LiquidSky

Going to respond to the propaganda troll once. 1a. Strawman. But to answer your question at least 458. 1b. The Ukrainian people have decided that dying for their country is a better fate than losing their nation. 2. Why aren't you? We share many common values and the resulting geopolitics that come with mutual respect are extremely important to our nation's position on the world stage. The self harm we've already inflicted in those regards will directly negatively impact future generations of Americans. Our allies have become wary of us overnight and repairing that damage will take generations. 3a. No refutation of the primary point which is that we've quite handily put Russia on it's ass. I'll assume you concede the point by lack of response. 3b. Strawman. The argument you've made is that the war is costing America. The response I've provided is that it has been bloodless (excepting brave Foreign Legion volunteers) for us and monetarily a drop in the bucket. 4. Glad you agree. Saved money. Boosted our national defense industry. Sounds like a win to me. 5. Correct it is a gold mine. I'll assume that lack of critical response is directly stemming from the inability to produce a sound argument on why we should walk away from said gold mine. 6. Misrepresentation of the statements made. I've stated this war has been extremely cheap for us as a nation. I never stated I was concerned with the cost. As a tax payer I'd happily double our investment. 7. As much fraud, waste, and abuse there is in general this war has proven the importance of a strong home grown national defense industry. When you want to defend your country but can't because the Swiss makes the bullets your army uses and won't let others export to you that becomes a major issue. So yes I'm concerned with the stock prices of our defense industry as it's a direct representation of their relative health as companies. 8a. Strawman. The concern was our skyrocketing unemployment and the very real impact it's going to have on the American economy. 8b. But you're right, it is costing lives. And all of these are directly the fault of one nation. Appeasement was a hard lesson learned by our grandparents generation and it seems you skipped history class one too many times to learn from them. 9. Strawman. I never stated I wanted this war, as if I had choice. The reality is it is here and it is happening. And I'm here to stand on the side of democracy and a stable world order. 10a. You literally just described Putin. If you can't see that you're a willful idiot and a fool. 10b. Constitutionally Ukraine can't hold elections. Realistically they can't hold elections with a chunk of their citizens in occupied lands or shipped off to Russia. Or they could and you'd decry them as "illegitimate" as a significant portion of the population was unable to vote. Furthermore, this argument holds no weight as there is every indication elections will continue as normal the second this war ends. Similar to the UK during ww2 for example. Ukraine has had multiple elections and successful transitions of power unlike Putin. As for the conscription aspect, so did the US. Many nations have mandatory military service or a draft. It's a reality of war and I'll only fault it if it's being utilized to continue an unjust military action initiated by the conscripting nation such as the U.S. In Vietnam or Russia in a war of unprovoked aggression. 10c. My squadron mates were ready 2 years ago to go into Ukraine and are ready now if asked. Nuclear arsenals and geopolitics is what holds us back, and not our service member's willingness to fight for the cause. Which in my opinion says some of us have learned from history as our grandparents generation practiced isolatinism and only entered ww2 war to make sacrifices of their own when the war came to their doorstep at pearl harbor. You, on the other hand, would have decried lend-lease and said just let Hitler have Europe, Japan can have Asia, and we can keep our happy sphere of influence in the Americas. Good luck everyone else! 11. Not even worth responding to. I am currently ashamed by our leader's actions and will be eternally so if the end result of this is Ukraine crumbling. Our proud nation has the opportunity to stand up for democracy and is instead letting it die.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful. As a heavy Bubba the weapons lifts into Poland have been one of the highlights of my career. If not the highlight. I watched the live feeds of the Russians pouring across the border and next thing I knew I was in Poland. Watching pallets get moved off my planes onto trucks and knowing within the week it'd all be gone. Used to put a Russian into an early grave. It was an action that I can proudly share to any westerner. It was an action that put our country back into a well respected light with any European. We've nearly dismantled one of our two biggest geopolitical enemies of the last 80 years without costing a single American life. Spending a fraction of the snafu that was Afghanistan/Iraq. Boosting the American defense industry immensely both through our tax dollars being spent and through a massive influx of international sales. And now we're tossing it away? This war has been an Intel,strategy, and systems testing goldmine as well. A goldmine we're just going to walk away from. We're alienating ourselves from our closest allies. We're ceding soft power left and right all for what? A few billion in savings? Billions that were going to our own military industries. Check the stock market. LM, GD, etc. have all fallen 10% or more over the past month as a result while Rheinmetall, BAE, etc. are seeing 20% growth as Europe realizes they can't trust their oldest and strongest ally. Can't wait to see how many more skilled workers we add to the unemployed list next to the other 10s of thousands who've been fired recently. Don't even get me started on our brothers in arms that will die as a result. We've trained with many of those men and are abandoning them now for no reason. How we as a nation have come to the point where materially supporting a war against an undeniable tyrant is a bad thing astounds me. Can you imagine if we had stopped the lend-lease act and told the UK "good luck with the war buddy?" This is the nation that stuck with Afghanistan and Iraq for decades despite the lack of progress, yet we can't stomach 3 years of monetary support? Rant over. I'm off to go get drunk and pray that I don't have to explain to my grandkids one day why grandpa stopped helping. Why he stepped aside and let Russia walk across the fledgling democracy of Ukraine.

This is the important question. And I'm guessing the answer is no. Can you imagine calling your boss to get permission to do your job literally everytime you show up to work to do your job? I'd also be willing to bet there was no order to do so.

