Flying for Navy, Marines or Air Force?

[BackOrdered]

I followed the link on non-technical specialties in the Air force. All of them sound like something a Supply Officer can do. Cost Analysis Officer, Contracting Officer, Financial Management Officer, Logistics Plans And Programs Officer, Logistician, and finally Supply Officer all seem like duties a Naval Supply Officer has to deal with. I understand that their are different designators in the Naval Supply Corps for logistics, food services, Sales etc, but they all sound like duties that encompass the jobs of several Airforce officers. Why so specialized? The bureaucracy in the Airforce must be hell.

 

[BackOrdered]

Anyone?

 

[SQUIDutah]

Chuck Norris is an honorary Marine now... what red blooded American doesn't want to fight along side of Chuck Norris.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/04/marine_chuck_norris_070403/

 

[Spot]

^^^Is there a better reason to join the Marines?^^^

 

[Zilch]

Anyone?

Secondhand example of Air Force beurocracy:

My dad is Navy O-5, and during the major assault through Iraq had to move his boats from one place to another in the Mideast somewhere (he wasn't specific on where.) To do this, they needed something bigger than a Marine C-130 to get them all where they needed to be in one trip. Thus, they were using an Air Force C-17.

Before he could do this, however, he had to sign a contract that said he wouldn't try to hijack the aircraft, and he and his team could not carry weapons on the trip to ensure Air Force safety.

Can you imagine a hijacker signing that thing? "Well, I was planning on violently taking control of this C-17, but since I signed a contact with the Air Force, I guess that'll have to wait." Seriously...what the fuc&?

Prohibiting fellow members of the US military from carrying their weapons? What was that, a nursery school inside that aircraft? What if they were forced down somewhere and had to depend on the AF crew's proficiency with weapons to survive? Fuc&ing hell.

Dad still gets mad when I ask him to tell the story, and this happened a few years ago now. The absurdity of the whole thing stuck a chord with me, as this was just after I made my initial (and fairly disappointing) contact with the AF about a possible career.

If the AF chose to wing me tomorrow, I'd still turn it down in favor of a USMC commission doing anything else.

PS:

Since I posted this, I've been thinking about it. Someone, somewhere, had to think up the whole contract. Who has that much spare time? Did this make sense to somebody?

"Well, if we make them sign a contract up front, they'll understand that hijacking our plane is not something we look favorably upon. And, even if they do end up trying to steal our aircraft, we can get them for breach of contract! Brilliant! Why did I not think of this sooner? We've got all our bases covered on this one."

 

[BackOrdered]

Since I posted this, I've been thinking about it. Someone, somewhere, had to think up the whole contract. Who has that much spare time? Did this make sense to somebody?

Don't know. But I'm sure it is someone who can have an hours long talk about why they did it.

"Don't quote me regulations! I co-chaired the commitee that reviewed the recommendation to revise the color of the book that regulations are kept in! (darkly) We kept it grey."-Futurama

 

[UCbearcat]

Even Air Force Pilots Hate The Air Force

I was perusing an Air Force forum when I came across this thread.

Check out Ryno's post. No one even comes to the Air Forces rescue. This is one of the reasons why I want to leave AFROTC. I don't see how you could hate a flying career that much.

 

[HackerF15E]

I was perusing an Air Force forum when I came across this thread.

Check out Ryno's post. No one even comes to the Air Forces rescue. This is one of the reasons why I want to leave AFROTC. I don't see how you could hate a flying career that much.

I can't read it because the site is blocked from work, but without even seeing it...

...the view from the bottom of the career is a lot different than the view from the top. There's a REASON that there is a 10-year ADSC, and it's because without it pilots would bail right and left.

Everything that happens between when the canopy comes down and when it goes back up...that's great. Everything else is crap.

 

[Carno]

For your buddy, if he doesn't want to sit behind a desk then drop OSI. That's 99% desk stuff and doesn't live up to the hype. CRO would be a cool job but as an officer it would be a lot of desk stuff, as well.

Striver laid out the career progression for the typical pilot. After your first ten years it becomes harder to stay away from a desk. If you're in a flying position, which is doable, it's likely not your "main job". Your main job will be some ADO position or Chief of Queep or something along those lines and you'll fly enough to stay current. But most of your time will be behind a desk.

Unfortunately, the Queep (non-flying desk job bullshit that usually doesn't really add anything to the mission) is startling. Young guys don't know any better but for FGOs like myself that can remember pre-911 operational flying life...it's getting worse and getting worse quickly. I know all the old guys always talk about how it's gotten bad but I really think it's true. The current Air Force Times cover hosts an article about disbanding the Air Force. Civilian leadership is calling the Air Force a bankrupt institution and the GOs are predicting gloom and doom. We have two wars ongoing with objectives not met, old equipment, and we are continually cutting our own throats by kicking people out of the military.

