Damnit Air Force!!!

[Conrad]

I mean really... do you have to make our whole damn military money situation that much damn worse!!!

I work for the Air Force but really I am getting upset that they waste so much damn money!

Sooo as always the unfunded wish list of the services went to the House Armed Services Commitee... And of course they had to trump all 3 other services by double!!!

I mean really! People are complaining on the costs of the DoD and they want to do this chit...

FYI..This isnt an attack on your service... its supposed to be a debate

I think the Air Force should be disbanded and spread amongst the other services... Really for only 15 percent of the Air Force going to a combat zone lets outfit the close to the entire branch with better weapons than soldiers and marines get... :rant:

[Conrad]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1715482,00.html?imw=Y

[Jeffro600]

After my 6 years in the Air Force ive learned a few things. First off, the Air Force is more of a Research and Development part of the military than it is for frontline combat. Between all the space lift operations, ICBM missile research and maintenance, Aeronautics R&D and maintenance, those three right now are probably the biggest costs in the world as far as military programs go. They sink a HUGE amount of money into that stuff to keep us on the cutting edge and keep utmost reliability. Not to say other services are not as deserving of the money, but theres only so much of it and i guess they are spending it where they see fit...doesnt necessarily mean wasting it just because you see it that way.

And while i do agree there is alot of wasteful spending all over the place, its not restricted to just the Air Force. I see money squandered and wasted every day in almost every branch.

[Conrad]

Oh I agree on R&D spending to a point.. but last time I checked al qaeda didnt have a very advanced anti aircraft weapon system, so needing another 8 billion in raptors seems a little much. And the fact they need to outfit every airman with a new M4 and .45????

ALL govt analysts have said that the tide of war for the next 20 to 30 years is going to be fought in cities and on the ground.

[deadjeep]

Air force could cut the budget in a few spots and we could use the money to buy better body armor for our ground guys that will actually have someone shooting at tham.

[OrangeCrush]

All aircraft and space operations for all services should be in the domain of the AirForce

All Ground troops except Spec Ops should be in the domain of the Army

All Spec Ops falls under the Marine command

All water operations under the Navy

[Oscar]

Yea and thats the same people who said that Iraq had all those weapons of mass destructions. The F-15's are literally falling apart F-16's are comparable to the f-4 know as far surviving in combat. KC-135 the last one was built in 1964 that means the newest one is 43 years old. If you focus on enemy the one you don't see will defeat you. Also the AF is transforming in to even closer combat support. They are manning convoys taking over base defense from the Army to free them up for more of what they are trained for. The requirement for base defense it the AF was required for perimeter defense that has changed to to out to 5 miles hence then need to arm Airman that have never been required to carry a weapon. As for disbanding the AF you logic would dictate doing that to the Navy as their ships have a difficult time time in urban combat. And if we are disbanding branches why not disband disband the smallest branch because it is duplicating one already in existence.

[Ohana Fab]

how about one military with components that are logically grouped together (air, ground, sea, space, etc.) and elimination of all the redundent support functions replicated by each service (this is the huge part).

one of the things the branches of our current military are stuck on is protection and expansion of each of their empires - to the point where it substantially impacts the overall capabilities.

As for waste? I saw unbelievable amounts of waste while I was in. All of which left you scratching and shaking your head.

the amounts wated by the brass on bs practices could significantly improve pay, benefits across the board and improve equipment for those on the front lines.

[AMMOtj]

It is pretty expensive keeping our jets flying. I wish I could tally up how much our squadron spends on parts on a given day. Now take that number and multiply it by all the flying squadrons..... thats a pretty penny. Needless to say, the cost to keep a Humvee running is significantly cheaper than jets. Not to mention the cost of JP-8 rising to fuel the jets has gone up considerably. We're not just dropping dump bombs any more either. Our JDAM tail kits are running at ~$30k a piece! The LGB's aren't cheap either.

The stuff the AF uses just plain costs more to keep up. And now we're entering the space age! So you might as well tack on NASA's buget, because building and putting a satellite into space isn't cheap!

[Conrad]

Yea and thats the same people who said that Iraq had all those weapons of mass destructions. The F-15's are literally falling apart F-16's are comparable to the f-4 know as far surviving in combat. KC-135 the last one was built in 1964 that means the newest one is 43 years old. If you focus on enemy the one you don't see will defeat you. Also the AF is transforming in to even closer combat support. They are manning convoys taking over base defense from the Army to free them up for more of what they are trained for. The requirement for base defense it the AF was required for perimeter defense that has changed to to out to 5 miles hence then need to arm Airman that have never been required to carry a weapon. As for disbanding the AF you logic would dictate doing that to the Navy as their ships have a difficult time time in urban combat. And if we are disbanding branches why not disband disband the smallest branch because it is duplicating one already in existence.


yay someone to debate with...

I agree with spending money on sustainment!!!! That is something that we definietly need. But thats not what most of this money is for..

