DirtyFlightSuit

I wouldn't doubt I had a hand in getting this change enacted... just saying you piss enough people off with your headgear choice and things happen ;)

OPEC as in Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries?

It will only get worse, congress is attacking DoD on spending and one of the focus areas is TDY spending. While I'd argue the waste in TDY spending is not what is getting reimbursed but rather the TDY's that are occurring that do not need to. (For instance every single POS from Shaw AFB that manages to touch and go AUAB once a month for a year of tax free) Those tickets non stop from BWI to OMAN cant be cheap.

It's also not about who works the hardest, because god knows that is not me. It's about value and market conditions. Right now the market conditions make Pilots very expensive if your going to retain them, and the AF has been enjoying a longer than normal period of time without that market condition in large part due to 9/11 postponing what was already happening back then. It is also why I think that the only way the system changes is if people vote with their feet versus try to stay in and affect change from within.

Until you address the countless useless deployment billets, and near certainty of filling a 365 no amount of money or QoL will matter much. While most people I know are not completely dreading 6 month deployments, its the future of 2-3 of those on top of a year long that has them voting with their feet. You can't be in a constant state of war for so long and expect people to be gun ho supporting of the fight any longer. Especially with no end in sight. The future is grim for service members, when I joined it already was a quagmire and now 12 years later zero has changed beyond it getting worse. You can't sell retention off of that landscape beyond a few fence sitters.

Woops I didn't read moabust enough yes he is correct

I can't stress how important it is to stay off base, way too many of our student's end up dealing with mold / lack of hot water / other quality of life issues on base that become a distraction to them. Find a good apartment or PIT pad, its massively worth it. Avoid Pat Brooker / Converse and other ghetto areas.

Yah no raise would have been less harmful than a $50 raise. At least with no raise it was business as usual, the 50 a month extra is kind of like "See we VALUE YOU SOOO MUCH.... 50 dollars much...." Rather have had nothing and at least they couldn't pretend to be retards posting big stories about how serious they are about retention.

SPIKE!

Oh they've been told many times, I've simply given up as it always falls on deaf ears. I'm in the "well I tried so screw it" mode.

I've had it with these bullshit equivalency arguments from leadership citing how "good" we have it compared to XYZ community. Gen Rand has so many F#$% fanboys here at RND its insane, yet every time he talks this kind of bullshit those fanboys are on their knees gulping down the massive load. Gen Now land and his little meeting was only marginally better and at least by the end he seemed to be properly whipped into the correct mindset (time will tell). Before that I've heard the same kind of crap from numerous commanders when we complained about ops tempo with deployments stacked on top of TDY's, reinforced that we are "At War" as if that has any ing meaning any more after over 15 years. There is a reason I didn't join the Marines or Army, and while those patriots at Walter Reed deserve nothing but our utmost respect, they are not to be used as tools for ignoring the issues the force faces today. When I bring up leadership failings in a conversation it generally leads to a "well so and so is a good guy etc", but I feel more and more that regardless of how good a commander or leader you may be, your now culpable for this mess and arguing who the good ones versus bad ones is a waste of time. As it stands the effect is they are all bad because the outcome is shit, until any thing starts getting fix'd they are all failures in my book until proven otherwise don't care how cool they were before or are now.

Not meant as a jab, more as a warning. I've had a great AF career, with only a single 6 month span where I was truly unhappy, for the rest of the near 12 years its been amazingsauce. With that said, with all the VSP, RIF, TERA, etc going on I know my overall attitude changed somewhat. This doesn't make my decision to bail any less valid, but it made my time left in the AF less enjoyable for me. I am, and was jaded more than necessary, and if I could some how avoided that I would have been happier for it I'm sure. I have heard FAIPs already trying to pursue the Airline thing or at least talk about it, and while it is always good to keep an exit strategy in mind, if its effecting your day to day then it isn't helping much, especially with so much time ahead of you and them. My last couple of years in should not be any thing but great as well, but knowing its ending, and why I chose to end it soured me to it to some degree and I regret that.

