What's wrong with the Air Force?

[08Dawg]

For those keeping score, that’s two major social media gaffs now....

[Ryder1587]

So instead of removing the post and apologizing like a real leader would , she doubles down and says social media makes it look bad. No. That’s not what happened at all. You shared a story demoralizing the other side without knowing it whatsoever. 

if the tables were turned on a man he would be out the door quicker than the story surfaced.  This is what happens when the military tries to take a role in social norms. How about instead we promote a dual mil couple that was together for 20 years instead. 

[Duck]

A couple of my AF Facebook friends really like her as evidenced by their constant praising on her official Facebook. Personally she lost me at the “Bass or Bass” joke that she lost her mind on.

In my not so humble badass opinion, she is a complete joke and completely under-qualified for this job. She is a consistent embarrassment to the Air Force.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

[jazzdude]

I really can't think of any reason for a senior leader to use social media.
I only post under pseudonyms now (not that I'm a senior leader).

That, or have a PA handler reviewing posts

[Waingro]

Apparently someone is deeply triggered by CMSAF's Facebook page. Imagine having enough time on your hands to file a lawsuit over something like this.

[MCO]

This entire thing is ridiculous. A one sided story slamming a guy, names included, then turned on the girl. No one wins. Everyone loses.

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, Waingro said:

Apparently someone is deeply triggered by CMSAF's Facebook page. Imagine having enough time on your hands to file a lawsuit over something like this.

Odds that his “Harvard Law Grad” wife is the one who files?

[Sua Sponte]

22 minutes ago, MCO said:

This entire thing is ridiculous. A one sided story slamming a guy, names included, then turned on the girl. No one wins. Everyone loses.

Especially when they find your mugshot from a few years ago.

[Pooter]

The really crazy thing is that basic levels of organizational accountability are now originating from Reddit forums and Instagram meme pages. 
 

B-2 pilots on tik tok, a mortuary affairs patch with flankers on it, a cmsaf who doesn't understand her job or basic personal accountability.. These are all things that were started by and are in the process of being fixed by anonymous internet jokesters. 
 

It's certainly not the system we deserve but it's the system we need right now, and goddamn if these train wrecks aren't a treat to watch. 

[jazzdude]

What was that old rule? Never talk to the media? Guess that includes being wary of your own social media...

[Guardian]

What’s the deal with the Chief? And what’s the deal with the B2 guys?

[SocialD]

45 minutes ago, Guardian said:

And what’s the deal with the B2 guys?

 

If you're not on instagram, do yourself a favor and set up an account and follow bob_thoughts_69.  Dude is on a meme rampage against a B2 idiot who loves making tittok videos of himself.  It's down right hilarious.  I honestly joined last year just to follow a few mil pilot meme streams as these guys are funny!  They're all on a rampage against the Chief as well.  Another upside to the gram is that there are hot chicks everywhere who love nothing more than to show you how hot they are.  

Edited February 1, 2021 by SocialD

[pawnman]

8 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

Odds that his “Harvard Law Grad” wife is the one who files?

It's the guy kicked from here.  The one who fought the government over doing his job as a drone pilot.

Man never met a lawsuit he didn't like.

[Hacker]

10 hours ago, MyCS said:

What happened to not taking people down for making dumb mistakes or decisions?

When you see people blame "the cancer in AF leadership" for the retention debacle, this is one of the cornerstones of that cancer.

At some point in the last 20 years, it became fashionable for commanders to be as "tough" on mistakes made by their subordinates as possible, in a combination of showing they're "no tolerance" or whatever and in an attempt to never allow themselves to be questioned by their superiors about a decision they made.  CYA, essentially.

Which, obviously, is a 180-degree turn from where AF leaders once were, mentoring and protecting their subordinates and being screens for them.

I laugh at the fact that on DD175s, we used to put "on file" in that personnel part of the flight plan, partly in an attempt to protect our own AF pilots against adverse FAA action should they make a mistake. Today, I'm sure Commanders are practically eager to facilitate their pilots getting FAA violations so they never get accused of trying to cover something up under their command.

[Sua Sponte]

58 minutes ago, pawnman said:

It's the guy kicked from here.  The one who fought the government over doing his job as a drone pilot.

Man never met a lawsuit he didn't like.

Yeah I know. His wife went to Harvard Law and is an attorney in Washington State, which he seems to mention 6-9 times in every paragraph he writes.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Sua Sponte

[Hacker]

10 hours ago, Waingro said:

Apparently someone is deeply triggered by CMSAF's Facebook page. Imagine having enough time on your hands to file a lawsuit over something like this.

Ya gotta admit, though, his FB post that started it was pretty damn funny.

[pawnman]

10 minutes ago, Hacker said:

Ya gotta admit, though, his FB post that started it was pretty damn funny.

Funny that a guy who bitched so much about applying violence that he brought a lawsuit is now upset that we are taking care of our airmen.

[Blue]

23 hours ago, Duck said:

In my not so humble badass opinion, she is a complete joke and completely under-qualified for this job. She is a consistent embarrassment to the Air Force.

 

23 hours ago, TheLaughingCow said:

I really can't think of any reason for a senior leader to use social media.

 

13 hours ago, Pooter said:

The really crazy thing is that basic levels of organizational accountability are now originating from Reddit forums and Instagram meme pages. 

It's certainly not the system we deserve but it's the system we need right now, and goddamn if these train wrecks aren't a treat to watch. 

Chief Ian Eishen (Edwards AFB, 412th Test Wing Command Chief) is a regular on Reddit, and is pretty well received.  Seems to provide a lot of good, candid feedback to the Edwards AFB enlisted force.   https://www.reddit.com/user/412TW_CCC/ 

Of course, as alluded to above, if your going to try to use social media in an official capacity, it helps to not be an idiot about it.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Blue

[ClearedHot]

8 hours ago, Hacker said:

When you see people blame "the cancer in AF leadership" for the retention debacle, this is one of the cornerstones of that cancer.