The Air Force has the worst spending record for any branch.. Hell just last year a LT. friend of mine who graduated the academy 8 months earlier was told the AF is cutting people... Ok so lets give her 40K on top of 4 years of paid school to work for the govt for 8 months... makes sense to me??:shrug:

Along with tons of Airmen over the last 2 years who got cut with Force Shaping???? I agreed with this make a more leaner more efficient AF.. Well after kicking tons of people out... Another Capt I knew got 100K for getting out at 8 years?

And now they want 100 million to expand the force????

The AF serves a function but its not serving a big one now... Unmanned Aircraft are in use but are being run by civilians... might as well throw it to the service using them.. The army and marines.

Space is run by civilians other than giving a few blue suiters a job that they can occupy a chair for a bit... and then go on meaningless tasks like gateguard?

You say they are doing base protection?? They dont need to be guarding another services base... Change them from blue to green so they get the adequate training they need, and let them guard their own base.

Close air support is typically ran by the service conducting the mission. When we went to iraq... I worked in the TAOC... Tactical air op center... WE MANAGED CLOSE AIR SUPPORT... Air Force missions were managed by marines... later the army.

When the future comes and we have to defend our nation against air attack I agree we should bring big funding back to the Air Force. But right now we dont need it so much.

Lastly you say disband the smallest service that is doing the job another one is already doing...

No other service can go kick arse take names at a moments notice when the Commander and Chief needs something done without asking Congress .. We are what we are.... Small, quick, big punch, short term resolution force! We whoop arse till the Army can get there. We even state that... we are good by ourselves for only 180 days, we dont have to ask any other service to do anything.. Your going to say the Navy but we have our own ships.. land,sea, air we do it all.

[TwoDogs]

All aircraft and space operations for all services should be in the domain of the AirForce

All Ground troops except Spec Ops should be in the domain of the Army

All Spec Ops falls under the Marine command

All water operations under the Navy


I'll go with that.

[Conrad]

All aircraft and space operations for all services should be in the domain of the AirForce

All Ground troops except Spec Ops should be in the domain of the Army

All Spec Ops falls under the Marine command

All water operations under the Navy

Space... ran by civilians... There are more civilians running space ops then there are military

Air, well if used in conjunction with ground ops I disagree.

[Oscar]

Why are civilians doing office jobs..... to put the troops in the field and if you want me to tell you what i think about Marines it will off line because I know you were one and you won't like what I have to say about them. But I don't agree with civilians to any of them doing things. As for as running air support by the army or marines tried it didnt work ask Budman about that follie.

[Conrad]

Why are civilians doing office jobs..... to put the troops in the field and if you want me to tell you what i think about Marines it will off line because I know you were one and you won't like what I have to say about them. But I don't agree with civilians to any of them doing things. As for as running air support by the army or marines tried it didnt work ask Budman about that follie.

Worked fine in invading Iraq... If you have qualms with Marines it wont hurt our feelings to hear them..

You say civilians doing office jobs to put "troops" in the field. In all my years in the Marines we didnt have to have civilians doing jobs while we were in the field because we ALL went to the field... not just one guy here and one there.

[OrangeCrush]

Space... ran by civilians... There are more civilians running space ops then there are military

Air, well if used in conjunction with ground ops I disagree.

I worked for NASA for 8 years and the waste and fraud in the DOD pales in comparison to what the eggheads do, I totally agree that space exploration should be privatized but launching sats should be the AF

[OrangeCrush]

Space... ran by civilians... There are more civilians running space ops then there are military

Air, well if used in conjunction with ground ops I disagree.

THere would ofcourse be tight communication and not so much empire building under my plan!!

OrangeCrush for Sec. Of Defense 2009!!!

[Oscar]

Worked fine in invading Iraq... If you have qualms with Marines it wont hurt our feelings to hear them..

You say civilians doing office jobs to put "troops" in the field. In all my years in the Marines we didnt have to have civilians doing jobs while we were in the field because we ALL went to the field... not just one guy here and one there.
Differnt mission all together but that is changing. Airman that get their upgrade training done are gettin a secondary AFSC which will be cops for airfield defense or Trans for doing convoys. This takes them out of their primary jobs so in the AF so called wisdom lets get civilians to help out they don't have to deploy which I think is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Also the thing about cutting the force during war well lets say that is our lovely civilian leadership doing it and it is about the craziest thing ever.

[Conrad]

THere would ofcourse be tight communication and not so much empire building under my plan!!

OrangeCrush for Sec. Of Defense 2009!!!

Where do I vote?

[al24]

http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/flowerbayonet.jpg



:flipoff2::flipoff2:

[Conrad]

http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/flowerbayonet.jpg



:flipoff2::flipoff2:

:redxpoke:

[Conrad]

Differnt mission all together but that is changing. Airman that get their upgrade training done are gettin a secondary AFSC which will be cops for airfield defense or Trans for doing convoys. This takes them out of their primary jobs so in the AF so called wisdom lets get civilians to help out they don't have to deploy which I think is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Also the thing about cutting the force during war well lets say that is our lovely civilian leadership doing it and it is about the craziest thing ever.

That was Jumper who was doing that... at least I thought. IMNSHO I think the Air Force should go down to Extreme Fighters, Tactical Bombers, Space and leave them fit and trim.

