gearhog

Based on my recollection, for every 90 days of qualifying sets of orders, you can begin receiving your ANG/AFR retirement paycheck 90 days earlier than your 60th birthday. It amounts to a substantial sum of money. Details are on the ARPC or VPC website which lists which orders qualify. Search for "Reduced Retirement". You have to sign up, get approved, get access to the online worksheet, upload, have it reviewed, processed, and approved. The whole process took months for me. Definitely start now and here's a pro tip: Don't try to figure out which orders do and do not qualify. I downloaded every individual set of orders from AROWS that were listed as "potentially qualifying" on the RR worksheet. I went all the way back to 2008, even for short 2-3 day TDYs. (With the exception of State "ST" orders). I renamed all the files with my name, date of the orders, and some official sounding keywords such as "Activation, Contingency, Deployment, Afghanistan, etc..." Then, I uploaded every individual file to the Reduced Retirement worksheet. Over 150 orders and it took 2-4 minutes per order - a real ass pain on a gov network. It took days. Apparently, an airman sits there and downloads the .pdfs and reviews every set of orders to determine if they qualify - or do they just look at file names and descriptions? I don't know. I'll say nearly all of mine were deemed "qualifying" and i will begin receiving my Guard retirement 2.5 years earlier (if the country is still solvent).

Hong Kong TV is saying Kim Jong dead.

Have you considered the Navy?

I get what you're saying, and I get what joe1234 is saying. I managed to do almost 22 years and never had a position that wasn't flying, instructing, or evaluating and my thoughts have been all over the map on this issue. There's always been the constants in the Squadron: A few stick and rudder guys that just nailed everything, few GK gurus, a couple deadbeats, and then... everyone in the middle. For whatever reason, I marked 2012 as the year when I saw a notable decline in the middle of the squadron's "give a shit" attitude and emphasis toward flying skills. That's also around the time I noticed a massive increase in complexity of simply being a pilot/member of the Air Force. It was around this time when the Great PC Witch Hunt occurred, more inspections, budget sequestrations/less flying, new finance policies, etc. After a while, every checkride/training folder began with conversations along the lines of "Hey, I'm just trying to get through this. I've been working on MICT checklists for the past month and have been cancelled for MX/WX/Ops six times." And they weren't lying. So then I go to the SQ/CC with my concerns and he says, "Yeah, I know what you mean. I just got back from a conference and had to jump on a line and seat swap with 2 other pilots last night to get my one to/app/landing for the month. Maybe we should schedule a GK/tactics briefing this week to up everyone's game." Surprise, no one dropped their deployment prep, CBTs, OPRs/EPRs, Wing staff circlejerks, training summary reports, FEF reviews, travel voucher puzzles so Petey Patchwearer could lecture everyone how to calculate a tactical descent profile into Baghdad international. So I would debrief the flight, I'd try to offer techniques, get in the weeds a little, and they'd rapidly nod while checking their watch. They all had to make slides for the next morning's staff meeting, send an email, meet some sort of deadline for more important matters. My point is it's a math problem. I don't think the quality/character of the average pilot of the squadron has declined. But if you increase the complexity of the job and therefore reduce the time available to dedicate to improving flying skills, the result is the result. On top of that, the Air Force doesn't require or reward you for being better than you were yesterday in your primary duty. I 100% agree that everyone should strive to be better than the minimum. Challenging oneself and being the best pilot you can be for your country and coworkers should be reward in itself, but it still competes with, and is secondary to, the other time and tasks the Air Force requires.

When you're flying with a student, how do you define your expectations? How do you ensure they meet them?

I should have quoted the relevant posts. Pooter posted something about letting religious people gather so natural selection could take its course. Homestar calls him out. PooterBilbo defends by saying, "No, I said.." Not that it matters. Just odd.

Why are you using two accounts? Why are you in the military? Why are you a pilot?

