What's wrong with the Air Force?

[BFM this]

Throwing your people and their families under the bus as a symbolic genuflection/trying to save face with the Japanese doesn’t solve the square root of fuck-all. Do some math.  We’ve got 100k people and their families over there.  Statistically, we are outperforming our national demographic in terms of crime and accidental death.  Whe that’s not the public reply that should be given to our hosts, this is NOT leadership, it’s reactive CYA chickenshit.

[pawnman]

8 hours ago, Bergman said:

Imagine the CEO of Southwest Air Lines telling all 55,000 employees nation-wide that they, or their family members, can’t drink or buy alcohol.  Just for perspective.

Absolutely asinine. We’ve devolved from leadership to management...and now we can only muster “really shitty management.”  FML.  Where’s the exit?

This incident involved .001% of the military people and dependents on Japan.  So let’s punish everyone. 

You mean the $455K bonus isn't enough to keep people dealing with this kind of thing?

[GlassEmpty]

Settle down, chach. I don’t support mass punishment. In fact I’ve said twice, and now a third, I don’t agree with mass punishments such as these. I also said it won’t do anything but effect the level of morale. Please, since you’re on your soap box of what a perfect CC you’d be, enlighten all of us as to what the proper level of action is. I’m amped to actually get a lesson from something who so prophetically has it figured out.

[Danger41]

3 hours ago, GlassEmpty said:

Settle down, chach. I don’t support mass punishment. In fact I’ve said twice, and now a third, I don’t agree with mass punishments such as these. I also said it won’t do anything but effect the level of morale. Please, since you’re on your soap box of what a perfect CC you’d be, enlighten all of us as to what the proper level of action is. I’m amped to actually get a lesson from something who so prophetically has it figured out.

Passive aggressive and blown out of proportion. Nice touch.

[DirtyFlightSuit]

The best reaction is often the most unacceptable... don't do or change a damned thing.

[GlassEmpty]

Passive aggressive and blown out of proportion. Nice touch.

Well played.

[Bergman]

10 hours ago, GlassEmpty said:

We have nearly 100,000 personnel stationed in Japan. Is it really insane to believe  our responses towards fixing our personal f*#k ups matter in international relations? So again, I ask what could actually be done, that would also appease the masses of internet keyboard warriors? 

Punish the guilty?  Charge him with murder; prosecute to max extent allowed by law.  Lock him up and throw away the key.  Done.

[Chuck17]

9 hours ago, flyusaf83 said:

.... this Lt Gen will probably just secured his fourth star ...

Already done long before now.

Chuck

[dream big]

14 hours ago, gearpig said:

"appease our host nation?"

Exactly.  I spent 5 years there and love the Japanese people; but was always flabbergasted at how much we bent over backwards, many times at the cost of combat effectiveness, to “appease” the Japanese.  I mean, Yokota’s biggest priority every year was the stupid static display festival.  You want to know how many man hours that consumed??

In no way I am I implying that we shouldn’t be good ambassadors and respect the Japanese but at the end of the day, they lost the war they started and they would be target practice if it weren’t for American presence there. 

[sqwatch]

Insanity. And it’s a precedent for the caliber of decisions to be made if the balloon goes up.

[Hodor]

On 11/21/2017 at 1:11 AM, Champ Kind said:

 

So is the restriction for Oki only or all of Japan? I recall similar restrictions years ago but it was only Oki--I don't remember it ever being USFJ-wide. The article says "Japan" but I thought it may be a typo. Not sure what would surprise me less at this point: crappy news reporting or an over-reaching punitive response.

 

On Okinawa proper there is 0 going off base except if you live off base, and then its work-->Home, with some caveats. No drinking, even in your house with the windows shut and light provided by a single flickering candle as it fades slowly, a small but accurate metaphor for you hope and moral. 

If you make it to any of the outlying islands or Japan proper you can be out and about but still no drinking. Passes and local leave has been canceled, but leave off island is still gtg. 

 

And yeah this is to show that we "the Americans" care, and feel bad about what happened. 

[NKAWTG]

The target audience for this over reaction is not the US military, but the local Okinawan government.  It's an appeasement to show we're doing something.  It just sucks because leadership has to to couch it in terms of responsible drinking, etc, and can't come out and state the real reason for it.

