What's wrong with the Air Force?

[Pooter]

8 hours ago, FDNYOldGuy said:

I still don’t understand why anyone would sit down to an interview with Jon Stewart and not be fully prepared with their A-game to defend whatever it is that you do. He’s obviously shown up there for a reason and it’s usually not to say he’s thinking you’re doing a great job. 

Regardless of your love of the positions he takes, it’s rare that I run into too many folks that think the arguments he presents are not pretty well laid-out and backed up. Why anyone would show up not having at least an inkling he may make you look like an asshole is beyond me…

Then again, I’m admittedly very biased and f-ing love him, as he’s been a tireless proponent for government support of 9/11 related illnesses for first responders and his actions have had direct effects on brothers I know and love. Without him AND THIS SPEECH, this battle would still be ongoing

 

Well said. I disagree a lot with Jon Stewart politically but he has a nose for sniffing out bullshit and exposing it. Reference his popularization of the lab leak on colbert's show or all of his amazing 9-11 responders advocacy. It's insane to come into this conversation snippy and condescending the way she did. 

[Blue]

11 hours ago, FDNYOldGuy said:

I still don’t understand why anyone would sit down to an interview with Jon Stewart and not be fully prepared with their A-game to defend whatever it is that you do. He’s obviously shown up there for a reason and it’s usually not to say he’s thinking you’re doing a great job. 

Eh, you look at Kathleen Hicks' bio, and it becomes clear how someone like her could arrive unprepared.  She's a DC swamp creature through and through.  She's spent her entire career within the DC Beltway.  It's not surprising that she would appear so entirely out of touch.  She probably thought Jon Stewart would crack a couple jokes, shake her hand, and leave.

Look at her bio; she's spent her entire adult life as a bureaucrat in the federal government.  She's married to a fellow swamp creature (Thomas Hicks) who had such career highlights as "helping to pursue low emissions alternative fuels" as Undersecretary of the Navy, and now runs a K-street advisory firm focusing on "help(ing) companies, organizations, governments and institutions prepare for, mitigate against and take advantage of change."  Whatever the fuck that means.

When people talk about the "Deep State," these are the kind of folks they're talking about.  A huge body of career bureaucrats, answerable only to their fellow bureaucrats.  They make buckets of money, and provide vanishingly little in return.  As time goes on and their numbers increase, they only get more and more out of touch with the day to day lives or ordinary Americans.

[FLEA]

22 minutes ago, Blue said:

Eh, you look at Kathleen Hicks' bio, and it becomes clear how someone like her could arrive unprepared.  She's a DC swamp creature through and through.  She's spent her entire career within the DC Beltway.  It's not surprising that she would appear so entirely out of touch.  She probably thought Jon Stewart would crack a couple jokes, shake her hand, and leave.

Look at her bio; she's spent her entire adult life as a bureaucrat in the federal government.  She's married to a fellow swamp creature (Thomas Hicks) who had such career highlights as "helping to pursue low emissions alternative fuels" as Undersecretary of the Navy, and now runs a K-street advisory firm focusing on "help(ing) companies, organizations, governments and institutions prepare for, mitigate against and take advantage of change."  Whatever the fuck that means.

When people talk about the "Deep State," these are the kind of folks they're talking about.  A huge body of career bureaucrats, answerable only to their fellow bureaucrats.  They make buckets of money, and provide vanishingly little in return.  As time goes on and their numbers increase, they only get more and more out of touch with the day to day lives or ordinary Americans.

One of the bad things about civilian controlled military is you realize the people doing the controlling rarely lack qualification. If you look at how people like Kathleen Hicks get to their post, its clear that when they arrive they don't have nearly enough preparation on strategy, geo political climate, global security, etc... to really make informed decisions about how to appropriate money, etc...

Unfortunately, this is a viable career path. And I've seen it quite a bit in the academic world, MPP students who apply for White House internships that 5-6 years later lead to undersecretary positions in most federal arms. These are people who have barely the work and life experience of a seasoned major, now managing general officer equivalents on how to run a military. 

