DirkDiggler

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-09-13/chinas-afghanistan-dilemma Pretty good article discussing the challenges China will face regarding Afghanistan. I found the part about China facing several areas of instability or challenges along multiple borders to be particularly thought provoking.

As I understand it, you lose some of of it but can still retain some as well. I only have second hand experience with this aspect of a General Under Honorable so I honestly don't know all the details. BLUF is that there's definitely some penalties for not completing your enlistment.

They absolutely should be repealed or at the very least renewed but they won't be. Right now Congress gets to have their cake and eat it too. They can argue either for or against the use of military force without having to actually go on record to vote for or against sending their constituents and said constituents' sons and daughters to war. A good majority of them rail against federal overreach and the expanding powers of the Executive branch but are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to voting to go to war.

Copy. Like I said, I'm speculating but my guess is whatever discharge the military gives for this will not be a straight honorable discharge because of the nature (refusing a direct order) and to be quite honest the UCMJ is on their side. If you don't mind me asking, do you want to get out because of the mandatory COVID vaccine or did you want to get out anyway and this just presents an opportunity to do so?

Email didn't say and I would guess the Bobs are still working those details out. My personal guess (disclaimer, I'm speculating) is it would be a General Discharge under Honorable conditions but I wouldn't rule out an Other Than Honorable depending on how the Bobs take a failure to follow a direct order (if there's any JAGs on here they'd have a better idea). I don't know on the non-voluntary separation pay (my gut feeling is that would be a no due to the circumstances of the discharge but I could be wrong). If you were discharged over this your ADSC would be removed. After the Anthrax shot legal challenge ended my community had an individual refuse a direct order from the Sq/CC to take that vaccine; it didn't go well for him. He was close to retirement and was ultimately allowed to retire, but that was the only positive for said individual. I've said it before but if this is your hill I understand, it's your choice, just be ready to die on it. All decisions have consequences. The military isn't going to fuck around with people who refuse a direct order. Barring some legal challenge that halts COVID vaccinations across the DoD you're going to have to make a decision. And even then, after the several years it takes the case to work it's way through the courts, the DoD is probably going to prevail and you'll still be faced with the same decision several years later, possibly when you have more invested in the military.

I did, but it was something about my car’s warranty being expired so I didn’t text him back.

In my personal corner of the AF (AFSOC) my squadron was sitting at over 85% vaccinated before it was mandatory. I do not know nor have I heard of anyone that’s planning to get out or request an exemption. I’m currently in an AETC MC-J transition course; yesterday we got an email saying the 19th AF/CC has dictated that any student in formal training that plans on requesting a COVID exemption will immediately be placed in an administrative hold status (frozen in training) until the exemption is processed and approved/disapproved; it went on to give a gist of if disapproved and the individual still refuses the shot they’ll be administratively separated from the service. If this truly is your sword make sure you’re ready to fall on it…

My community had a SMSgt FE retire about 3-4 years ago; he had his Private/Instrument rating complete when he punched. He knocked out his Commercial/CFI/CFII/MEI fairly quickly, instructed for a little bit, and is now flying for PSA I believe. BLUF is it's definitely doable. Good luck!

The fact that you and your commander think this COVID vaccination order is a complete joke is irrelevant. You've already been given a direct, lawful order by the SECDEF (MFR which was in writing) that all DoD personnel will get the COVID vaccination. Asking for a written order from your direct CC will not alter the above fact. Your choices are: 1. Get the vaccine. 2. Refuse a direct order and open yourself up to NJP in the form of I'd guess at least an LOR or Article 15, eventually leading to a discharge from the service. 3. Claim a religious exemption (honestly don't know the process for this or how it works) and see if it's approved. If not, you're back to options 1&2. 4. Separate from the military. Understand that even if this is an option for you and you choose it your commander can and probably will still have to give you NJP while you're in the process of separating.

At this point I'm not sure whether there will be any resignations among the top brass. Several of the retired ones (McMaster and Petreaus specifically) associated with Afghanistan general officer leadership aren't currently taking any responsibility publicly. Right now the narrative seems to be "we did our duty, served honorably, if anyone's to blame its our civilian leadership" (the last part isn't being said openly by the active duty guys). There's probably an element of truth to this but in my opinion its far from the complete story. Interesting book to read on the evolution of American generalship since WWII is The Generals by Thomas Ricks. The book only covers US Army generals and Ricks has some serious bias against the US military in many ways but its a very good read. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on what he has to say regarding US military senior leadership but I found it to be a pretty well researched and written study.

LBJ ending his bid for re-election in '68 is probably the closest the US Executive branch has come to a president resigning due to a massive foreign policy or military failure (the Tet offensive in '68 being what the media latched onto). LBJ also had several domestic issues brewing at the time that probably also played into his eventual decision to not seek re-election; tough to definitively say Vietnam was a single driving factor, though it was probably the biggest.

