Life Support

[BQZip01]

...I think a lot of it boils down to "pride in ownership." If you can figure out a way to instill that sense in AD troops, you just might solve a lot of problems. If everyone in the Air Force truly understood the mission and their role in making the whole machine work, you wouldn't have reflective belts, sock checks, or confrontations over PT gear.

Uniform standards should be simple and standard. If a guy walks into an office in blues, but is wearing white socks, he stands out like a sore thumb. As a buddy, you should quietly talk to him first. THAT is the major problem: "It's not me, so I don't have to deal with it"-attitudes don't promote camaraderie. Then leadership comes down like a brick and promotes these asinine rules. If we would deal with problems amongst ourselves we wouldn't have sock checks or confrontations over PT gear.

This week alone, I've told a squadron commander (politely) that his collar was flipped and another O-6 that a patch he was wearing on his flightsuit was crooked. Not one of them took offense, but they thanked me.

Reflective belts (at least potentially) save lives, but inadequate guidance and a lack of "thinking it though" like that come from the Department of Redundancy Department when they force you to wear reflective gear over PT gear that is already reflective...

[Vertigo]

One more thing: The frag is like a huge puzzle where you have to adjust 50 missions worth of takeoffs and arrivals so that they all mesh up without busting MOG at any airfield. A change at one airfield could have a domino effect through the whole AOR. Sometimes you might have the whole plan done and one field is over MOG. When it's time to push the frag out to the wings, you may have to push it as is and hope that someone breaks. Not saying I'd take a gamble as big as your example, but planners are faced with some pretty tough decisions.

I wasn't intentionally slamming AMD... I understand thats a pretty tough gig. I was just trying to put up a bit of defense for the ATOC guys. When I was in ORAT I asked one of the ATOC guys what their mog was... he said it was the example I used (3XC 130 or 1xC17+1xC130). Its been a few years so my numbers may not be entirely accurate- but it's close, I remember they only had 13 people to work the whole ATOC at the time for 24 hour coverage. Anyways my point was I have video showing a 130, 2 x IL76, and a C17 parked on their only 4 parking spots, another C17 on the taxiway waiting for someone to leave so he can block in and another 130 on short final. They only had enough manning/equipment to really work one plane at a time... I just shook my head and wondered what the hell were they thinking. At the time they were truly overwhelmed, but they pushed through and got the work done. The good thing was all the AF crews were pretty reasonable and understood the situation, the russians not so much.