Air Force is Tired

[08Dawg]

On 5/29/2016 at 5:11 AM, tac airlifter said:

Can families come to Guam?  

Depends on how "combat" your sq/cc feels the deployment is...it's also about a $2K roudtrip plane ticket, before putting your wife up in the Hilton for a week. 

[viper154]

2 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

Would that location be a practical one to convert into a PCS assignment?

I recall that discussion regarding the deid, but I would never want to PCS my family there.

I know someone who just PCS there with his wife. Their pictures of the beach, swimming in blue water, and drinking tropical fruity drinks make me think I would much rather PCS my family there than my current dust covered, toxic tap water, drug/crime infested location of Clovis. 

[HuggyU2]

In the 1980's, Anderson had a permanent B-52 squadron there. My U-2 classmate got assigned there right out of UPT. He said it was paradise for a 23 year old Lieutenant. 

[Lawman]

Both my father in law, and my dad either spent time o Guam or had friends that did during the 80s.

My wife lived there for three years as a kid and her mother who hates any place not south east Texas even enjoyed the experience.

Dad almost took Guam but got Italy instead for his overseas tour. Seems like at the time though every family we knew did 1 overseas tour in a career minimum, and it was 3 years remote or 4 years with Family. Seemed the only variable was which Ocean you crossed as my family and a lot of our friends went to Europe where my wife's family and friends did the Pacific to either Guam, Japan, or PI.

[Learjetter]

Can families come to Guam?  

Anecdote: some B52 deployed CCs say "no"...but they can't stop you from bringing the family over on your dime. But the jackholes can also put you on mids/12s, or restrict you to base, deny local time off, or other nasty anti-family time tactics. Not saying it happens...but it happened and discouraged a bunch of younguns from bringing over family.

But, when you think about it there are a lot of TDYS/deployments you can easily turn into mini (expensive) vacations: I "took" my spouse on many TDYS to various places over the years, CONUS and not...often, we rode the same aircraft and stayed in the same hotel and drove the same rental car...I claimed the appropriate expenses and paid for thr rest...you get the idea.

Example: I had to go to Macdill for a Centcom thing for a week. Travel days were Mon and Fri, meetings Tues- Thursday. So we flew down the previous Friday after work, had fun in Orlando until Monday evening, then we drove to Macdill. I did meetings, she did her stuff (sts) and we spent the last weekend on Siesta Key before flying home Sunday. Even had all the stops in DTS as pass/no Per diem days.

Perfectly legal..did this kind of thing often.

The AF may be tired, but YOU can still look for morale- building things to do.

[abmwaldo]

Anecdote: some B52 deployed CCs say "no"...but they can't stop you from bringing the family over on your dime. But the jackholes can also put you on mids/12s, or restrict you to base, deny local time off, or other nasty anti-family time tactics. Not saying it happens...but it happened and discouraged a bunch of younguns from bringing over family.

But, when you think about it there are a lot of TDYS/deployments you can easily turn into mini (expensive) vacations: I "took" my spouse on many TDYS to various places over the years, CONUS and not...often, we rode the same aircraft and stayed in the same hotel and drove the same rental car...I claimed the appropriate expenses and paid for thr rest...you get the idea...Even had all the stops in DTS as pass/no Per diem days.

Perfectly legal..did this kind of thing often.

The AF may be tired, but YOU can still look for morale- building things to do.

I've done the same in Key West, Vegas, and Alaska.