Prior UPT IP, This surprises me, and I have to believe you just have an aggressive flight commander or something. When I spoke to students at UPT I always framed the discussion around keeping doors open, making sure you checked your boxes so long as you found it acceptable while in so that you had the opportunity to stay in and be promotable or get out. That means doing SOS/ACSC, that means getting your ATP, that means playing the volunteer for XYZ crap job for OPR fodder, as well as keeping your records up to date for future applications. Your IP's if they are making statements like this have failed in their role to be leaders / role models. I've had commanders in the past make statements like this, and they are all eating their own words now because they believed the economy would remain stagnant and the that military's gravy train would forever be to coveted to give up for uncertain job prospects outside. Their leadership was based on attempting to frighten their squadrons to shut up color and enjoy their pay check. Fact of the matter is we train pilots, period. Good ones at that (well mostly when we can push back on the all important PFT). That means we produce great Military pilots, that equates to great Airline pilots. Am I going to miss military flying once I hang up my green flight suit for good? Sure. Am I going to regret making a decision that protects my families future and my own sanity? No. Don't sweat these remarks too much, hopefully they are the exception not the rule. If they become the rule then maybe it is time to run as fast as you can. (Though your commitment is 10 years so maybe getting jaded now isn't the best idea =P)

We all believed that Welsh was genuine and see how far that got us? Talk's cheap and so far Finger's has provided only talk and some minor change that is not worth mentioning yet. If he makes bigger more meaningful steps all the more credit to him but so far I'm not entertained.

Agree with much said above, unlike many of my peers who went to college and straight into Air Force either through Academy or ROTC I held a number of jobs prior to Active Duty. I can say I wouldn't trade what I've done the last 10 years for any thing, and had the threat of future deployments not been so painful for my family and I to swallow I would stay in still even with all the bullshit. Transitioning to the Airlines I dare say won't be the time I look back on when I get older, but I am confident I will be happy with the decision. All of the stuff that is wrong with the Air Force is an inhibitor for staying beyond that 10 year commitment, for the most part your years during that commitment will be awesome. If I had to base my decision to stay on my last 10 years not what I can expect in the next 10 years I'd easily stay in. So do it, sign away and hopefully things change and you'll have more reason to stay beyond that commitment. If not then no sweat off your back, you just got 10 years experience you can never get anywhere else, an amazing skill set, and a good stepping board to new and more lucrative things.

I got to give you credit on this one, well put and agreed. My reaction is more along the lines of commanders resorting to establishing a new rule or policy any time something goes wrong or just because. Some times the human element just screws ups, and the only required response is to make sure your people are safe and understand where the failure is. Every failure doesn't require a new squadron wide policy or power point presentation, some times that failure can just be learned from those involved.

Good Leader - 0 Policy letters Bad Leader - 50 Policy letters Policy Letters are for the weak and lazy. Real commander doesn't need some letter to support their actions. Their actions speak for themselves and the validation comes with continual mission focus. Recently I had a commander come in and within his first week or so deleted every policy letter he could find from previous squadron commanders. Some of these policies had been in "place" for 4+ commanders ago and had just festered as Air Force officers we learn nothing can beat the Air Force if we just pile on more policy.... Granted at some point we found out that we were required to have certain policy letters per wing/group/AFI Guidance and adjusted accordingly, however the initial response was a win. I rather ask forgiveness than be chained down as a commander and require mental retardation with what was shown with this OSS commander. Nothing like forcing additional work for your lower level commanders to supervise, rather than trust them to lead their people. Can't teach this stuff if you hold their hand with strict requirements, how about we let people fail and learn from their mistakes and grow. My leadership experience while very limited, rarely did I go search for some written guidance to tell me how to handle a situation. I started with what made sense to me, and adjusted if I found additional information down the line if I needed too. What won me over big time once was when the decision I made was contrary to written guidance, but was in the best interest of one of my students. My commander backed me, and we essentially ignored that written guidance as it did not make sense in our specific situation. Ideally I would have known about that limitation first, and that was my sin, but I still stood by my decision and was likely more free to make it with my ignorance.