Great post. Most people don't understand the magnitude of the fallout occurring behind the scenes (and I don't pretend to fully understand it myself). This pandemic occurred when global markets and asset prices where the most over-valued and over-bought, probably ever. In a real economy, a unit of currency represents a unit of production. In our economy, our currency is manipulated through debt and complex financial derivatives, giving us more purchasing power than the real value of goods and services we are producing. The economy is not the market and the market is not the economy. Banking and Finance is a global competitive environment. As in any business industry, there is a jockeying for position, a desire to harm competitors (which may sometimes require cooperation with other competitors), and a need to gain competitive advantages to become the largest and most profitable. Government involvement is a massive competitive advantage. Everyone wants to be too big to fail. Enter COVID-19. This pandemic has created the greatest economic upheaval in history. As the cliche goes: "Never let a good crisis go to waste." It has created some opportunities to make changes to fiscal, monetary, and economic policies that would have taken a decade otherwise. It has also created opportunities that would have otherwise never occurred. Imagine being able to shutdown the country, and then pick and choose which business entities survive. Which ones are willing to become more indebted, pay a higher price, remain more loyal? Imagine being able to buy the stock market. Imagine the majority of a population encouraging you to assume more power to keep them safe. But how much to keep them quiet? $1200. Who doesn't like free money? And while you're printing that $560 billion dollars in stimulus checks, why not print another $1.640 Trillion to dole out at your discretion? Why not more? So we're making the best of a bad situation. We're gaining a competitive advantage, we're seizing control, picking winners and losers, setting new monetary policy, acquiring debts, acquiring shares in the market, and we have a population obediently sitting at home up to their eyeballs in debt forever, over the moon with their $1200. We've also doubled our balance sheet and reduced the value of our debts by half. However, soon we'll have $Trillions of new dollars out there circulating doing God knows what. Is it being hoarded, spent under the table, funding terrorists? Wouldn't it be nice if we had accountability for every one of "our" dollars circulating out there in the wild? Is it in a bank account, under a couch cushion, in someone's wallet? Where is the wallet? I sure hope no one is out there is handling dirty COVID infected cash, spending their stimulus checks on non-pharmaceutical drugs, making private party purchases of assets without paying the appropriate amount of tax, or buying more than their allocated amount of masks and toilet paper before making a debt payment. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/digital-dollars-amid-covid-19-crisis-support-us-digital-currency-emerges https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SIL20449.pdf

It sounds as if you're saying visiting the local park or Harris Teeter for groceries is tantamount to murder. That's why I say I don't like the direction this has taken.

I don't know shit about shit, but here's my valuable interpretation: The reactor crew is highly trained, specialized, and not easy to replace. As they began to get sick and incapacitated with the virus, the Navy had a 5 billion dollar aircraft carrier with a nuclear reactor potentially stuck in the middle of the Pacific that no one else was qualified to operate. The ship medical staff estimated there would be 50 deaths on the ship if they didn't quarantine/evacuate. The senior officers aboard the ship all conferred and wanted to sign the letter to the Navy leadership, but were denied by Crozier and he took all the responsibility .

I've been off my property maybe 4 times in the last month. (Airline trips have cancelled). I'm taking it seriously, but I really don't like where this is headed. This is what I'm seeing more and more: 1. "My assessment of the risk is more accurate than your assessment of the risk." 2. "The level of risk I'm willing to accept is more appropriate than the level of risk you're willing to accept." All that is fine. Those are debates that can be had and while there will never be a consensus, we might be able to educate, change a few minds, find some middle ground, and go about living our lives the way we choose. The disturbing part is where we allow this to happen: 3. "I have assessed the risk, determined the appropriate risk mitigation strategy, and am unilaterally imposing it on you." The Governors of Kentucky and Michigan immediately spring to mind. I never would have thought so many Americans would enthusiastically cede this much power and control over our daily lives as we've seen the last month. Maybe this will blow over, and we'll go right back to Dec 2019. Or maybe we will end up with National immunization credentials, pandemic cell phone tracking, digital health records, digital currency Federal Reserve bank accounts, online voting, etc. Tin foil hat? Maybe. But it's all been proposed. "Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." - Jefferson.

If it makes you feel any better, all pilot union forums are more or less the same across airlines and time periods. Management sucks. Scheduling sucks. Hotels suck. Dispatchers suck. etc. They all said similar things prior to the current crisis, and always will in the future. Everyone talks a big game on the forum, but everyone still shows up to drive the bus for a company they think they could run better. Pay your dues. Vote. Know the contract. When it comes time to picket, go show your face. Want me to wear a special union lanyard? Fine. Whatever happens in the industry is going to happen independent of what is said on the forums. I occasionally go months without checking the forum. When I do, I might glean a tiny fraction of usable information, but the rest is noise.

