PolyestherDuck

12,400 members... It hasn't just gone viral... Its gone PLAID!

capt4fans, Any smack from your leadership yet over this? It looks like the "group starter" name has disappeared. Probably a very good call.

-- Gen Jumper, forword to Commanding an Air Force Squadron in the 21st Century

Recommend altering or deleting the last post on the previous page. Last thing we want to do is out a good guy.

I also believe gold is overinflated and set up for a pull back. Silver has a little room to grow still, particularly in the event of an economic recovery, given its industrial uses. Regarding Rhodium, how does one invest in that?

So, like any other brand new 2Lt into the USAF, I got into debt pretty quick out of college. I didn't have much in terms of student loans... around $11k, I think. I bought a used sports car, reasonably priced, but German cars are expensive to maintain. Between the car, credit cards, and student loans, I hit somewhere around $36k of debt within a year or two. After finishing UPT, I went to my first assignment. There, I was introduced to First Command which turned out to be both good and bad. The good - My advisor sat me down and helped me come up with a plan. Within a year, between deployment tax free money, living a very low-consumption lifestyle, very good monetary discipline, and a lady in a Chevy truck who failed to yield the right of way (with a very kind insurance company that gave me around $6k to fix a damaged Porsche that had been mechanically faulty before the accident and worth only around $5500), and selling off the wreck for $3k, I clawed my way completely out of debt. I drove a mechanically-sound, high mileage Saturn one of my fellow pilots sold me for $1k for about a year (then eventually sold it to an airman who worked for me and had just had a kid for $1 and a twelve-pack of Amber Bock.) The point is First Command helped provide me a structure around which I could financially discipline myself. The bad- I bought their whole life insurance and they used to be only front-loaded funds. News flash... single people shouldn't have whole life. Very few married people should have whole life. If you have a decent portfolio when you die, term will cover you just fine in case of early departure, and honestly who needs a huge whole life policy when you're old enough to have grandkids if you've got enough to cover the spousal unit's expenses? Ref the front-loaded funds, it makes it freaking expensive if you want to access the money early for something like, say, buying a house. So here's my advice: - Buy a Dave Ramsey book or two. - Keep your debt down, especially when you're young by driving an affordable car or truck. - Max your IRA every year. Then put as much into TSP as you can stand. After that, mutual funds or if you're willing to do the research, stock. Check out USAA's index funds. I suggest a mix of small-cap, large-cap, and international. - Don't get more house or apartment than you need. Consider duration of a PCS, potential for deployment, and the local market. It doesn't make sense to buy a house if you're going to move in 18 months when you finish pilot training or go to ACSC. It also doesn't make much sense if you're going to deploy for 179 days in a few months and your wife and kids are going to live with her parents while you're in the sandbox. Some of you are thinking "Oh, but I'll flip it or rent it out." Fine, just understand the risks involved, the work necessary, and the expenses that may happen if you get crappy renters or the market goes south. There are a lot of dudes at Nellis getting ready to PCS who are down $75G or more in value of their house. Of course, the reverse is true that a lot of dudes sold their houses for more than they were worth a few years ago. - Consider using your flight pay as a yardstick for your investments. Max your IRA with your base pay, then invest all your flight pay. As your flight pay goes up over the years, don't even think about it. Set it all up to go into your investment fund. - The ACP bonus. Well, honestly, I don't have a magic answer to this one. Normally, I use it every year to clean up $2-3k of debt, I toss about a quarter of it into TSP (a VERY good idea if you get the bonus while deployed... ALL of it that you throw into TSP is tax free if deployed... FOREVER), and I usually do something fun with a portion of whats left, like buy guns and ammo or a cruise. This year, I'm going to use a chunk of it to pay down what I owe on some land I own back home and possibly to buy another rifle or two. - Precious metals: You're not going to get rich with them. Still, it won't hurt to buy a couple thousand dollars of gold or silver coins every few years. Wait until you get the bonus for that, unless you're feeling super aggressive. Gold's at an all-time high right now and silver's creeping up too. Silver has a few more industrial uses than gold, so right now I think silver's a better investment (and cheaper to get started with...) Precious metals are not really an investment, per se, but rather a hedge against inflation. If we ever get a 2001 Argentinean economy type meltdown, thats where having a some of precious metals comes in handy. On that note, my best investments have been copper and lead... in the 9mm, 5.56, and .308 varieties. I bought a bunch of ammo back between 2004-2006 for about 60% of what its worth now. For anyone living in Cali, I suggest loading up on handgun ammo before the new laws prohibiting mail order ammo purchases and requiring ammo purchase tracking goes into effect in Feb. Thank Arnold for signing that. - Get a good CPA to do your taxes. Keep him or her. In closing, don't be a dumbass. Avoid too much debt. Live a responsible lifestyle (but still have fun). Consider the old adage, "if it flies, floats, or $^(&s, rent it."