Fair enough, I still like to think people can respectfully talk disagree, even in this day and age. To your point #2 though, I'd have a follow up. I hold/have very little for anything any member in Congress says about Afghanistan for the simple fact that most of them (too lazy to look up the exact number, but I know its small) have abdicated their collective duty to declare war. Almost none of them were in Congress in 2001 and voted for the AUMF that put our guys into Afghanistan in the first place. So they all sit and make the rounds of the talking heads on whatever flavor of network they like, without being held accountable to their constituents for their views/beliefs on keeping us in combat. I'd have a lot more respect for the institution if there was a large scale push to re-visit the AUMF, declare war on the Taliban, or anything that puts them officially on the board with a vote that says they either support or do not support the war in Afghanistan.

Just listened to this and would highly recommend.

I find it weird that we accept the fact that we're allegedly the world hyperpower, and the Taliban are the ones giving all the orders. If we're being honest, this hasn't been the case for the last 10-15 years. Whether you use the term unipolar or "sole remaining superpower (haven't heard the term hyperpower used before) the US is no longer the single most dominant country across the entire globe anymore. Spending 20 years pissing away our blood, sweat, and treasure in places like Afghanistan and Iraq hasn't helped matters on this front at all (China has caught up and even surpassed us in many ways). Whether you agree with it or not, the USA decided to accept a negotiated settlement to get out of this war. The Taliban won (terrible on the tongue to say but true) and as such they're getting to dictate certain things. I find it weird that the withdrawal was planned in such an appallingly catastrophic fashion. Agreed, though the really difficult part for me to accept is how CENTCOM seemed so unprepared. CENTOM's staff is enormous, especially compared to some other COCOMs. CENTCOM also has more given/delegated authorities than any other COCOM. How did they not adequately plan for this and not see it coming. Did we as a military refuse to believe that Afghanistan would fall so quickly? After 10-15 years of "just give us another year, we'll turn the tide" etc etc, were we truly unable to see that the thing we invested 20 years worth of effort in would collapse so quickly? I find it weird that the administration was absolutely obsessed with meeting some meaningless deadline. Agreed, the arbitrary withdrawal date unfortunately accelerated the dicknannagans seen at the end. I find it weird that no one can seem to nail down how many Americans were in Afghanistan, how many were airlifted, and how many were truly left behind. This doesn't surprise me at all. Ever been part of a NEO? It's actually very difficult for State to track all the American citizens present in any country all the time. If they don't register with the Embassy and aren't part of any US government presence it's pretty hard to keep track of all American's in any country, especially a third world, limited comms shithole like Afghanistan that's collapsing on itself. Any number the US government comes up with is unfortunately always going to have a median associated with it. I find it weird that the Taliban allegedly offered us the opportunity to police and secure Kabul, and we said, "No thanks." I don't find this weird at all (I'm also honestly skeptical that this is even true). I'm not a ground guy, but how many troops do you think it would take to secure a city the size of Kabul? It took 5,000 just to secure the airport. 20-40,000 is my guess. How long would it take us to get that many troops in place. Sure isn't going to happen in a couple days. And then what? The Afghan government had already collapsed and fled. What are we going to do once our people are out? Try to install a new government? Give the keys to the Taliban? Continue to secure a large city where all the government workers are streaming for the exit while a massive humanitarian crisis brews? And what level of casualties would we have been willing to accept to make that happen? I find it weird that leaving any number of Americans behind is acceptable to this administration. Agreed, though see my 4th comment above. There was probably always still going to be some American still on the ground after the last C-17 was wheels up. Additionally, this isn't the first time Americans have been left behind in a conflict and, also unfortunately, probably won't be the last. I find it weird that so little effort was made to disable or destroy the military hardware left behind. I don't find this weird. We de-mil'ed the big ticket stuff (helicopters. airplanes) that were still in our control. Stuff they captured after the ANA folded like HUMMVEEs, MRAPs, the one UH-60 will be broken down and unserviceable within a year or sooner (my Army friends have gotten some good chuckles out of them parading that stuff around). Another 20,000 captured M-4s isn't going make the Taliban more or less capable. And honestly what was/is the alternative? Tank plink every captured vehicle, potentially inside cities surrounded by civilians? Keep the war going to destroy material that won't be usable soon anyway? The only way to truly make sure nothing was left to the Taliban would have been to either keep the war going or to never equip the ANA in the first place. I find it weird that we seemingly made so little effort to prioritize American evacuees ahead of Afghanis. Agreed, though I think some of the efforts to retrieve Americans was kept out the media/conducted clandestinely. BLUF is it was a planning failure and could/should have been done better. I find it weird that a presidential administration could survive this calamity. This has been one of the oddest talking points I've seen kicked around in the media and on social media since this withdrawal started going pear shaped. No US presidential administration has collapsed/resigned for a large military failure, attack, or loss of life since the transformation of the US into a global power. FDR didn't resign after Pearl Harbor. Truman didn't resign after the US forces in Korea were almost wiped out around Busan. JFK didn't resign after the Bay of Pigs. Ford didn't resign after Saigon and the SS Mayaguez incident (US Marines were left behind there). Carter didn't resign after Desert One. Reagan didn't resign after the Beirut barracks bombing. Clinton didn't resign after Mogadishu. Bush didn't resign after 9-11. Obama didn't resign after Benegazi. Trump didn't resign after Niger (admittedly those last two were smaller in scope, loss of life, and consequences on the world stage then some of the others I mentioned). BLUF is that there's a way things like this have been handled by the American people and government the past 75 years; its every four years at the ballot box. I find it weird that the administration claims they had no inkling the AFG government would collapse in this manner, but that is constantly being proven false. Agreed. Once again, were we truly unable to admit we had failed. Were we lying to ourselves? I find it weird that the President told the press we are not leaving until every American who wants to leave is airlifted, and today...meh. What can you do? Americans are stranded overseas all the time. Agreed, the flip-flopping of positions on this has been wrong and is bad. I find it weird (no offense meant) that people like you think there is nothing weird about all of this. As terrible as the last couple weeks have been, and as hard as it's been for me personally to start thinking about the fact that I'm going to be a veteran of a lost war, I don't think the sky is falling. Our allies aren't magically going to align themselves with Russia or China. The US economy isn't going to collapse from this loss. The US isn't going to fall into civil war or revolution over this. I've said it previously in this thread, moving forward, we (the US military) need to conduct a brutal debrief and maybe grow a generation of officers that will do everything in their collective power to stop us from ever getting involved in a war like this again.