The more advanced the AF gets.. the need for a military people becomes less needed. Frankly I would rather have a trained professional fly a global hawk dropping bombs all over gawd knows where near our people on the ground then someone fresh out of highschool only looking for money for college.

[Oscar]

Just to let you know that its qualified pilots flying the drones not enlisted folks. So you infer the new airman aren't proffesionals? yea well some are what you say but every branch gets them. As far more advanced he less you need that is stupid too. When you take a maintance unit and take from 20 mechanics to 5 because the new systems take less work well I can tell you how well that worked it doesn't you still need people to do the job plain and simple. I guess it would be like taking your combat unit cutting it by 3/4 strength and asking them to do at least tthe same job. Or as the saying in the AF is do more with way less. See I have 5 mechanics flying twice the numer of sorties but I really don't have 5 I have 3 because one is on air field defense duty and one is manning a machine gun in a convoy. But we are getting off the subject of money spending. The AF is in a cycle of replacng a lot o out dated equipment and it does take a butt load of money cause those types of toys aint cheap.

[Conrad]

Actually I know that the predators are... because I applied to be a contractor at nellis to fly them. I wasnt saying that they could do with less..

But with the more advanced the weapon systems get the harder it is to make a guy join for little money, who is going to get a bunch of extra duties, and who is getting pulled to go on convoys or whatever, all in a 4-6 year contract. When it takes 2 or more years to train them.

[DaJudge]

http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/flowerbayonet.jpg



:flipoff2::flipoff2:
http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/flowerbayonet.jpg
Cut and paste this if you want to see it: http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/flowerbayonet.jpg

[Mr. Mojo]

Ok this may be a little off topic and quite possibly incorrect but aren't the majority of combat missions flown by the Navy and Marines?

[Conrad]

Ok this may be a little off topic and quite possibly incorrect but aren't the majority of combat missions flown by the Navy and Marines?

Mostly Marines and AirForce... Navy doesnt provide too much not directly near the carrier group.

[Pilot]

The AF is in a cycle of replacng a lot o out dated equipment and it does take a butt load of money cause those types of toys aint cheap.


Can you say F-22, JSF, B-2.......

What's gonna replace the P-3, KC-135, B-52......more $$$

Do we need piloted planes anymore?


:flipoff2:

[Budman]

yay someone to debate with...

I agree with spending money on sustainment!!!! That is something that we definietly need. But thats not what most of this money is for..

The Air Force has the worst spending record for any branch.. Hell just last year a LT. friend of mine who graduated the academy 8 months earlier was told the AF is cutting people... Ok so lets give her 40K on top of 4 years of paid school to work for the govt for 8 months... makes sense to me??:shrug:

Along with tons of Airmen over the last 2 years who got cut with Force Shaping???? I agreed with this make a more leaner more efficient AF.. Well after kicking tons of people out... Another Capt I knew got 100K for getting out at 8 years?

And now they want 100 million to expand the force????

The AF serves a function but its not serving a big one now... Unmanned Aircraft are in use but are being run by civilians... might as well throw it to the service using them.. The army and marines.

Space is run by civilians other than giving a few blue suiters a job that they can occupy a chair for a bit... and then go on meaningless tasks like gateguard?

You say they are doing base protection?? They dont need to be guarding another services base... Change them from blue to green so they get the adequate training they need, and let them guard their own base.

Close air support is typically ran by the service conducting the mission. When we went to iraq... I worked in the TAOC... Tactical air op center... WE MANAGED CLOSE AIR SUPPORT... Air Force missions were managed by marines... later the army.

When the future comes and we have to defend our nation against air attack I agree we should bring big funding back to the Air Force. But right now we dont need it so much.

Lastly you say disband the smallest service that is doing the job another one is already doing...

No other service can go kick arse take names at a moments notice when the Commander and Chief needs something done without asking Congress .. We are what we are.... Small, quick, big punch, short term resolution force! We whoop arse till the Army can get there. We even state that... we are good by ourselves for only 180 days, we dont have to ask any other service to do anything.. Your going to say the Navy but we have our own ships.. land,sea, air we do it all.

OBTW: The marines could easily be replaced with units of SF. The marines bring no unique capability that could not be duplicated by a joint force of Army and AF and Navy... Sorry. I love the Jarheads, but they are not the only one's capable of that.

You know I was intentionally staying out of this... Then you said this... The Marines are trained and capable of controling CAS in THIER Area of Operations (and they do a good job of it for the most part). However, The Army does not control CAS. I will not go into a step by step of how the entire thing works, but there is an army guy who is involved in the process, but the planes are controlled by an AF guy (we are talking regular army units here not SF) On top of that there is an AF guy (ALO) in the TOC, and at every level of decision making along the way.

As for the AF being thrown into the other services... The services are broken out for a reason. We are each good at what we do. The Army has a track record of wasting air assets because they have a different view of the value of a life, and a piece of equipment (One of the most recent examples I can think of was the Apache Attack TOO far north during the assult on Iraq). I live and breath in the Joint world, and this is the way it should be. All seperate services working together.