Unfortunately for you a jury of his peers found him guilty of seditious-conspiracy. Not msm nor a democratic agenda, nor a political hit squad, or whatever excuse you care to choose. It was a jury of his peers as laid out as one of the fundamental tenants of this country that decided he was in fact guilty. And that is a fact.

Can't wait to see the $ savings go up in flames as we add more FTU sim time & flight hours to get these dudes up to speed. Only gone cross country twice? Here's a c17 round the world fiesta. Never landed a multi engine aircraft? Here's an assault in the herk. Wonder many class As do we need before they realize the toner saved a lot of $ by breaking cheaper planes.

Well the NDAA has been signed with the service obligation ammendment so it seems like the point is moot.

Even our same airframe same squadron couples barely see each other. They're often high fiving as one gets back from a mission and the other hits the road. Rated + non-rated seems to be the best.

ADO? Sounds like a job above my paygrade.

A comittment which 9 years ago was signed with the up or out rules in place. Why does one side get unilaterally modify that contract after the fact? Shitty pilots? No. Salty and ROAD CGO life? You bet. If I'm locked in with 0 chance of promotion, 0 incentives, and get paid the same regardless there's a lot of queep that's someone else problem. What are you going to do, not promote me? It's on equal stupidity as the 15% E1-E4 pay bump. E5s are going to make $100/month more than E4s. A whole lot of responsibility for $1200/yr. Lots of E5s are going to start asking why bother?

I can't imagine how little work you're going to get out of a late to rate passed over Captain who's got 7 years left with no chance of promotion. From the "JOINT EXPLANATORY STATEMENT TO ACCOMPANY THE SERVICEMEMBER QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENT AND NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025" Seems the house simply accepted the Senate's version during discussions.

Majors boards were moved to Jan25. I assume it will stay there so 17YG would meet the Jan26 board.

Shit news for someone that wrote a letter to the board just a few weeks ago. Guess I fuked myself.

Nothing compared to that $75M hard landing.

Does anyone have experience with writing a letter to their first board? Trying to get out asap for family reasons after the AF decided to send me from one terrible assignment to a second even worse one. My most recent OPB was a top 1/3 squadron strat and I had better wing strats early on in my career. I'm wondering if a letter is enough to get passed over on board #1 or if I'm SOL because I was a decently good O on paper until now.

Biggest issue is you'll have to get quotes and the whole contract Shennagins with finance if it's over 10k (maybe 25?). And they normally want that shit 2 months ago for end of FY purchases. I think pretty much anything is fair game as long as you can justify it as functional. I've seen done: Watches, coolers/lunchboxes, sunglasses, nice to have uniform items (better boots, undershirts, OCPs), knives, headlamps, hammocks, sleeping bags, morale shirts, massage chairs, travel bags (rolling and duffel), cold weather gear, sq bar renovations, sq facility renovations, software subscriptions, and more I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Tried to reach y'all last week flying across Africa to show new Copilots the service but couldn't get through to anyone. Unfortunately with the propagation of civil data links across the fleet a csat phone call is typically easier. No idea who is getting the bill for it 🤣

That's assuming a non-working spouse or a spouse within a certain scope of employment. I know more than a few dudes/dudettes who've spent years apart from their family because they got told go to minot, dyess, Vance, overseas, unaccompanied, etc. The military is the one job you can't walk away from when they tell you to go someplace undesirable to you. And your family will make sacrifices in some way be it quality time, career, extended family, etc.

Sheppard doesn't even have T-1s last I checked. They do a "special" T-6 syllabus and then all track 38s. Normally all their drops are fighter/bombers. A heavy is non-standard.

20-25 days out of the month I loathe every second of my job. The other 5-10 days I'm sitting in the cockpit either flying to some place you've never heard of and am expected to just make it work or in a low level formation at the end of which I'm getting off a bunch of dudes cursing up a storm as we're stop to stop eating up leads wake like it's your favorite cousin. Those are the days I love my job. Flying is a drug and we're all a bunch of addicts.

Is this comment still accurate for the 89th and the typical missions of the various airframes? Also can anyone speak to the application/interview process and how competitive is it actually? We get the pdsms and I know a few dudes that didn't get call backs, but there's certainly mystery around the numbers on total applied vs interviewed vs selected.

Could they learn it all from YouTube tutorials? Maybe/probably. Should we rob them of a good deal tdy? Definitely not.

Yet another reason SCODs are dumb. Any idea how far back it will be moved? Nothing on myfss indicates the timeline for the 16YG. Edit: Disregard, found a note that says Jan/Feb 2025. Wonder if that means results now won't release until Dec 25 instead of Jan 25?

Can we please stop giving Boeing contracts? https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/02/05/boeing-pushes-back-t-7-plans-due-to-faulty-parts/ KC-46, new VC-25, T-7... When was the last time they gave us a solid aircraft?

Because there's times you alert at 0400 to show at 0500 then fly a 17 hour day (fragged for 10) due to various delays, and the entire crew could really use a beer after that.

Because f*ck anyone that doesn't work a normal day shift schedule. No more late night beer runs — AAFES to end overnight alcohol sales in 2024 In a move aimed at suicide prevention. stores on Army and Air Force bases worldwide will stop selling alcohol after 10 p.m. Beer, wine, and spirits will only be sold between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. at all Base Exchanges, Shoppettes, Express shops, Class Six, and other stores run by AAFES.