Fud

WOW! It seems like the person in charge of standup should have tore him a new one.

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2 on lone surivor. The book is incredible, and I hear the movie studios are trying to make it into a movie.

I thought the USAF couldn't investigate someone if the only charge was being gay? If he was outed, and his commander "asked", I'm sure he used his integrity and answered yes (he told). Again, I don't know the specifics of the situation, and I'm sure they'll all be out in time. There was a similar situation with a female nurse not too long ago.

I didn't mean to start any kind of problem here; I was just stating a possibility. Seeing that it is legite, I'd love to see the paypal account information for his daughter.

It's the same on the missile side for the instructor billets. Once someone gets a "K/Q/T" prefix, does it stay with you on the aviation side for the rest of your career?

This isn't the exact speech, but hooah to this! Edit: here it is “Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road,” he said. “And you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” He raised his hand and pointed. “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction. “Or you can go that way and you can do something - something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference.” He paused and stared into the officer’s eyes and heart. “To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do. Which way will you go? The officer to which we should all bow...General Boyd.

M2 and everyone else, -I wasn't trying to clutter the thread, but there are D-Bags that try and profit off of famous/legendary peoples' deaths. I was just trying to give a word of caution. -Women's day is a great magazine...kidding...no i'm not.

When a parent dies, if they leave massive loans, you are not responsible. https://womentodaymagazine.com/money/inheritdebt.html. There are many other sources here, but the creditors cannot try and get money out of you, unless you plan to keep the estate. I do not mean to dishonor this thread, and I do not know his daughters situation. I'm just saying I would be cautious of putting money in a paypal account unless it is really her.

I saw this article when I was reading articles online, and it really cracked me up. I guarantee, if services would institute a happy hour again, then more people would come to the club. I don't know if anyone on here is a member, but I tried it about two years ago. Our Sq/CC told us that it was our professional obligation to join the club, and I decided I would. After receiving the credit card, and not being able to pay my dues online, I cancelled my membership two months later. It was an incredibly lame experience, and I didn't gain anything out of it.

Nice video! I really like the Johnny Cash song in the background as well. The first time I heard it was in high school, and it was a Moby remix.

Boldness or hungover stupidity, I'll let you choose. The heffer in the aforementioned story was not one we would have invited to the table. She was one of the Bible-bangers in our class, so we tried to let her fit in. Me and a couple of other guys were going to a bar a few weeks later, and we asked her to DD for us. She replied with some lame excuse, and told us that she was sorry for the problems she had caused. She also didn't like harsh language either, which floored me, her being a MX officer and all. Oh well, I think the USAF should bring the titty bars to the base, and the O-club will be packed with women and men singing song and drinking ale. Slacker, that is an awesome story. I tried to coin my wing commander recently at an Air Force ball, and he picked my coin up, handed it back to me, and told me to go away (###### off). I tried to hold him to it, but didn't want paperwork coming my way later on. I'll figure out a way to get my drink sooner or later.

I was thinking about this earlier today, and had a couple of thoughts worth mentioning. I have noticed that the military has started to promote religion more and more since my time on AD. This being said, I do have many examples, but one sticks out in my mind. While at ASBC, a group of us decided to go to the O-club during the middle of the week. We went to the bar in the basement, and all of us ordered a pitcher of beer a piece. One of our female flight members who we did not invite came down a while later, and she was giving us the "stink-eye" the whole time. The next morning, we were all brought in by our flight commander and counseled on alcohol abuse. We were told that we violated 0-0-1-3, to which I replied "Doesn't a pitcher count as one drink?". He actually found this to be funny, and realized how the entire situation was. The next point I thought of was how little time we actually have off. Any CGO in a career field will tell you that they are undermanned, but working more than in years past. Sometimes, the last people I want to party with after a long week of work are the peers in my squadron. Mainly because all they do is talk about work, and then it becomes a giant bitch-fest. I don't mind that on occasion, but it really doesn't accomplish anything to think about pipe dreams all day. Each generation of officers serving in the military has an ebb/flow process where a bunch of CGOs end up getting out at one time. My unit is experiencing this, due to low morale, undermanning, and low satisfaction with the work we do. I wholeheartedly agree with HerkDerka when he says that the O-club will never be an institution again amongst CGOs, and it is a sad thing to see it go.

