Generic Spring '07 Potpourri/Hotwash
This was in my OFFICIAL AF email inbox:
1. The results from the 12 Mar 07 Force Shaping Board (FSB) were released on 27 Apr 07. Senior raters informed their affected officers of their retention status on 2 May 07[*]. This is the second FSB for what we expect to be annual boards for the next sevral [<----TYPO!!!] years. The following is a summary of results for the CY07 LAF FSB:
(a) AF considered 588 officers from the 2003 year group; 91 ( 15.5%) were not selected for retention. 150 ACC officers in this year group met the board and 34 (22%) were not selected for retention.
(b) AF considered 1038 officers from the 2004 year group: 188 (18%) were not selected for retention. 500 ACC officers in this year group met the board and 59 (12%) were not selected for retention.
2. Officers not selected for retention must separate NLT 29 Sep 07. They may apply for PALACE CHASE or the Blue to Green Program. Those who are prior enlisted (with no break in service) will be given the opportunity to return to the enlisted force.
In case you didn't know, I am in the group denoted by 1(b); 2004 year group, and an ACC officer. Apparently- at least, in retrospect?- I statistically only had a 12% chance of getting cut...of course it also must be noted that in my year group, the Ammo career field- a small subset of the AF-wide 1,038 considered- was cutting about 30%, so that's the rate that really worried me.
Regarding the second item; man, would it suck revert back to the enlisted force- at least, if you ask me. Faced with that, I'd probably rather do Blue to Green (which I was considering too, had I been cut).
*Except for my Group commander, who a) is awesome, b) found out early, and c) told me early [and d) had good news to tell me! =D]
This weekend I shot over 100 rounds of 7.62x39mm, 80 of 5.56x45, 15 of 9x19mm, 8 of 9x18mm, and about 30 of 7.62x54R (which really hurt my shoulder- will show pics proving this later)...I tested/sighted-in/played with my AK, two Nagants, AR-15, Makarov, and new (used) Glock 19 (Virginia Beach police issue, huzzah! =P).
Also, I'm going to have eat some humble pie because I mocked and/or ridiculed people in guns for installing Mojo peep sights on their surplus rifles a while back...and this weekend I installed said sights on my Nagants (since the standard sights were off beyond all hope of fixing), and they work great now!...so I owe them all a big apology. Pictures of stuff (and a post in guns) will be certainties.
Rounding it all off with some links and citations:
From a terrific rant that I'll leave as anonymous since it's friends-locked:
S.1237. No matter what your views are on gun control, this particular bill should scare the shit out of you if it goes any where. Hell, it bothers me that it was even brought up. The gist of it is that it would allow the attorney general (a political appointee) to deny suspected terrorists their second amendment rights. Which sort of defeats the whole point of, oh, the Magna Carta and the constitution and the great history of the Anglo-American justice system, in which you can't be punished for crimes you haven't committed (or, in this case, even charged with). The no-fly-list includes children, no one knows how people get put on it, and no one knows how to get off of it again; what's to say that this list will be any better? Besides, when one constitutional right can be voided based on suspicion, what makes any of the others sacred? We have a president who thinks that our constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper," and an attorney general who thinks that the "Constitution is an outdated document". We have the Patriot Act undermining the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth ammendments. On the upside, people other than the most easily-ignored and most easily-mocked libertarians and far-left liberals are starting to complain. On the downside, now this. I'm really getting sick of this whole 'give up all your rights or the terrorists have won and you are one! Booga booga booga!'
Day by Day Comic
I was absolutely hooked after starting from the beginning and seeing this.
A Street Sweeper's Tale, an amazing, hilarious, occasionally touching series of stories about one man's experiences in the sweeper career field; available in your choice of SomethingAwful forums or in a straight-up, no BS pdf.
A HILARIOUS Whose Line is it Anyway? skit
A party quirks skit, featuring an above-and-beyond performance by Ryan Styles. =D
Courtesy of prester_scott: Hitchens, Sharpton, and Faith
Taking the atheist position was Christopher Hitchens, the journalist and author of a new book arguing that "religion poisons everything." In defense of God was none other than the Rev. Al Sharpton, a man of the cloth who is perhaps even better known for his political and civil rights activism than for his training as a preacher.
Anyway, neat article- this is the only time I'll agree with (most of) what Sharpton said...
Did we win or lose in Iraq; or, is Iraq winnable?
Favorite comment excerpts from said post:
WON. Hands down. We obliterated their army. Dissolved their govenrment.
Now the rebuilding and policing is a bitch. But nobody can argue that the "war" wasn't won. Our military was victorious. There's no other way to look at it. It's just this long-term policing and nation-building that seems to be sapping the glory from our victory.
...
A firm, resolute stance, right now, spoken uniformly from the members of the US government would do more to break the back of these thugs in Iraq than anything else. Instead, there is a constant drumbeat from the Left about time-tables, threats of withdrawal, cutting the purse, or baseless accusations that "our troops are over stretched". For every Iraqi that has information, or may be willing to join in the fight, the message is clear: Don't commit just yet, we still don't know who has the "stick-to-it-iveness" to win this thing. For everyone knows in Iraq that, when this is over, scores will be settled, and not pleasantly either if the Mujs take power. Why the Left can't see this, I'll never figure it out. Once a war is started, the only question that remains is who is going to come out on top: The Bad guys or the not-so-bad-guys. (Because war dirties everyone's hands, that's for sure) It shouldn't be too hard to see who the Bad guys are in this conflict.