Why are civilians doing office jobs..... to put the troops in the field and if you want me to tell you what i think about Marines it will off line because I know you were one and you won't like what I have to say about them. But I don't agree with civilians to any of them doing things. As for as running air support by the army or marines tried it didnt work ask Budman about that follie.

The civilians were brought on to accomplish non combat tasks when We had to downsize 20 years ago

Ok this may be a little off topic and quite possibly incorrect but aren't the majority of combat missions flown by the Navy and Marines?

Mostly Marines and AirForce... Navy doesnt provide too much not directly near the carrier group.

Actually the number of combat sorties that the Marines Fly is a very very small percentage of the overall total (simply due to aircraft numbers).

Okay, Spending is crazy in the DOD. It is a fact of life, and needs to be fixed, but I likely never will. They will continue to cut in places that hurt the people in exchange for equipment.

The problem with the airforce is that it is pricey to keep it up to date. You have to maintain current technology or your fleet starts to fall apart to the point that you can't fix it, then you have to start stripping one to keep the other flying, then before long you don't have an Airforce. THEN you have to fight an enemy like China, or North Korea who can come up and play with you in the air. You want to see a blood bath... Try to fight a ground war where we don't have Air Superiority. Add to that that the AF is responsible for buying all the bombs and Cruise missiles that were fired in Iraq, and Aphganistan. We have dropped a crap load of munitions since 2002, and are in the process of replacing those as we continue to drop more.

[AMMOtj]

The AF serves a function but its not serving a big one now... Unmanned Aircraft are in use but are being run by civilians... might as well throw it to the service using them.. The army and marines.


Predators and other UAV's are flown by Airman and Air Force officers. Don't believe me? I'll give you a laundry list of friends that are flying them from the 119th AW. Not to mention that dudes in uniform that I loaded Hellfires for in Iraq.

Don't forget who moves all the equipment and people into the AOR, and all over the world. Yes, the AMC. AMC is lifeline for logistics. Without them, the military would not be able to mobilize and deploy on a moments notice.

Not to mention, the AF does CAS for the Army. Check out TACP. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/usaf/tacp.htm)

I think you're underestimating all the things the AF does that go unseen.

[Simon]

Oh I agree on R&D spending to a point.. but last time I checked al qaeda didnt have a very advanced anti aircraft weapon system, so needing another 8 billion in raptors seems a little much. And the fact they need to outfit every airman with a new M4 and .45????

ALL govt analysts have said that the tide of war for the next 20 to 30 years is going to be fought in cities and on the ground.

I was CHair force and and am now Army. Why the Fawk are they going to .45cal when the rest of the NATO universe has 9mm? I will never understand them. Its just like the revamp of the BDU to the tiger stripe uniform. Waste of frigging time, just trying to keep up with the soliders. Serious identity crisis. Rant off.

[Yucca-Man]

I was CHair force and and am now Army. Why the Fawk are they going to .45cal when the rest of the NATO universe has 9mm?First rule of gunfighting - never bring a gun to the fight whose caliber does not start with 4. The .45 puts bad guys down, no matter how hopped up they are on speed, meth, or khat. Likewise 7.62mm instead of the 5.56mm found in the M-16 family.

The Air Force, Navy and Marines all build their bases differently. The Marines build the field, hangars, and infrastructure, and spend the little remaining on barracks.

The Navy also builds the airfield and hangars, but pads the account a little to get an Exchange built as well.

The Air Force makes sure they build the golf course, swimming pools and O-Club. Then they ask Congress for more money. Congress balks, but the Air Force points out that they need the money to build the airfield now that they've built the base...

[Simon]

[QUOTE=Yucca-Man;1013528]First rule of gunfighting - never bring a gun to the fight whose caliber does not start with 4. The .45 puts bad guys down, no matter how hopped up they are on speed, meth, or khat.


Ever tried firing 9mm rounds through a .45 because your out of ammo and everyone else is using 9mm. It don't work so well. But yes of course a .45 is a bigger, more poweful round.

[Yucca-Man]

Ever tried firing 9mm rounds through a .45 because your out of ammo and everyone else is using 9mm.:rolleyes:

To paraphrase yo' momma...just because everyone else is doing it, that doesn't mean you should...

[Conrad]

First rule of gunfighting - never bring a gun to the fight whose caliber does not start with 4. The .45 puts bad guys down, no matter how hopped up they are on speed, meth, or khat. Likewise 7.62mm instead of the 5.56mm found in the M-16 family.

The Air Force, Navy and Marines all build their bases differently. The Marines build the field, hangars, and infrastructure, and spend the little remaining on barracks.

The Navy also builds the airfield and hangars, but pads the account a little to get an Exchange built as well.

The Air Force makes sure they build the golf course, swimming pools and O-Club. Then they ask Congress for more money. Congress balks, but the Air Force points out that they need the money to build the airfield now that they've built the base...

That is the best way I have ever seen of putting the situation! Because when we went to Iraq it was exactly like that!