The idea of a squadron bar was proposed in my unit (non-flying), but it was shot down by our leadership before we even got a proposal together. I don't think many people would have gone anyway though.

I remember the first officer's club that I ever attended, and boy was it wild. This was in 2006 at Vandenberg AFB, CA. The squadron commander at the time utilized the facility, and it was a great place to wind down after a hard week of training. The commander himself was a drinker, and he would have drinks with all of his instructors and students. Some thought it unprofessional, but most welcomed the morale boost in a service (USAF) that we needed. Once this commander moved on, and subsequently promoted, the new commander did not show the same enthusiasm for the club. I think many of the reasons mentioned above are right on target, but I did not see the command element mentioned (maybe I missed it). The command climate in any unit is essential for good morale and welfare, but the USAF has hindered this with many of its programs. ORM is a classic example, in how this program not only mitigates risk, but tries to make it disappear completely. Sure, you risk some crazy happenings when excessive alcohol abuse is tolerated, but soldiers will be soldiers. Look at what our service asks us to do to our enemies, and what stresses that can create. Why not have a safe haven where you can drink to brothers lost, and come together over a few beers and shoot the shit. I hope to see this culture come back, but it will not happen at my current base. Too many people are worried about 0-0-1-3, and other programs like it. People, including myself, have been told that they are alcoholics simply because they have to call their wives, or AADD to take them home. Again, I hope this great tradition comes back, but I'm not sure that it will.

I rewarded myself with a big screen television since I already had a car. Otherwise, I would have bought a car/truck. I drive a Chevy 1500 single cab pickup, and I love it. Edit: I didn't answer the F$&king question.

I believe you need the form 522 to be able to wear this ribbon. I qualified for the ribbon at FT, but never got any paperwork afterward.

The evaluator I had was an asshole, and really didn't seem to like doing that part of the job. He asked all sorts of questions that dealt with instrument rating info, and went really into the weeds. However, I did learn a lot, and still have a hunger for the knowledge side.

M2, thanks for posting that, as I figured the article was a quite one-sided. It fired me up when I first read it, but after thinking about it I posted so that I could get the rest of the story.

