be surprised with some bold change for once! I don't think you got it quite right. Seems like in Army you need to be combat arms if you want to command at a high level, in the AF you need to fly, in the Navy you need to be a SWO if you want a ship, etc. That's the baseline and all others are exceptions to the rule. It's the same type of deal just a different flavor. Those with more wisdom on the other services feel free to chime in if I'm off base with those corrections.

Every time I log onto the internet at work, a fairy loses it's wings...

Welcome to the 22%! Don't worry, you guys can give me tons of shit when a Republican is back in the White House...I'll do my best not to be bitter

Totally agree, just was trying to clarify what I thought the other guy's point was. If wings are for "operators" in the air force then why not have them be worn by people operating out newest weapons of war? I've got no problem with it, especially for people operating UAVs. Those things are flying in the stack same as anything else, just happens that because of our technological awesomeness as a nation the guy at the controls doesn't have to be there too and is free to bang his wife at night and drink more than 3 beers. That's my view and it seems like Big AF pretty much agrees. Now "wings" for comm nerds doing hacking/WOW/whatever else they do...IDK...that really doesn't have anything to do with flying.

The dominance in airpower we enjoy today is directly related to the sacrifices they made. I bet they would be proud. Can't wait to see this on TV.

That's his point...why is it a different set of "wings" for the 18XXers and the SOs when they're not actually going up in the air?

Be careful saying "S&M guys" these days...don't wanna get caught up in the As a matter of fact, I'm offended at how unprofessional you must be just for typing that!

Yea, realized that now & deleted. Link does say out of stock though.

Lol...you know me, skim and summarize -> profit.

Do you mean title 50? Link.

Dude, you already asked this question in another thread.

Since we're bringing up bad assumptions, you sure about this?

Do you want to fly airplanes or not? That's really the only question you have to answer. Consider this a relatively thorough answer. Word to the wise, expect incoming spears...

Thought I remembered someone saying this...that $1.5T in cuts "wouldn't even begin to make a dent." Here's why our political leaders are "looking" for that level of debt reduction over the next decade. Cliff notes version: This addresses your concerns, which are concerns that pretty much every reasonable person has. So then... This is why it's still important to get something close to the $1.5T; it's not to "solve" the problem of debt, it's to stabilize it, solving will take more work, just like any major problem you can't turn the Titanic on a dime. And we'd still have a shit-ton of debt at 60% of GDP, but it's generally agreed upon that such a ratio is a favorable goal...i.e. the goal is not to get to 0% like it would be with a household budget featuring a bunch of consumer debt. The household analogies really are gross over-simplifications that aren't really helping.

It's sage advice from my perspective man...when everyone is doing X to compete on top of being legit at their primary duties it perhaps is wise to also look into X before you've been for 6 years. Doesn't come before being good at primary duties and I'm on board with wishing the requirement didn't exist or would get significantly de-emphasized, but just callin' it like it is at least in my own little piece of the AF. I've yet to talk to one leader (plenty of managers too) from FLT/CC up to MAJCOM/CC that doesn't recognize the reality of how this whole thing works and is advising anything other than "get PME/AAD done." And this is from guys I respect, who are awesome aviators and officers, and who are looking out for the best interests of their people. Tell me to fuck off all you want, the (unfortunate) truth don't lie and the truth is that even young dudes apparently need to worry about this shit if they wanna get to where they wanna go. All the SH guys I know who are getting fast-tracked for leadership/WIC/special programs/etc. are both awesome aviators and have all their queep in line and on schedule. It's not rocket-surgery and AMU and Maxwell aren't exactly Harvard either.

Holy crap, this dude is pretty thankful for whatever caused this malfunction! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6SrH57hS2I I like how he gets kicked in the heads a couple times as he's still being wrestled to the ground on the stage.

It's a witch hunt dude, there are no rules other than find some damn witches.

Because its dangerous to wait until your 6 years in and have done nothing MA-wise in order to qualify. Most of your peers will have been DG (done & graduated) from their box checking program of choice by that point. At least based on the dudes I know.