I recently heard that the rules on wearing partial PT uniforms had changed... ie people could now workout while wearing just the shorts and a civilian t-shirt or vice versa, so long as they were not at an official formation. I was in the gym recently with a buddy when he mentioned to one of the enlisted troops we work with that folks might get upset about partial uniform. I spoke to him afterwards and told him I'd heard that the rules had changed but I'd look into it... Anyone got the low-down? Did the regs change? - PS. I thought I asked in another post but I couldn't find the post or topic. Feel free to add your other PT uniform gripes/complaints here. Oh yeah, and as winter approaches, happy swishing in your long pants.

I just picked up a S&W M&P .40 today. I've never shot well with Glocks or XDs, but the S&W seems to point a lot better for me. On the flip side, I think I'm down to around 1500 rds of .40 now :( Oh well, I still have over 4K rds for my Beretta packed away. Getting ready to PCS and I'm actually going to put the firearms I'm taking with me on my orders. The rest are going into storage. Well, the rest except for the majority portion of my gun collection that I lost in a tragic boating accident back in Nov when the bayonet on my M-14S poked a hole in the bottom of a Zodiac I was riding in while spending quality time on the water.

I always hated the follow me trucks that would suddenly cut the corner to reposition for marshalling but forget to turn their "Follow Me" sign off. No offense, @ssclowns, but the Follow Me truck IS my marshaller until you turn that light off. If you want me to stop following the truck, stop the truck, turn the light off, reposition, and marshall me in with your light wands or big hands.

I wonder if Pred and Reaper crews can wear them in the GCS...

And guess what the co-pilot learned from this? Probably not to write it up since his leadership will only f$#^ him. One of my buds from UPT over-G'd his Eagle. He spent the next two days pulling panels with the MX folks and learning to inspect. No Q3. No Article 15. This kind of crap goes right along with Zero Tolerance policies. My kid can't have a cough drop unless administered by the nurse?

Yeah, terrible example. Next time I hear someone tell me "Come up with useless furniture you need so that we can zero out our budget" at the end of the fiscal year, yet two months later the squadron doesn't have paper or toner cartridge, I swear I'm going to choke them out. "Use or lose" is not a wise fiscal policy.

Polymer mags used to be known for their inability to feed correctly. MAGPUL magazines are now considered to be the best in the world. Firearms instructor Pat Rogers advocates their use. https://www.eagtactical.com/ He's probably the top firearms instructor for military and police in the nation. TangoDown Advanced Reliability Carbine magazines are also excellent. I wouldn't buy any polymer magazines except for those two brands.

Thats all I have to say in this thread. I wish I still had my gun collection. After the election, I decided to spend more quality time with my guns and ammo, so I loaded the safe into my Zodiac. Unfortunately, the bayonet on my Polytech M14S poked a hole in the bottom of my Zodiac and everything sunk to the bottom of the lake. I've got the GPS coords though, so I may learn to scuba dive and try and recover some of the collection.

OMG! Combat Coal Mining!

WTF over? A bowtie? He clearly should have instructed a square knot.

I never spent time in USAFE but some of the folks in my office did. We sat around today and they told stories about "He who should not be named." Hence the reason I mispelled his name. I heard about 6 or 7 absolutely outlandish stories. Can they really be true? Apparently this fellow got angry because he had ordered his commercial to be played every 45 minutes on AFRTS. While watching TV one day, he realized it had gone longer than 45 minutes with no commercial. He went nuclear and demanded to know why. Well, PA tracked it down and informed him it wasn't on the Euro AFRTS channel, but rather the Pacific AFRTS channel. He then instructed PA to contact PACOM and get them to air his commercial. Apparently the general at PACOM refused and he went through the roof. Also heard he blew through execs every 90 to 120 days. 20 hour days for the execs as he wanted his computer screen configured in a certain manner each morning with the topics he would have to review that day and he wouldn't leave until 10PM at night. The execs would then have to arrange his computer for the next day prior to his arrival at 5AM. Truth? Fiction?

I just got my SARC briefing. To be honest, I thought they would have talked more about proactive measures such as self-defense classes, carrying pepper spray and concealed carry, but I guess thats why they're the "Response Coordinator."