What a novel idea: From each country according to its ability, to each country according to its needs. Imagine the entire world united under one governing body to provide dignity and "universal social protections" for every person. Sounds good to me.

The virus has hit San Antonio especially hard. 10,000 emaciated and poverty-stricken Texans with nowhere to turn beg for free food while the providers struggle and are unable to feed them without help from the National Guard. Looks like a scene from the Great Depression, doesn't it? https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Thousands-hit-hard-by-coronavirus-pandemic-s-15189948.php

I knew Kevin as well from college. Terrible news.

Unbelievable. Let's count the F2ckups: 1. Navy apparently blows off Crozier's request for assistance. 2. Crozier blasts an email regarding the ship's readiness, most-likely knowing it would get picked up by the press and thinking it would add leverage to his cause. 3. Navy chain of command breaks-down, Crozier gets fired from the top. 4. SECNAV visits the ship and off-the-cuff riffs his tough-love "real talk" over the ship's intercom. 5. SECNAV issues an embarrassing public apology. What's next? Our enemies and allies have both got to be asking, "WTF?"

How does the Air Force chain of command handle it when lower ranks elevate issues, ask for changes that involves a small amount of risk in judgement? Dodge, Delay, Deny, Defend, and Punt. Does anyone think Crozier's first attempt at getting resolution was a blast unsecure email?

Crozier for President? Kidding, but the parallels in this instance are fascinating. Here is a letter written by T. Roosevelt. He also circulated it among the press. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/04/04/theodore-roosevelt-captain-followed-in-footsteps-of-ships-namesake-by-writing-bombshell-letter/

Damn. Unreal. Chilling... USS Teddy Roosevelt "urgently asking" for help. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6821571/TR-COVID-19-Assistance-Request.pdf 7. Conclusion. Decisive action is required. Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed US. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure. A portion of the crew (approximately 10%) would have to stay aboard to run the reactor plant, sanitize the ship, ensure security, and provide for contingency response to emergencies. This is a necessary risk. It will enable the carrier and air wing to get back underway as quickly as possible while ensuring the health and safety of our Sailors. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care. There are challenges associated with securing individualized lodging for our crew. This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to pr0perly take care of our most trusted asset our Sailors. Request all available resources to ?nd NAVADMIN and CDC compliant quarantine rooms for my entire crew as soon as possible.

My longtime friend and neighbor is a vice cop for a medium sized city. Yesterday, his Chief told him to stop taking vacation days, and simply not come to work. He doesn't want any of his guys pursuing those types of crimes then showing up at the station to do the admin processes.

Great points and great questions. My concern is that these curtailing of liberties are so widely and immediately accepted. When it's needed, every instance should be scrutinized and required to have a detailed sunset provision with a very high threshold for renewal. We need to be very wary of allowing rule by executive order (or rule by decree). Check out today's news from Hungary. WTF: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-in-hungary-viktor-orban-rules-by-decree-indefinitely.html

I have an amount of deposts with USAA. If a multi-billion dollar company with trained and educated investment managers decides that its investment branch is not worth the risk exposure, I for one, am happy that my deposits are safer. I understand the convenience, but I believe it's smarter to diversify your deposits, loans, investments, and insurance across separate companies. I don't want passive investors telling the active investors at my bank how and when they should be investing, especially in times like these. USAA is better off focusing on it's core business - being a bank.

While I think the probability of this whole thing being engineered toward a desired end is low, I think the probability of law(rule) makers taking advantage of the situation to restrict liberties is high. I recently read that the Patriot Act provisions were once again extended just a couple weeks ago. I'm not saying I disagree with everything in the Patriot Act, but it is still a restriction of liberty. The lesson being: Once these measures are enacted, they often tend to stay enacted. To anyone cheering the Texas travel restrictions by executive order, how long are you willing to sleep in that bed? The next question being, how to you fight for liberty when your movements are restricted?

I have a theory that mutual prosperity (for most) was the glue holding this whole thing together. When we lose that, the suspicion, blame, finger-pointing, and devolution into tribalism will threaten to tear the country apart.