Side note - JQP is only this popular and stories carry so much weight for one reason alone. We have utterly lost faith in our leadership and will believe just about any thing negative about them. He is empowered for this reason because we have all seen these kinds of failures over and over.

Sorry going to have to continue to disagree with you here on "CC is clearly articulating policy, not much more" He is mandating "NEW and IMPROVED minimums to the PT standard. On top of that he is requiring those not meeting his higher standard (for no justifiable reason) to have additional duty requirements (PT at 0600 is likely outside normal show time for his squadron and thus additional time). If he really want's to do group PT then do it on the company time. If the Air Force wants to put its money where it's mouth is then it will provide ample opportunity for people to get their PT in during normal hours. One of my older squadrons 2-3 times a week would kick every one out of the squadron at 1530 or so for group PT, have us PT for 30-45 mins and release every one home to spend some extra time with the family. Considering we all deployed/TDY 6+ months a year on average this did two things. Took care of your people while at home through additional family time to attempt and pay some of that lost time back, and incentivized the PT as it was an easy ticket to getting out of the office early. Even better he made it very clear he expected people to head home, and made sure the individual shop chief's were not expecting their people to head back into the office post PT protecting us from overly zealous workaholic types. So yes is JQP off base at times? Sure. But in this case I can find no fault with his reasoning. This commanders policy is shit. If you are provided time in the day to get your work out, and fail to utilize it and fail then you are punished great. But until you fail they need to back the F#$% off.

That guy sounds like a winner. Unfortunately douche bags like him far out number the good commanders. Can't wait till separation and my double barrel middle finger to all this retardation. Also his hair cut makes his already oversized nugget look ridiculous.

Guys guess what we fixed the problem... in several years... no seriously we mean it... please don't go...

You know I hear all the time about my Airline bro's having to fight to get reimbursed and paid on time....oh wait....

The problem isn't lack of a good idea, or any idea for that matter. The problem is complete inaction. Aside from an almost worthless list of additional duties being eliminated, a paltry bonus increase, and the ability to roll up sleeves there has been no actual steps taken to attempt and solve this problem. Gen Nowland repeated over and over their 27 initiatives they are "working" on, and even if they were great ideas they don't matter because they are not yet implemented. They need change yesterday,even a year from now is way too late for my year group and those around me that will have already set their vector on getting out.

Can't say any thing about Fingers, but was remarking mostly on Gen Nowland and some ones comment about how "he gets it" and how he doesn't get it.

The very same brief, he arrived and made it clear with his lengthy introduction that our issue is that we the pilot force are unaware of all the great "initiatives" that are being undertaken that have made our lives amazing and we are all angry because we are simply ignorant of these great things. He actually believed we gave two shits about things big daddy Air Force was "looking at", or "worked on" as opposed to any thing even remotely concrete. Even worse (in my opinion) his biggest plea for help beyond a very honest "we need you" was his appeal to our patriotism. I'm sorry that me signing up for 10 years was not patriotic enough for you. Even worse that some how our political military engagement should make us want to continue to serve because dropping "150 bombs a day", as if we haven't been heavily engaged for the last +16 years without any end in sight is going to appeal to my sense of duty. When he was finally asked questions his first response was to lash back angrily, when he was shot down for that and the room essentially went hostile on him he showed his ignorance of many of larger issues being faced. Even worse from my point of view was his response to anything he remotely agreed on was "well we will look at that." Followed by explaining to us all how that won't change because the bureaucracy will protect its bloat (in reference to reducing worthless deployment tasking's), or that he has tried and failed to make changes. Real inspiring that the machine is to big to change. But it is okay, he told us to stop signing our OPRs because no one ever gets feed back because you know that'll end well for any one.