On the operational side of the house, we flyers find ourselves having to do everything! There is no support anymore. Finance is being disbanded and finance functions have been put into a software program which is run by pilots. I am one such person and I spend a large part of my time as a finance officer approving travel vouchers and orders and adding and subtracting and asking for money etc etc. A large part of time is spent doing this additional duty even though I'm a line flyer. Much of the daily business stuff that was done by a support staff and by a support group has been converted into some software and given to the individual flyers to do or for a flyer to do as an additional duty. Unfortunately, the software often sucks and doesn't work which is pretty painful. You'd think you could get your computer support people to fix these issues right? Wrong. They aren't in your squadron and are "consolidated" for the base some place that isn't convenient and they are so busy as to be pretty much useless. Hard working warfighters are told, "Been fighting for years in Afghanistan and Iraq in the worst ops tempo in the entire Air Force to the detriment of your family? Fuck you, move to Clovis so we can gain a base that only hinders our mission fighting ability a little bit but scores some nice political points for GOs and politicians. Your wife refuses to put your kids in the worst schools in New Mexico? Well, she didn't sign a 10 year after wings commitment so she can leave but you're stuck." Now you may wonder about the legality of posting this kind of opinion online. Don't ask Colonel NumNuts the JAG though because that fuck-stick was disbarred and the Air Force didn't even know and let him do an entire career illegally. You'd think the GO JAG in charge would have been able to find this out about his people but he was too busy banging enlisted women when he wasn't kicking two stripers and Capts out for fraternization to know about that. Now that he's retired with a full military pension he probably has more time for such stuff.

There is so much queep it's fucking retarded. "Leadership" that can't say "Sorry, boss, but I can't do more with less" answering to leadership that only cares about the big paycheck they'll make when they go through the revolving door into a fat contractor position with Boeing or Lockheed Martin ("sure, let's buy some more Ospreys - that's a great idea!!")...and you have an Air Force where nukes can go unaccounted for probably because somebody wasn't able to log their "Don't Let Nukes Out of Your Site Training" on AirForcePortal.Com because their fucking CAC card reader didn't work. UNCLE!!!

The Air Force is all kinds of fucked up right now. It's a clown show from the word go because the culture is all fucked up. "Perception is reality"...."perception is reality"....repeat that to yourself and one day you too will believe it, live it, and get promoted. And you'll also only work for perception knowing that reality doesn't actually matter. So it doesn't matter if the Air Force is actually broken as long as your powerpoint presentation gives the perception that it isn't. For those crusty bastards that won't "drink the kool-aid" and refuse to keep their mouths shut and instead raise their hand and say "this is stupid....timeout...knock it off" they will get the "choose your battles" speech by spineless leadership that never ever battled or risked anything for their worthless careers.

While we have this culture nobody will challenge the stupid ass "do more with less" slogan even though it's common knowledge that the Air Force is broken. Nobody will tell the emperor that his weiner is showing and the queep will continue to build up until we UAVs are in full effect and we can do queep 99% of the time and leave the UAV flying to others.

I hate to be that guy especially with you young dudes but the truth is....it'll be fun for the first part of your 12 year commitments because it's new.....then get ready for the suck. There are few good deals left in the Air Force and it's only getting worse.

Just my crusty bad attitude opinion...please challenge it.

Actually I take that back about it being fun at first. You'll pretty much walk into a meat grinder and get spit out. I've seen it several times with sharp motivated top of their class new LTs that walk into the squadron beaming. Within a year they walk through the hallways like ghosts as everyone else does. Of course this all depends on what airframe you go to, etc etc.

I'm making generalizations which I think fit. There are exceptions. There are good leaders in leadership positions and there are good decisions coming from the top (smaller OPR for example). And there are plenty with it much worse than we've got it (ie Army).

The good news is it has to change. The Air Force can't continue this way.

ROTC instructor isn't open to pilots according to the last message I saw advertising that job....and there is an even less chance of me making rank. One of the side effects of being an O-4 that refuses to get a master's degree while doing 12 hour days at work and won't do ACSC by correspondence for the same reason. If the Air Force wants to give me actual time to educate myself instead of, AGAIN, dictating the "perception is reality" approach to education (ie a Bullshit fake degree from Embry Riddle), then I would be more than willing to get a masters degree. I'd even pay for it myself. But the Air Force doesn't care if you're actually more educated and smarter...they just want you to check the box. But I can't check the box without my job suffering at work and making LtCol just isn't worth it.

Fixing the system and changing it from the inside? I'm good at identifying problems that need to be fixed (bitching) but the actual fixing part requires somebody much more talented than myself. I'm just not that good. ROTC Recruiter? Yeah I could handle that one.