[Ohana Fab]

In the 80's, I saw the airforce repaint every base in the pacific theatre in "earth tone" colors. This included all buildings, curbs, fire hydrants, street signs and golf carts. The nice, shiney KC-135 reserved for the PACAF CO which was just repainted and outfitted in new blue upholstery was gutted and switched out to earth tones when the new general came in.

Perfectly good ammunition was destroyed at the end of the fiscal year and written off so our allocation wouldn't be reduced the following year (note we never needed this much ammo anyway).

All the while, our M-60's which were supposed to be deployment ready (which was our primary mission actually) had receivers so loose the op rods would snap in roughly 3000 rounds. At a cyclic rate of fire, this gives you a servicable weapon for roughly 6 minutes before it breaks and requires a new op rod. We'd red tag them and CATM would install a new op rod and send the weapon back. The real fix was to send these weapons into depot to have the flex area welded. Our commanders would not do this as it would take more than a month to get it done and they'd have to report that we weren't mission ready while the guns were out being fixed. Likewise, they wouldn't order replacement weapons because ours were green tagged and mission ready.

We intentionally melted one down while we were out destroying perfectly good ammo so that even a new op rod couldn't fix it. Subsequently, we received servicable deployment weapons and oddly no one ever brought destruction of government property charges.

[Budman]

In the 80's, I saw the airforce repaint every base in the pacific theatre in "earth tone" colors. This included all buildings, curbs, fire hydrants, street signs and golf carts. The nice, shiney KC-135 reserved for the PACAF CO which was just repainted and outfitted in new blue upholstery was gutted and switched out to earth tones when the new general came in.

Perfectly good ammunition was destroyed at the end of the fiscal year and written off so our allocation wouldn't be reduced the following year (note we never needed this much ammo anyway).

All the while, our M-60's which were supposed to be deployment ready (which was our primary mission actually) had receivers so loose the op rods would snap in roughly 3000 rounds. At a cyclic rate of fire, this gives you a servicable weapon for roughly 6 minutes before it breaks and requires a new op rod. We'd red tag them and CATM would install a new op rod and send the weapon back. The real fix was to send these weapons into depot to have the flex area welded. Our commanders would not do this as it would take more than a month to get it done and they'd have to report that we weren't mission ready while the guns were out being fixed. Likewise, they wouldn't order replacement weapons because ours were green tagged and mission ready.

We intentionally melted one down while we were out destroying perfectly good ammo so that even a new op rod couldn't fix it. Subsequently, we received servicable deployment weapons and oddly no one ever brought destruction of government property charges.

Wait wait wait... There are a couple false statements in here. First you said you "Never needed this much ammo anyway" there is no such thing as too much ammo, Just too little range time.

Then you stated that the ammo was destroyed at the end of the year. But later you said you were "out destroying perfectly good ammo" and melted down a weapon. Now, if you were at the range, putting the rounds downrange, this is not destroying the ammo, it is deploying the ammo. The only way to destroy ammo is to have EOD blow it up. That is destroying (and wasting) perfectly good ammo. :D Not doggin on you, just the way I see it.

As for commanders not being willing to show "Not mission ready" on sorts reports. Boy do I hear what you are saying. I see it all the time. HHQ won't do what you need to be mission ready, but the CC won't stand up and say "We are not mission ready because you won't give us the tools we need to be ready".

[team D.A.T.A.]

All aircraft and space operations for all services should be in the domain of the AirForce

All Ground troops except Spec Ops should be in the domain of the Army

All Spec Ops falls under the Marine command

All water operations under the Navy

First, the NAVY can out fly any USAF pilot and plane.

Second, Marines don't do Spec Ops. The NAVY and USA do.

The USAF mans a desk. They do that well. They buy expensive mahogany conference tables and put 25 42" flat screens in one 12'x12' room showing CNN.

[Sound_Man]

US AIR FORCE OATH OF ENLISTMENT

"I, (State your name), swear to sign away 4 years of my life to the
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE because I know I couldn't hack it in the Army,
because the Marines frighten me, and because I am afraid of water over
waist-deep. I swear to sit behind a desk. I also swear not to do any
form of real exercise, but promise to defend our bike-riding test as a
valid form of exercise. I promise to walk around calling everyone by
their first name because I find it amusing to annoy the other services.
I will have a better quality of life than those around me and will, at
all times, be sure to make them aware of that fact. After completion of
"Basic Training", I will be a lean, mean, donut-eating, Lazy-Boy sitting
civilian-wearing-blue-clothes, Chair-borne Ranger. I will believe I am
superior to all others and will make an effort to clean the knife before
stabbing the next person in the back. I will annoy those around me, and
will go home early every day. So Help Me God!"