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Interesting how? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, if he gets rolled up trying some delusional one man Hollywood style "rescue mission" (without any military background whatsoever, according to the article) then I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't risk any of our guys' lives to get him back. All decisions have consequences.

For anyone looking for solid books on our Afghanistan experience, I'd recommend the following: The Outpost by Jake Trapper The Hardest Place by Wesley Morgan Directorate S by Steve Coll All these can be very tough reads at times and since they were all written prior to us leaving the history/historiography may change with time but I found them all worth reading.

I agree with you. I'm also hopeful (though it's way too early to tell) that maybe the experiences of the last 20 years in Afghanistan shape the next generation of military leaders (similar to Powell and Schwarzkopf after Vietnam) and that we don't get involved in nation building, "spreading democracy", etc anytime soon. Unfortunately a lot of the retired generals that occupied top positions during OEF are already spouting "it was sustainable, if only we had another year", blah blah blah. I frankly think it's face saving bullshit and they don't want their names associated in the history books with commanding a lost war. I'll be very curious to see what the current sitting generals' narrative will be (if any) moving forward.

Why?

https://time.com/6092818/iraq-afghanistan-unnecessary-wars/ Interesting opinion piece written by Karl Marlantes (if you haven't read the book Matterhorn I'd highly recommend it). I don't agree with everything he says in this piece but some of it definitely resonates with me. Now that our brothers and sisters are finally out of that worthless excuse for a country, I truly hope the US military starts a serious, thorough internal look at why we went (fairly self explanatory), why we stayed, and why things ended the way they did. I don't believe history repeats itself but it does rhyme; if we don't generate an honest, brutal debrief this could happen again.

That's fucked up. Kuddos to the Sq/CC though for standing by his guys and not getting forced into giving Q3s he didn't believe were warranted.

I actually don't think its MyCS/Shazam. That guy was an idiot but he was really only paranoid about his immediate leadership and only on here to get some form of weird approval/acceptance that he was the smartest guy at his unit/base/the AF (which clearly wasn't the case). This guy's conspiracy theories are in a whole different galaxy of paranoia.

Just so we don’t get it twisted, I’m not a fan of said individual. At all. Just saying that everyone always goes to the 28 CC directed Q3s as the primary reason he’s a raging asshole even though some of those were earned. He’s committed far greater douchebaggery above the Sq/CC level. He actually gave NJP to 3 people for losing weapons, which made the karma on that one all the more amusing. Anyone else would’ve been done after crashing the CV-22 the way he did but some people really are Teflon I guess. Tracking on how close you are to said situation/individual, if I’d been done that way I’d be pissed too. The one thing I can’t understand is how the current AFSOC/CC has tolerated his dicknannagans given that Slife is a pretty black and white guy on stuff like that. I think it’s real unfortunate that he’s probably going to be the next CC, cause he’s a pretty vindictive person and if/when he gets in the seat there will be blood.

Agreed, and unfortunately my community has to claim him. Also unfortunate that he's most likely going to be the next AFSOC/CC. I will say though that as with everything, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Some of those Q3s (duct taped antenna and flying over the red roofed inn specifically) were probably justified; if you ask the ACs on both those sorties they'll admit they fucked up.

Would you be referring to Cat 5?