Actually one young operational pilot PMed me and unfortunately had the same thing to report on the Air Force's misplaced value system (queep taking up 99% of the priority in an operational flying squadron during two wars with objectives not me). He's one of the young sharp Lts that this screwed us system is going to try to beat down. He brought up the guys hiding in the back to do master's and PME work. I thought that was funny. I see that all the time. Guys closing doors to try to get time to work on some queepish paper for ACSC and I can only think of all the lost man hours and how that "education" isn't going to pay off at all for the Air Force.

I think we might need some Marine GOs to spend time running the Air Force and getting it back in gear. The Marines have an outstanding warrior culture and unshakeable integrity. They haven't been corrupted by the money politics. "Your multi-million dollar system doesn't help my boys get the mission done? Cut it." They do what makes sense and they kick ass in combat. We need to give up our money contracts and big budgets and trade it in for whatever they got.

Looks pretty bleak.

 

[tk628]

See if they will let you commission to the Navy... or pay a hefty price and be a deserter... Just kidding.. Ryno made some interesting observations...

My Justin Ensign $.02... Here at Vance, the bs level is a what seems to be an all time high, with some instructors being berittled by DTS f'up rather than things like instructing/flying/training...ect. Ryno makes an interesting point in with the USMC, how do they do it?... My guess would be the people, but something has to be said for the limited-nonsense attitude about wasteful spending, and a broad picture approach to what is really important.

It is not really a question of how to do "more with less". First use what you have efficiently, then determine what your needs are. More often then not people are just lazy and want someone else to do it. I don't advocate getting rid of everyone, because it is important to have people in place who can effectively do their jobs, but where the problem comes in is people who whine about doing work, and you suddenly get an overabundance of useless people. That has to stop.... but to do so it is going to require more than just a military change...

It might just be a mentality thing, but I am sitting looking at $10,000 in plasma TV's that never get turned on, and everyday I drive through a newly built $3 million front gate, which really did nothing in terms of protection that a concrete barrier couldn't have done. Lest I remind you I am in Enid, Oklahoma... take that for what its worth in threat levels. The priorities seem slightly skewed between the services, that is something that needs to get worked out pronto, as the tune of Iraq approaches $1.3 Billion, yes that was a "B" (marketwatch.com today)

 

[Semper Jump Jet]

I can't read it because the site is blocked from work, but without even seeing it...

So the Air Force is blocking the AF related sites but not this one? NICE.

 

[tk628]

So the Air Force is blocking the AF related sites but not this one? NICE.

haha...

 

[MattWSU]

This is one of the reasons why I want to leave AFROTC. I don't see how you could hate a flying career that much.

Leave the program. It's my understanding that you're not bound to it and you don't like it, so get out of it. I made the mistake of giving the Air Force a chance too. I'm technically still in ROTC but the Cadre know I'll be leaving at the end of the semester. Tell them that the Air Force is not for you and pursue another program.

 

[HackerF15E]

Although most of what he says is "true", you have to filter it through his eyes. Like me, he's an O-4 mid-level manager...a job that has ALWAYS made guys slow down flying in favor of a desk job...this isn't anything new. It is a shock when you get to this point in your career, and it sucks...makes a lot of guys bitter. Ryno obviously is, so you have to take his comments through that filter.

I agree that there is a lot about the Air Force that is broken. In my opinion, though, it's not substantially more broken than it was in 1995 when I was commissioned. It's just broken in different ways.

The tempo of flying contingency ops in two different countries does mean we do a crapload more deploying now than before 9/11.

Unfortunately, the USAF took a risk about 15 years ago when the cold war ended -- they assumed that the 'peace dividend' would pay for modernization of equipment and aircraft. As such, they saluted smartly when in the Post Desert Storm era they were told to downsize the total size of the USAF, wrongly assuming that eventually the dollar floodgates would open again and the "new" reorganized AF would be able to buy new airplanes to replace old ones.

Guess what...the peace dividend never came. And, over time, the size of the force shrunk, budgets shrunk, and operational requirements kept getting bigger and bigger. First it was Nation Building in Somalia and Kosovo, and then 9/11 blew the lid off things.

So, he's right...the AF is really ready to burst at the seams...sort of. The force does continue to streamline itself, with crap like consolidated computer-based everything, self-service personnel and finance, and the like. Unfortunately it means that the "support" personnel who are there to support ops...aren't there.

It's no reason to drop out of AFROTC. I'm sure the Navy has plenty of skeletons in its closet, too. It's more a statement of what's going on in the military overall currently, NOT just the AF.

 

[HackerF15E]

I made the mistake of giving the Air Force a chance too. I'm technically still in ROTC but the Cadre know I'll be leaving at the end of the semester. Tell them that the Air Force is not for you and pursue another program.

Seriously? You're still in college and all ready throwing spears at the AF's act? Please.

If you had personal reasons, fine...but if it was for some photo grande reason about the AF, I'm not buying it.