If you want to go far in the DoD, masters degrees and PME are for schmucks. What you really need to do is get on board with a political candidate and let them appoint you to a Pentagon position. You work your way from there. 

[WheelsOff]

Anyone else see the email from Hicks today, and seriously fight the urge to reply all with “Thanks! Oh hey, you really nailed that interview with Jon Stewart by the way!”

[FLEA]

36 minutes ago, WheelsOff said:

Anyone else see the email from Hicks today, and seriously fight the urge to reply all with “Thanks! Oh hey, you really nailed that interview with Jon Stewart by the way!”

Oh man, I really want to see that.... Guess I'll have to wait for drill next month. 

[dream big]

4 hours ago, FLEA said:

Oh man, I really want to see that.... Guess I'll have to wait for drill next month. 

It’s the standard “DOD all - don’t sell national secrets to an online gaming community.” 

[SurelySerious]

It’s the standard “DOD all - don’t sell national secrets to an online gaming community.” 

[SocialD]

9 hours ago, FLEA said:

Oh man, I really want to see that.... Guess I'll have to wait for drill next month. 

 

 

 

Don't be an asshole with classified.  That pretty much sums it up, you can now delete the e-mail without reading.  On another note, I'm impressed that you actually open your e-mail as a DSG/TR.  

[Pitt4401]

Ref: The Air Guardsmen... 

Anyone want to take bets if his home unit still has his signed NDA on file?  That'd be the first document I'd be asking for as defense counsel. 

[FLEA]

This bullshit:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-major-ongoing-war-soldiers-212009976.html

[hindsight2020]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

This bullshit:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-major-ongoing-war-soldiers-212009976.html

 

yup, the self-licking ice cream cone. To say nothing of the antagonism against ARC members who seek to prioritize homesteading in their career choices, as somehow not worthy of carrying the cost of keeping us "uniformed". If I had a quarter for everytime I've heard "if your billet is non-deployed, you shouldn't wear green". Basically the deployable/non-free agent True Scots fallacy of who deserves the benefits of 20 years of military service. Talk about penny wise pounds foolish. Of course *ART has entered the chat* *IMA has entered the chat* *RMP/Cat E has entered the chat*.

In fairness, most of the vitriol on that front have come from Army types. An especially caustic organization from a cultural perspective if I may say so, given my limited (largely CONUS) interactions with said types.

 

[FLEA]

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/04/16/airman-charged-in-pentagon-intel-leak-regretted-joining-the-military/

 

Headline: Airman charged in Pentagon intel leak regretted joining the military

 

LMAO.... Everyone on the amn/nco/SNCOs Facebook page about to get an investigation. 

[ClearedHot]

To help fix the retention problem we lowered our standards...so we got that going for us.

According to three separate professional staffers I recently spoke with, applicants to U.S. service academies are down 70% with the vaccine requirement and DEI being cited as the number 1 and 2 issues.

 

[cragspider]

42 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

To help fix the retention problem we lowered our standards...so we got that going for us.

According to three separate professional staffers I recently spoke with, applicants to U.S. service academies are down 70% with the vaccine requirement and DEI being cited as the number 1 and 2 issues.

 

When are they going to figure out this issue and correct it? Oh maybe go like the navy with this tactic? 
 

https://www.foxnews.com/media/us-navy-platformed-drag-queen-influencer-attract-youth-military-hiring-crisis

[HossHarris]

Vax is no longer required for usafa. Get your apps in!

[BashiChuni]

1 hour ago, HossHarris said:

Vax is no longer required for usafa. Get your apps in!

there is still A LOT of crow to be eaten from the vax enthusiasts on this site...

[ClearedHot]

31 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

there is still A LOT of crow to be eaten from the vax enthusiasts on this site...

 

2 hours ago, HossHarris said:

Vax is no longer required for usafa. Get your apps in!

Exactly...and there is still the perception.  A lot of damage was done. 

[Biff_T]

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

To help fix the retention problem we lowered our standards...so we got that going for us.

According to three separate professional staffers I recently spoke with, applicants to U.S. service academies are down 70% with the vaccine requirement and DEI being cited as the number 1 and 2 issues.