At some point in the last 20 years, it became fashionable for commanders to be as "tough" on mistakes made by their subordinates as possible, in a combination of showing they're "no tolerance" or whatever and in an attempt to never allow themselves to be questioned by their superiors about a decision they made.  CYA, essentially.

Which, obviously, is a 180-degree turn from where AF leaders once were, mentoring and protecting their subordinates and being screens for them.

I laugh at the fact that on DD175s, we used to put "on file" in that personnel part of the flight plan, partly in an attempt to protect our own AF pilots against adverse FAA action should they make a mistake. Today, I'm sure Commanders are practically eager to facilitate their pilots getting FAA violations so they never get accused of trying to cover something up under their command.

Amen brother. 

As a commander I tried to stay old school, there is no substitute for a good old fashion ass chewing...yell, throw in some profanity to get the point across.  Perhaps not professional but I saw no need to electrocute every Airman for a simple mistake....a mistake I probably made at one point and was lucky not to get caught doing.  If we truly believe people are our greatest asset, then invest in them, not only when they do good, but also when they do bad.

[17D_guy]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

Amen brother. 

As a commander I tried to stay old school, there is no substitute for a good old fashion ass chewing...yell, throw in some profanity to get the point across.  Perhaps not professional but I saw no need to electrocute every Airman for a simple mistake....a mistake I probably made at one point and was lucky not to get caught doing.  If we truly believe people are our greatest asset, then invest in them, not only when they do good, but also when they do bad.

This so much. Closing the door and screaming loud enough that those outside can hear (justified, of course) is a wonderful corrective tool.  Especially if that's not your normal mode, and no effective leader I've ever met was that way.

[slackline]

5 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Amen brother. 

As a commander I tried to stay old school, there is no substitute for a good old fashion ass chewing...yell, throw in some profanity to get the point across.  Perhaps not professional but I saw no need to electrocute every Airman for a simple mistake....a mistake I probably made at one point and was lucky not to get caught doing.  If we truly believe people are our greatest asset, then invest in them, not only when they do good, but also when they do bad.

Made a lot of LTs cry behind a closed door, then seen them totally turn things around.  Rarely yelled btw, the old disappointed dad routine works miracles.  
 

I've also had it not work, sometimes you can't fix stupid.  
 

I love this last sentence. We have to invest in them at all times, until they've proven that it just isn't worth it anymore. There's a chasm between that and career ending paperwork though.  

[17D_guy]

1 minute ago, slackline said:

Made a lot of LTs cry behind a closed door, then seen them totally turn things around.  Rarely yelled btw, the old disappointed dad routine works miracles.  
 

I've also had it not work, sometimes you can't fix stupid.  
 

I love this last sentence. We have to invest in them at all times, until they've proven that it just isn't worth it anymore. There's a chasm between that and career ending paperwork though.  

Yep, in 21 years I yelled twice. Once as a SSgt, once as a Maj.

The Maj one was fun though.

[Hacker]

14 hours ago, pawnman said:

Funny that a guy who bitched so much about applying violence that he brought a lawsuit is now upset that we are taking care of our airmen.

Clearly you/her and I have very different definitions of "taking care of our airmen."

[Hacker]

6 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Perhaps not professional

I never bought into this new-agey idea that profanity is somehow not professional.

It is just one of the tools in the professional's toolbox. One that can be highly effective.

What is unprofessional is when that tool is improperly used, and unfortunately it often is.

[Sua Sponte]

6 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Amen brother. 

As a commander I tried to stay old school, there is no substitute for a good old fashion ass chewing...yell, throw in some profanity to get the point across.  Perhaps not professional but I saw no need to electrocute every Airman for a simple mistake....a mistake I probably made at one point and was lucky not to get caught doing.  If we truly believe people are our greatest asset, then invest in them, not only when they do good, but also when they do bad.

When I was being court martialed for a crime I never committed, I had people turn their shoulder to me. I had people talk shit about me to friends, family, even some people on here on other online forums. Thankfully, I was found not guilty of the serious stuff, but found guilty of the typical malicious overcharging that the JAG Corps likes to do. During the sentencing phase of my court martial the best squadron commander I ever had, now O-6, wrote a letter to the panel saying:

”People are not the sum of their mistakes.”

After my discharge board, and being separated less than four years from retirement, I was the lowest of the low. I had senior Enlisted, Officers, JAGs tell me that I would never amount to anything. No one would ever give me a job due to a court martial conviction, etc. I even had a FGO that told me I should just kill myself now instead of making my family go through pain of watching me to turn into a homeless drug addict statistic. I thought about it, and almost did it. But I remembered that saying my former commander said. I decided I wasn’t going to let my mistakes define me.

This May I’m graduating from Georgetown with my Masters in Cybersecurity. I just was accepted into an aviation and space doctoral program at Oklahoma State. All paid for by the VA’s Voc Rehab program. I make way more money now than I did as a MSgt working in the KC-46 program as a contractor. I even have a security clearance. What I learned along the way was not just resilience, but I was humbled. I learned a hard lesson that your life can be taken away from you, either by the judicial system, or by those who doubt you so much that you start to doubt yourself. But in the end, you are not the sum of your mistakes, regardless of whom you are. I’m not religious, though I grew up Catholic, but to add onto that quote from my former commander is:

2 Timothy 4:7

”I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith."

To those of you who had the honor of being a commander, and allowed people to rebound from their mistakes, thank you. You’re appreciated more than you’ll ever know.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Sua Sponte