____________________
Signature
____________________
Date


US ARMY OATH OF ENLISTMENT

"I, Rambo, swear to sign away 4 years of my mediocre life to the UNITED
STATES ARMY because I couldn't score high enough on the ASVAB to get
into the Air Force, I'm not tough enough for the Marines, and the Navy
won't take me because I can't swim. I will wear camouflage every day and
tuck my trousers into my boots because I can't figure out how to use
blousing straps. I promise to wear my uniform 24 hours a day even when I
have a date. I will continue to tell myself that I am a fierce killing
machine because my Drill Sergeant told me I am, despite the fact that
the only action I will see is a Court-Martial for sexual harassment. I
acknowledge the fact that I will make E-8 in my first year of service,
and vow to maintain that it is because I scored perfect on my "PT" test.
After completion of my Sexual.....er.....I mean "Basic Training," I will
attend a different Army school every other month and return knowing less
than I did when I left. On my first trip home after Boot Camp, I will
walk around like I am cool and propose to my 9th grade sweetheart. I
will make my wife stay home because if I let her out she might leave me
for a better-looking Air Force guy. Should she leave me twelve times, I
will continue to take her back. While at work, I will maintain a look of
knowledge while getting absolutely nothing accomplished. I will arrive
at work every day at 1000 hrs because of morning PT and leave everyday
at 1300 to report back to COMPANY." I understand that I will undergo no
training whatsoever that will help me get a job upon separation, and
will end up working construction with my friends from high school. I
will brag to everyone about the Army giving me $30,000 for college, but
will be unable to use it because I can't pass a placement exam. So Help
Me God!"

_____________________
Signature
_____________________
Date


US NAVY OATH OF ENLISTMENT

"I, Top Gun, in lieu of going to prison, swear to sign away 4 years of
my life to the UNITED STATES NAVY, because I want to hang out with
Marines without actually having to be one of them, because I thought the
Air Force was too "corporate," because I didn't want to actually live in
dirt like the Army, and because I thought, "Hey, I like to swim...why
not?" I promise to wear clothes that went out of style in 1976 and to
have my name stenciled on the butt of every pair of pants I own. I
understand that I will be mistaken for the Good Humor Man during summer,
and for Nazi Waffen SS during the winter. I will strive to use a
different language than the rest of the English-speaking world, using
words like "deck, bulkhead, cover, gee dunk, scuttlebutt, scuttle and
head," when I really mean "floor, wall, hat, candy, water fountain, hole
in wall and toilet." I will take great pride in the fact that all Navy
acronyms, rank, and insignia, and everything else for that matter, are
completely different from the other services and make absolutely no
sense whatsoever. I will muster, whatever that is, at 0700 every morning
unless I am buddy-buddy with the Chief, in which case I will show up
around 0930. I vow to hone my coffee cup-handling skills to the point
that I can stand up in a kayak being tossed around in a typhoon, and
still not spill a drop. I consent to being promoted and subsequently
busted at least twice per fiscal year. I realize that, once selected for
Chief, I am required to submit myself to the sick, and quite possibly
illegal, whims o f my newfound "colleagues." So Help Me Neptune!"

______________________
Signature
______________________
Date


US MARINE CORPS OATH OF ENLISTMENT

"I, (pick a name the police won't recognize),
swear...uhhhh....high-and-tight.... grunt... cammies....kill....fix
bayonets....charge....mutilate...slash....yut....dig....burn....blow
up....ugh...Air Force women....beer.....air strikes....yes
SIR!....whiskey.....strippers.....bar fights...liberty
call....salute....Ooorah Gunny....grenades...women....OORAH! So Help Me
Chesty PULLER!"

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:flipoff2:

[jeepingpete]

I'd rather that my Tax dollars go to the Military than to Berkeley....

[Ohana Fab]

Wait wait wait... There are a couple false statements in here. First you said you "Never needed this much ammo anyway" there is no such thing as too much ammo, Just too little range time.

Then you stated that the ammo was destroyed at the end of the year. But later you said you were "out destroying perfectly good ammo" and melted down a weapon. Now, if you were at the range, putting the rounds downrange, this is not destroying the ammo, it is deploying the ammo. The only way to destroy ammo is to have EOD blow it up. That is destroying (and wasting) perfectly good ammo. :D Not doggin on you, just the way I see it.

As for commanders not being willing to show "Not mission ready" on sorts reports. Boy do I hear what you are saying. I see it all the time. HHQ won't do what you need to be mission ready, but the CC won't stand up and say "We are not mission ready because you won't give us the tools we need to be ready".

False statements? Nah...

I agree more range time would have been good but we had way more ammo than we could ever expend during training. Rather than turning it in and reducing the annual allocations to something we could actually consume, we had to destroy it so next years allocation would not be reduced. So having a cpl guys go out and shoot constantly for a few days to destroy the ammo might be fun for a little while but it sure was a waste in my eyes. There was no training going on, just a lot of loading, oiling, and firing. We're not talking an organized training session here, we're talking about we have 100K of rounds to make go away. After about 4 hours, it's already getting pretty old. Try it for a few days and you begin to dread it. Meanwhile, CATM needed the ammo for real training and we were unable to transfer it too them as that would indicate we didn't "need" it...

Hell it would have made sense to replace the old carry ammo and deployment ammo with the new stuff, that way your duty stuff remains fresh but that wasn't permitted either because it was on a different "account" - so pallets upon pallets of deployment muntions and the day-day carry ammo had lot numbers dating back into vietnam. Meanwhile the stuff we blew up at the end of each year was nice, shiney and relatively new.