 

But the slides are green?  Where's the problem?  Lol.  

 

Edit.  When I flew, I remember looking to the left and right of me and not seeing a bunch of green haired lady men.  Also, I remember seeing terrorists,  they were burning lol.  

Edited May 3, 2023 by Biff_T
Afterthought

[Shakermaker]

1 hour ago, Biff_T said:

But the slides are green?  Where's the problem?  Lol.  

 

Edit.  When I flew, I remember looking to the left and right of me and not seeing a bunch of green haired lady men.  Also, I remember seeing terrorists,  they were burning lol.  

Everyone's the same color under IR

[Biff_T]

Just now, Shakermaker said:

Everyone's the same color under IR

Lol. Is that kinda like its all pink on the inside?  

I did fly on NVGs quite a bit.  I guess everyone had green hair after EECT. 

[mcbush]

11 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

To help fix the retention problem we lowered our standards...so we got that going for us.

According to three separate professional staffers I recently spoke with, applicants to U.S. service academies are down 70% with the vaccine requirement and DEI being cited as the number 1 and 2 issues.

The data being put out there by the service academies doesn't support a 70% dip. Looks like applications bounced back this year to basically pre-COVID levels. No comment on the reasons.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/10/applications-air-force-academy-bounce-back-after-plummeting-during-pandemic.html

[BashiChuni]

7 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

 

Exactly...and there is still the perception.  A lot of damage was done. 

just started reading "The Real Anthony Fauci"...

that dude and his cronies need to be in JAIL

[Blue]

12 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

According to three separate professional staffers I recently spoke with, applicants to U.S. service academies are down 70% with the vaccine requirement and DEI being cited as the number 1 and 2 issues.

 

52 minutes ago, mcbush said:

The data being put out there by the service academies doesn't support a 70% dip. Looks like applications bounced back this year to basically pre-COVID levels. No comment on the reasons.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/10/applications-air-force-academy-bounce-back-after-plummeting-during-pandemic.html

I wouldn't unequivocally trust the service academies to put out accurate data on number of applications and number of selections.  The Naval Academy has been shown in the past to inflate their numbers; I assume the other academies have done the same.

That said, "down 70%" is an incredible number if accurate.

[ClearedHot]

2 hours ago, mcbush said:

The data being put out there by the service academies doesn't support a 70% dip. Looks like applications bounced back this year to basically pre-COVID levels. No comment on the reasons.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/10/applications-air-force-academy-bounce-back-after-plummeting-during-pandemic.html

I don't know that these numbers rectify with what the staffers were saying.  I think they were expressing the number who had contacted their Congressman and Senators expressing interest in the service academies was down 70%.  I think these numbers show those that actually applied.  They also mentioned that number was geographically oriented with the largest decline in the south which is where the majority of service members come from (40%).  

[Pooter]

12 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

there is still A LOT of crow to be eaten from the vax enthusiasts on this site...

I don't think most of us who you would call "vax enthusiasts" were going "rah rah mandates are amazing, get your 69th booster or we're all gonna die."

Can only speak personally but it was more of the sentiment that when you join the military you sign some of your autonomy away. They can literally order you to go die for your country. Last I checked that's bad for your health. So it's pretty silly to act surprised and upset when they make you get a shot.

Not to mention, the  "my body is a temple" argument doesn't hold much water when no one says shit about:

-the even sketchier anthrax shot

-the statistically unlikely to work yearly flu shots

-the malaria pills that cause lasting risk of birth defects

-the go and no go pills proven to cause dependency that are prescribed like candy to bump up mission durations stopgap the regular obliteration of your circadian rhythm

-the culture of concealing actual problems from doctors to preserve flying status 

So forgive me if it came across a bit like a political crusade.

But the fun part is now we all have the benefit of hindsight 20/20. We now know covid isn't particularly dangerous for unvaxxed healthy young people and we also know the vaxxed aren't dying in droves from some hypothetical late-onset side effect.  Turns out neither were that dangerous.

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Pooter