Criticizing maintenance got airman ousted By all accounts, Adam Lucero was a hard-charging airman. When he didn’t make it into a summer camp for the Air Force Academy, he enlisted at age 17 through the Delayed Entry Program and had his staff sergeant rocker by the time he was 21. But Lucero, now 24, dreamed of going to Officer Training School and earning his pilot wings, so he poured himself into his work and studies, hoping he could one day fly the fighter jets he maintained at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. That same passion, drive and singleness of purpose may have led to his downfall. When he discovered what he considered to be unsafe maintenance practices by his squadron co-workers, and was unable to get the support he sought from his superiors, he started going directly to pilots to tell them the planes they were flying were unsafe. For 18 months, he pushed his complaints despite his leaders’ opposition. Finally, in July 2006, he was forced out of the Air Force. The 11th Air Force Inspector General’s Office and Defense Department IG have concluded Lucero’s commanders engaged in reprisals against him. What remains unclear is whether another, ongoing investigation will clear his name and let him rejoin the service. In the meantime, he’s selling trucks in Fairbanks. Lucero’s troubles began in January 2005 when he transferred to Eielson’s 355th Aircraft Maintenance Unit to become an A-10 crew chief. There he met Staff Sgt. Dusty Surber, a fellow enlisted airman with designs on becoming a pilot. The 354th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, the 355th’s parent unit, would seem to be the perfect place for two ambitious airmen: Winner of the 2004 Air Force Maintenance Effectiveness Award, the unit had earned all “outstanding” and “excellent” ratings in its most recent Pacific Air Forces inspections. But in interviews with Air Force Times, Surber and Lucero said the drive for high sortie numbers there meant serious safety issues were overlooked to keep planes flying. “I didn’t like what I saw — a lot of people were taking shortcuts, not following the [technical orders], letting aircraft fly that should [have been] grounded until they got repaired,” Lucero said. He said he once had an airman first class suggest to him that they replace a lost screw with epoxy. With such high expectations for producing sortie numbers, Surber said, maintenance holdups were unwelcome. “If you wrote up something you thought was bad, they thought ... ‘You’re just doing this to try and screw us,’” Surber said. “These are training missions we’re flying here, you know? What’s the point of risking someone’s life over a training mission? “Everybody was gunning for that next stripe or ... that next rank,” Surber said. “Whenever you start affecting ... those numbers and those sorties ... you’re really messing with fire, because that’s somebody’s potential promotion.” Disillusioned, Surber asked to be transferred to the base maintenance operations control center. At first, he said, his request was denied because the 355th didn’t want to lose a 7-level crew chief; but after he started talking to the squadron’s pilots about how unsafe he thought their aircraft were, “I was gone within a week,” he said. Surber had a parting message for his friend Lucero, which he recalled for Air Force Times: “If you stick to your guns, and you’re not a ‘yes’ man, I guarantee you’re gonna find a whole world of trouble.” Lucero found it. According to the report of a Defense Department-directed investigation into Lucero’s removal from the Air Force, Lucero identified a migrated wedding band — a bearing that fits around a steering pin — on an A-10 he was inspecting June 9, 2005. While that bearing was not specifically on his inspection checklist, he recognized the problem because of his previous work in the Aero Repair shop, and wrote it up as a Red X — the most serious indicator of a maintenance issue. A Red X grounds a plane. The proper procedure, Lucero knew, was to remove the part and fix it — time-consuming, but it was in “black and white” on the technical order, Lucero said. When a specialist arrived, however, he climbed “on top of the jet, without a TO or anything, took a pry bar and popped it back into place,” Lucero said. The specialist then overwrote the Red X, clearing the plane to fly. Lucero informed several flight-line supervisors of the incident, but each time was rebuffed. The specialist, his superiors told him, knew better than he how to handle the problem, and Lucero should trust the specialist’s judgment. Dismayed, Lucero took his case up the chain — and for his troubles, he got harsh rater-directed feedback, a reprimand indicating the need for specific performance improvement. “Our section will not tolerate you being irresponsible,” the feedback reads. Any problems outside his specialty must be put “on a dash [indicating a nongrounding maintenance issue] ... let that shop determine what the symbol needs to be.” According to the investigation report and unbeknownst to Lucero, the specialist who had “fixed” the wedding band was punished with a letter of reprimand July 6 for his actions. Lucero didn’t find that out until Sept. 12 — after months of being told he should know better than to correct a specialist. Lucero said he quickly became persona non grata within the squadron. His supervisor said it was Lucero’s brashness and lack of respect that rubbed leadership the wrong way. “It’s not what he had found, it was the way he was going about doing his work,” said Tech. Sgt. Donald Wayne McKee, Lucero’s former direct supervisor and now retired. “When he would up-channel something, he wasn’t doing it like he was supposed to.” When a crew chief finds a problem, he is supposed to notify an expeditor, who alerts an appropriate specialist for an evaluation, according to AFI 21-101, the authority on aircraft maintenance. McKee said Lucero would often alert the specialist himself, or just Red-X the plane based on his prior training. Documents in the investigation report show several other base leaders counseled Lucero on his failure to use correct reporting methods. “It was causing jets not to make their flights,” McKee said. “I kept counseling him on that, telling him, listen, you need to make sure that people know.” The battle escalated quickly: Lucero kept taking his story of bad maintenance to higher powers, and his leadership countered with increasingly stern discipline. On July 15, 2005, Lucero met with investigators at the 354th Fighter Wing’s IG office, complaining of bad maintenance and reprisals against him. Within a week, he was ordered to get a mental health evaluation, and was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Two further military evaluators gave Lucero the same diagnosis, one suggesting Lucero be kicked out of the service. A civilian psychologist later rejected the diagnosis. Lucero’s paper trail kept growing. He had begun secretly using a voice recorder in conversations with his superiors, legal under federal and Alaska state law. But when McKee found out, he confiscated the recorder, leading to a heated confrontation with Lucero and squadron officers. Afterward, Lucero got a letter of reprimand for using the recorder and an Article 15 for disobeying direct orders not to use it. He was also taken off the flight line and assigned janitorial duties. Lucero successfully rebutted the official reprimand and declined his Article 15. His squadron commander, Lt. Col. Rick Petito, brought court-martial charges but later dismissed them, instead issuing another letter of reprimand for the recorder. Petito, who declined to comment for this report, later learned Lucero was telling pilots in the 354th Fighter Squadron their aircraft were not safe, the investigation report said. Petito slapped Lucero with no-contact orders, saying he could not speak with the pilots or the maintenance group commander. Petito then gave Lucero a letter of admonishment on Sept. 23, 2005, officially for violating the no-contact order with the 354th Maintenance Group commander. Then, on Oct. 11, 2005, McKee gave Lucero a referral enlisted performance report with the lowest possible rating. A referral EPR typically means an airman screwed up, is not likely to get promoted in the next cycle and could be forced out of the service. Lucero’s referral EPR included this statement: “You still find it necessary to try to undermined [sic] the moral [sic] of the section and the squadron.” In August 2006, the 354th Fighter Wing’s Investigator General’s Office ruled against Lucero in his reprisal allegations. But Lucero took his complaint up the chain to the 11th Air Force IG, which told him that without new evidence, there were no grounds to investigate. My question to anyone who flies, would you rather have a crew chief like this who seemingly wants to save your life, or would you not? On the surface, it seems like I would want to have a guy like this, but I could be way wrong.