We melted just one 60 as that was all that was needed to do to force the real fix. This was done while buring up belts of excess ammo under CATM's watchful eyes. They actually brought spare op rods to this session as they knew the weapons wouldn't last through the qty of ammo we had to expend. When we melted the one 60, a CATM E3 freaked and came running over to break the belt as the gun chugged very slowly; the CATM MSgt just smiled as he knew what we did and why we did it. There was a lot of shooting, but zero training was going on; the only good that came out of it was getting the deployment weapons reliable.

[AMMOtj]

I find this interesting Ohana, because thats my job. Divvying up ammo. That's how the AF works. It's how we're able to maintain such strict accountability with our ammo. If we just give out ammo to whoever, and whenever, we'd never be able to maintain accountability. And I can guarantee you, that in my shop, we know where every single bullet is at, 24/7. We even go so far as to account for 100% of the expended brass (including packaging!). If I can't account for the brass, for all I know, its in the back of someones car for personal use!

In addition, I sincerely doubt that you have ammo dating back to the Vietnam era. This is for a few reasons. First, we issue stuff based on lot numbers. If we have old lot numbers, we'll issue them to the CATM guys because we'll know they'll get expended. Second, everything has a shelf life. If the ammo for our dudes deploying is nearing is shelf life, we'll ask them to turn it in and we'll issue them new stuff. Again, once we get the old stuff, it gets put on the CATM account to get expended. If they can't expend it, we'll put it in a different condition code and send it out. It is against AF regulations (T.O. 11-1-10) to issue and use ammo that has gone past its shelf-life. Easy as that.

As far as your allocation goes. That number is based upon years and years of data. If you go under, they aren't going to cut your allocation. Chances are, they'll have you ship out your remaining allocation to a unit that needs it. In addition, the allocation is determined by YOU GUYS. Every account has a custodian. It's up to YOU to decide how much they want for the year. Don't blame the AF because they kept your allocation the same, it was your shop who ordered the bullets. If CATM comes up to me and say they want 100 rounds of 5.56 for the year, thats up to them. I'll order what they tell me to. Again, it's not up to me, or the AF to decide how much you want.

Not to dog ya, but some of your points are just plain wrong.

[Ohana Fab]

I find this interesting Ohana, because thats my job. Divvying up ammo. That's how the AF works. It's how we're able to maintain such strict accountability with our ammo. If we just give out ammo to whoever, and whenever, we'd never be able to maintain accountability. And I can guarantee you, that in my shop, we know where every single bullet is at, 24/7. We even go so far as to account for 100% of the expended brass (including packaging!). If I can't account for the brass, for all I know, its in the back of someones car for personal use!

In addition, I sincerely doubt that you have ammo dating back to the Vietnam era. This is for a few reasons. First, we issue stuff based on lot numbers. If we have old lot numbers, we'll issue them to the CATM guys because we'll know they'll get expended. Second, everything has a shelf life. If the ammo for our dudes deploying is nearing is shelf life, we'll ask them to turn it in and we'll issue them new stuff. Again, once we get the old stuff, it gets put on the CATM account to get expended. If they can't expend it, we'll put it in a different condition code and send it out. It is against AF regulations (T.O. 11-1-10) to issue and use ammo that has gone past its shelf-life. Easy as that.

As far as your allocation goes. That number is based upon years and years of data. If you go under, they aren't going to cut your allocation. Chances are, they'll have you ship out your remaining allocation to a unit that needs it. In addition, the allocation is determined by YOU GUYS. Every account has a custodian. It's up to YOU to decide how much they want for the year. Don't blame the AF because they kept your allocation the same, it was your shop who ordered the bullets. If CATM comes up to me and say they want 100 rounds of 5.56 for the year, thats up to them. I'll order what they tell me to. Again, it's not up to me, or the AF to decide how much you want.

Not to dog ya, but some of your points are just plain wrong.

Ummm I think you may have missed the piece where I said in the '80s? So your understanding of what I said and when it occurred is just plain wrong :D

Your present day shop practices, just like our unit's practices back then probably aren't/weren't an accurate representation across the board for all other units. My points reflect an accurate representation of what was going on in the 80's in my unit - and it was wasteful.

I ran the unit's armory and was the account custodian for its several muntions accounts: day-to-day use, a cpl training accounts, mobility accounts and a competition account which as I recall just showed up out of the blue based some higher level initiative. That competition account was huge, larger than the annual 5.56 allocation we received for training - but no competition occured. When it didn't, it - as well as the excess training ammo should have been turned in.

It's been a few years but as I recall, our ammunition requests ran two or three years ahead. The numbers were always padded BY DIRECTION of our Ops Officer, CO AND our servicing muntions unit and they all knew we never came close to expending what we received. I agree fully, our unit should not have been padding numbers and we should all that excess should have been turned in. Both of these events were done by direction and this is the point I'm trying to make here but perhaps not stating clearly. The prevailing practice back then was one that perpetuated the use-it-or-lose it mentality. If it was being used as it should have been - hey - no sweat - but it wasn't.