[Disco_Nav963]

Pile on... I've done Guam twice (in 180 and 90 day doses respectively), brought the wife out for two weeks the first time (timed to coincide with beginning of a normal 2 day weekend, followed by scheduled 4 day weekend w/ PACAF Family Day and a federal holiday, and a 2 day weekend on the back end)... Stayed at the Hyatt in Tumon during the weekends and in lodging on a Space A basis during the week (also carefully scheduled to avoid major exercises like Cope North that bring in a lot of outsiders and fill up lodging). No issues, already had a Guam bomb, had a lot of fun. My perception WRT what 08Dawg and Learjetter said is that most of that fun-burglaring happened during a particularly bad period of toxic B-52 leadership that (perception again) was especially concentrated in the Barksdale squadrons. During my second Guam trip (different commander), about a dozen spouses visited near the midpoint of the deployment; no issues then either. That commander even approved leave for people to go commercial on diving trips to Palau during the 4th of July holiday. BL: Plan smartly and it shouldn't be an issue. If you're worried about your boss being dickish about it, don't tell him she's coming (she's a free American, right?)

I will respectfully differ with my friend Pawnman on one thing... CBP is not a training deployment. You will do training out there, but your job is OPLAN support. IMO the problem with CBP isn't the trip to Guam, it's that the trip to Guam lasts 6 months. The threat emitter on the island sucks ass, so by the end of your tour you've probably become better at some niche things (like aerial mining) and worse at some important things (like defending the jet and IDing threats). I heard Gen Rand give a decent little rant at an All Call on why going back to 4 month deployments is important for bombers especially, so I am really curious why everything I hear WOM sounds like 6 month tours UFN seems to be the plan for the BONE and the BUFF at the moment. My personal opinion is 3 months would be "about right" for that theater.

[pawnman]

4 hours ago, Disco_Nav963 said:

Pile on... I've done Guam twice (in 180 and 90 day doses respectively), brought the wife out for two weeks the first time (timed to coincide with beginning of a normal 2 day weekend, followed by scheduled 4 day weekend w/ PACAF Family Day and a federal holiday, and a 2 day weekend on the back end)... Stayed at the Hyatt in Tumon during the weekends and in lodging on a Space A basis during the week (also carefully scheduled to avoid major exercises like Cope North that bring in a lot of outsiders and fill up lodging). No issues, already had a Guam bomb, had a lot of fun. My perception WRT what 08Dawg and Learjetter said is that most of that fun-burglaring happened during a particularly bad period of toxic B-52 leadership that (perception again) was especially concentrated in the Barksdale squadrons. During my second Guam trip (different commander), about a dozen spouses visited near the midpoint of the deployment; no issues then either. That commander even approved leave for people to go commercial on diving trips to Palau during the 4th of July holiday. BL: Plan smartly and it shouldn't be an issue. If you're worried about your boss being dickish about it, don't tell him she's coming (she's a free American, right?)

I will respectfully differ with my friend Pawnman on one thing... CBP is not a training deployment. You will do training out there, but your job is OPLAN support. IMO the problem with CBP isn't the trip to Guam, it's that the trip to Guam lasts 6 months. The threat emitter on the island sucks ass, so by the end of your tour you've probably become better at some niche things (like aerial mining) and worse at some important things (like defending the jet and IDing threats). I heard Gen Rand give a decent little rant at an All Call on why going back to 4 month deployments is important for bombers especially, so I am really curious why everything I hear WOM sounds like 6 month tours UFN seems to be the plan for the BONE and the BUFF at the moment. My personal opinion is 3 months would be "about right" for that theater.

I think it's six months because that's what we're planning for whatever bomber is picking up the AFCENT tasking while someone else stares across the ocean at some Asian dictators.

[08Dawg]

On 6/3/2016 at 6:45 AM, pawnman said:

I think it's six months because that's what we're planning for whatever bomber is picking up the AFCENT tasking while someone else stares across the ocean at some Asian dictators.

True, but now that we've more than doubled the number of available bomb squadrons to pick up AFCENT taskings...I think four months makes more sense.  My first trip to the island was four months, and that felt right.  Six months is a drag, tropical island or no.  An even better answer, to me at least, is do what we did in the late 80s/early 90s- park a squadron out there.  We've already got a detachment out there now.  Maybe you don't put twelve tails there, but four-six with periodic swaps to keep the corrosion issues low. 

Edited June 5, 2016 by 08Dawg