[Mikey Donuts]

55 minutes ago, Hodor said:

On Okinawa proper there is 0 going off base except if you live off base, and then its work-->Home, with some caveats. No drinking, even in your house ....

How to give the appearance of doing something while actually doing nothing and get granted "forgiveness" by the people you've pissed off:

Step 1: Ban alcohol and going anywhere off base.

Step 2: Local businesses, namely restaurants all over Okinawa suffer immensely and complain to local officials.

Step 3: Local officials/Governor of Okinawa inform base that's it's cool to release the animals (us) back into genpop.

Oh, and Step 4: Japan based aircrews request permissive to conduct airline interviews and rush guard units.

 

[dream big]

2 hours ago, joe1234 said:

This is an interesting conversation. The answer is, if you're in Okinawa, you're just a pawn in a much bigger game being played. The government of Japan wants us there but has to placate the Okinawans and convince their own citizens to look the other way. Committing a crime -- any crime -- makes them lose face. So, the U.S. does curfews and punishments. It saves face at the cost of pissing off the pawns who justifiably bitch about it being unfair, but they are pawns and who gives a shit what pawns think.

You guys complain about bad management and poor leaders, but the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of the military will eat shit and ask for seconds no matter how badly you treat them. You can't be that shocked that most leaders will take advantage of that fact.

Uh huh, all the way until they give big blue the middle finger and laugh on their way to the bank at Delta/Southwest or any other private sector job.  Treat your employees like pawns long enough and they’ll walk. 

You are right about the politics of Okinawa though, but the US military loses everything here.  The government of Japan knows the military leadership will bow over backwards to appease them as indicated time and time again while shitting on their own.  It’s only a matter of time before that can be exploited.

[SocialD]

Political leadership 101:  When you can't do something meaningful, do something visible. 

Edited November 22, 2017 by SocialD

[zach braff]

USFJ just added on a curfew of 0000-0500 for all military, in addition to the alcohol ban.  I never would have imagined I'd say this, but if anyone over there needs a little freedom come on out to Korea.  Soju flows freely til 0100!

zach braff

 

 

[BFM this]

11 minutes ago, zach braff said:

Soju flows freely til 0100!

There’s a curfew in Korea again?

[matmacwc]

11 hours ago, joe1234 said:

This is an interesting conversation. The answer is, if you're in Okinawa, you're just a pawn in a much bigger game being played. The government of Japan wants us there but has to placate the Okinawans and convince their own citizens to look the other way. Committing a crime -- any crime -- makes them lose face. So, the U.S. does curfews and punishments. It saves face at the cost of pissing off the pawns who justifiably bitch about it being unfair, but they are pawns and who gives a shit what pawns think.

You guys complain about bad management and poor leaders, but the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of the military will eat shit and ask for seconds no matter how badly you treat them. You can't be that shocked that most leaders will take advantage of that fact.

You have been exposed to the wrong community of the military if you believe this.  The best officers I've served with have a lot of "fuck you and your fucking bullshit order" in them, and the best generals I have known, know this.

Apparently though, you cannot draw sky dicks.

Edited November 22, 2017 by matmacwc

[Smokin]

You can do anything.... once

[Ram]

Those Growler bros who drew the sky dick messed up in their message.

Right away, it should have been a post on their social media:  "To show solidarity with the Movember movement, we did our part to raise awareness for men's health."

BOOM - it's a movement.  Use the social welfare BS when it suits you.  At trial:  "WHAT?  YOU'RE AGAINST MEN'S HEALTH???  GENDERIST!!!"

[sqwatch]

There’s a curfew in Korea again?

Yes and they don’t fvck around

 

[BFM this]

There it is: winner of the the dumbest fuckin rule of November, 2017.

So there I was, finishing up my go-to workout set of warm-up, weights, pool, sauna.  Like I've done a hundred times at this and other bases.  Gettin my sweat on, a 1ea kakis and polo pops her nugget in the sauna, looks over at me, "Excuse me, could you please put a shirt on?"   ...in the sauna?  Time for this but no time to have towels available?

Time to join the Y I guess.

[HossHarris]

That one’s easy ....

 

”No”

[Day Man]

a female went in the men's locker room/sauna?

[Bobby]

Sounds like sexual harassment to me.