Remember... I said 80's (early 80's time frame to be specific). Our day-to-day supply and the mobility munitions stuff were absolutely vietnam era with the mobility stuff being the oldest. We operated in the pacific theatre and that "might" have been a contributing factor as to why we had a glut of vietnam era items. I sure would have at least liked to rotate the old 5.56 and 7.62 out with the newer stuff coming in for training but we were told no by MMS. When we wanted to transfer some to CATM at their request (they were running short and were not part of the cops back then) we were told no by MMS (note we wanted to "transfer" the ammo legitamately and when the "no" came in we ended up sliding them some anyway so they could meet their training schedules). The 5.56 was old, the 7.62 was old, the 40mm HE, slap flares, frags and claymores were OLD. Many lots were mixed and had been ressued under new lot numbers. Granted, we weren't lighting up frags and claymores during training so they could be recycled so that stuff may have been harder to freshen up. I think it's a relatively safe bet that we had a "bit" of that left over from Vietnam which ended only a decade earlier. While we had them for deployment, we never received any for training and thus our teams never trained on them... ever. Stategic use of these weapons was not incorporated into the units training plan to support it's mobility mission. The T.O.'s were prepacked in palletized deployment boxes the unit's "plan" was to provide some "just-in-time" training once the team arrived at wherever it was they were going. These were the days when one of our mobility expectations was to go in and set up a bare base perimeter so Red Horse could come in and rapidly build a runway to support air ops. On the flip side - we had LAW rockets materialize on our training account without asking for them! LAW's weren't anywhere in our OPLAN.

I surely hope my comments DO NOT reflect current day practices, but they darn sure accurately depict what was going on back then. Your present day, tight accountability practices may have evolved from some of that prevailing nonsense. Some of the changes are probably a good thing 'eh?

And we didn't account for brass or packaging either. It was picked up and left with whom ever's range we were using.

[AMMOtj]

Ohana, I missed the part where you mentioned early 80's :sleep: . I joined in 2000, and since I've been in, the AF has taken a strong stance on Fraud, Waste, and Abuse. People can go to jail if they don't keep accurate accounts of their ammo. In addition, we have computers to track our ammo now. A few clicks of the mouse and I can tell you who's ammo is coming past its shelf life. I'm sure in the 80's, it took some digging to find out how old stuff really was.

I wrote my comments based on what you said happening in the last few years. Based on some of things I've heard my Chief say though...I can believe it happening! The munitions area has evolved quite a bit since the computers came about. We've been breed to to do what the T.O. and AFI's say, word-by-word. I keep getting pissed because they've revised AFI 21-201 about 5 times in the last 3 years. So we implement one procedure, until the next one comes out, and then we have to change everything!

I have no doubt, that our current practices are the result of years upon years of no accountability. Our current system gives HHQ a top-down approach. They can see how much the AF, its Commands, Bases, all the way down to the shops, have on stock. Which is why we get requests all the time from the Guard Bureau to ship stuff here or get stuff from that base.

My apologies for missing the 80's! :beer:

[Oscar]

You got remember the 80's were all about rebuilding the AF from the hollow force of the 70's was a lot of waste going on cause units had gone so long without stuff it kind of like they won a big lottery.

[Ohana Fab]

Ohana, I missed the part where you mentioned early 80's :sleep: . I joined in 2000, and since I've been in, the AF has taken a strong stance on Fraud, Waste, and Abuse. People can go to jail if they don't keep accurate accounts of their ammo. In addition, we have computers to track our ammo now. A few clicks of the mouse and I can tell you who's ammo is coming past its shelf life. I'm sure in the 80's, it took some digging to find out how old stuff really was.

I wrote my comments based on what you said happening in the last few years. Based on some of things I've heard my Chief say though...I can believe it happening! The munitions area has evolved quite a bit since the computers came about. We've been breed to to do what the T.O. and AFI's say, word-by-word. I keep getting pissed because they've revised AFI 21-201 about 5 times in the last 3 years. So we implement one procedure, until the next one comes out, and then we have to change everything!

I have no doubt, that our current practices are the result of years upon years of no accountability. Our current system gives HHQ a top-down approach. They can see how much the AF, its Commands, Bases, all the way down to the shops, have on stock. Which is why we get requests all the time from the Guard Bureau to ship stuff here or get stuff from that base.

My apologies for missing the 80's! :beer:

No worries :beer: Glad to hear the accountibility is a bit better now. PC's were just being released to cop units back in the 80's and for the most part we had no idea what to do with them. They were alien life forms with numbers such as (Zenith) Z-100 and Z-248. We did successfully use dbase and a dbase editor to build cross referenced databases to track all our weapons, and ammo accounts by lot number. We still had to do the -5's to keep the records straigt but with the Z-248 we were able to track stuff quickly and generate some neat reports that impressed MMS and the OIG/ORI team.

I do know that my unit rolled into Gulf-1 with that same Vietnam era ammo. Acceptable shelf life simply wasn't discussed back then... I truly hope they left that stuff there took a newer reissue when they came back home.

The USAF was quite good to me but some of the policies would leave you scratching your head. Not that other organizatoins don't have similar problems or anything...

Cheers & good luck with your career :)