Personally, I'll salute regardless, unless I'm walking around with an O-6 (which is rare). I have been told numerous times that I do not need to salute a higher ranking officer if I am walking with one of equal or higher rank. However, my philosophy is to avoid being chewed out because it is a waste of my time. Also, being an O-2, even if I have the regs on my side, I will rarely win a battle in my unit.

I'm just surprised the people in formation weren't wearing reflective belts. I have seen more of this formation shit than I can handle since I've been in, and it is disgusting. It really is no wonder our sister services laugh at us, and they will keep doing so until the ridiculousness stops. I also agree that C-17 "Combat Hours" are a little bit overstated. The missions of the two aircraft mentioned are completely different, but both require the pilots/crew to get into some danger. I also think it would only take one well aimed mortar round into the middle of a formation to get all of the bullshit to stop. It's too bad that big blue is completely reactive, because they don't see this coming.

I would recommend buying a used bike on your base's "Lemon Lot". If you are interested in riding a cruiser, I'd recommend a 750CC-1100CC bike. I own a used Yamaha V-Star 1100, and I love it. It was not too much bike for me to start with either. If you like sport bikes, I'd recommend Honda/Yamaha/Suzuki that is about 600CCs. It's a lot of fun, but I hate wearing all the protective gear.

I've seen it, and it is extremely funny. The wikipedia article said that it was a black comedy, so I ordered it on netflix. Soon after, I ordered the book off of Amazon.com. I do think a committee for design is a terrible idea, but a committee for approval of a weapon system is a different story. If we had a group that could say "No" to all of the brass, SECDEF, and POTUS, then we could get somewhere. I really don't care about all of the "jobs" that it takes away from US citizens, because the end result is key. Burton proposed a blitzfighter similar to the A-10, and it was shot down even though it was a great design. The best aircraft in the USAF have come through tremendous infighting in the Pentagon (F-15/F-16/A-10), and I think these discussions need to take place. Unfortunately, the current administration has really set bad precedent by firing the SECAF and CSAF previous to the present leaders. The reason being that leaders will now have a CYA mentality, and really not want to rock the boat. I know I always quote Boyd and his counterparts, but he is right every time. I'd love to see more people who could give two shits about their careers, and want more for the USAF than the current mentality. It (this mentality) permeates every career field, and the shoe-clerks are winning. I'm just glad that the shoe mentality has not reached the AFSOC community, because we would be in for real trouble.

Thanks for clearing up this side of the process for me, as I always found it confusing. I was reading "The Pentagon Wars" by Colonel James Burton, and it suggested a committee that would approve designs that were the best for the services, and they could not take any type of compensation from defense contractors. Ideally, this would seem to work because it would enforce an objective mindset with the appointed individuals. I was wondering if a committee like this already exists, or if you think that would be a bad idea.