...
Let me say first that I believe not only that Iraq is an important campaign in the war against radical Islam, but that military action against other states may be unavoidable. Iran is at the top of the list. Syria isn't far behind. Pakistan may be necessary.
I do blame the Bush administration for this. They saw that even after 9/11, there was sufficient dislike of Bush that even Operation Enduring Freedom had its opponents. (Hard to remember that far back, but it is true.) There are different views of how we will define victory in the GWOT, but it would appear that a large segment will be quite satisfied to declare victory upon the death of OBL. (In my mind, this would have been roughly equivalent to the US declaring victory in the Pacific on 18 April 1943.)
Iraq was the logical next choice. Hussein was a rouge element, and while he may not have the same spiritual goals as OBL and the Wahabbists, they certainly had practical goals that were close enough that they could use each other. In addition to that, Iraq is centrally located. Our military in Iraq puts us in a position to squeeze Syria and Iran both.
But the White house feared it could never justify Iraq as an expansion of the GWOT. Here is where the major miscalculation began. Instead of pushing to explain the links between the governments that support fundamentalism, Bush looked for an entirely separate reason to justify the Iraqi campaign. WMDs were supposedly a "slam dunk." When none were found, Bush was accused of being a liar. Ironically, the accusation is true, but not in the sense that he didn't expect to find them...but in the sense that WMDs were not the reason for invading Iraq.
What Bush should have explained was something akin to "...Iraq is not connected to 9/11, just as 60 years ago Morocco was not connected to Pearl Harbor. But Operation Torch was a necessary step in the ultimate victory over fascism in the 20th century. Today, Operation Iraqi Freedom is a necessary step on the road to victory over Islamic fascism in the 21st."
But he did no such thing. And now here we are. Even the supporters of military operations in Iraq don't see the connection.
We've lost the big picture.
Is Iraq lost? No. Is it winnable? Yes. Is it losable? Yes, very much so.
That is all.
1. The results from the 12 Mar 07 Force Shaping Board (FSB) were released on 27 Apr 07. Senior raters informed their affected officers of their retention status on 2 May 07[*]. This is the second FSB for what we expect to be annual boards for the next sevral [<----TYPO!!!] years. The following is a summary of results for the CY07 LAF FSB:
(a) AF considered 588 officers from the 2003 year group; 91 ( 15.5%) were not selected for retention. 150 ACC officers in this year group met the board and 34 (22%) were not selected for retention.
(b) AF considered 1038 officers from the 2004 year group: 188 (18%) were not selected for retention. 500 ACC officers in this year group met the board and 59 (12%) were not selected for retention.
2. Officers not selected for retention must separate NLT 29 Sep 07. They may apply for PALACE CHASE or the Blue to Green Program. Those who are prior enlisted (with no break in service) will be given the opportunity to return to the enlisted force.
In case you didn't know, I am in the group denoted by 1(b); 2004 year group, and an ACC officer. Apparently- at least, in retrospect?- I statistically only had a 12% chance of getting cut...of course it also must be noted that in my year group, the Ammo career field- a small subset of the AF-wide 1,038 considered- was cutting about 30%, so that's the rate that really worried me.
Regarding the second item; man, would it suck revert back to the enlisted force- at least, if you ask me. Faced with that, I'd probably rather do Blue to Green (which I was considering too, had I been cut).
*Except for my Group commander, who a) is awesome, b) found out early, and c) told me early [and d) had good news to tell me! =D]
This weekend I shot over 100 rounds of 7.62x39mm, 80 of 5.56x45, 15 of 9x19mm, 8 of 9x18mm, and about 30 of 7.62x54R (which really hurt my shoulder- will show pics proving this later)...I tested/sighted-in/played with my AK, two Nagants, AR-15, Makarov, and new (used) Glock 19 (Virginia Beach police issue, huzzah! =P).
Also, I'm going to have eat some humble pie because I mocked and/or ridiculed people in guns for installing Mojo peep sights on their surplus rifles a while back...and this weekend I installed said sights on my Nagants (since the standard sights were off beyond all hope of fixing), and they work great now!...so I owe them all a big apology. Pictures of stuff (and a post in guns) will be certainties.
Rounding it all off with some links and citations:
From a terrific rant that I'll leave as anonymous since it's friends-locked:
S.1237. No matter what your views are on gun control, this particular bill should scare the shit out of you if it goes any where. Hell, it bothers me that it was even brought up. The gist of it is that it would allow the attorney general (a political appointee) to deny suspected terrorists their second amendment rights. Which sort of defeats the whole point of, oh, the Magna Carta and the constitution and the great history of the Anglo-American justice system, in which you can't be punished for crimes you haven't committed (or, in this case, even charged with). The no-fly-list includes children, no one knows how people get put on it, and no one knows how to get off of it again; what's to say that this list will be any better? Besides, when one constitutional right can be voided based on suspicion, what makes any of the others sacred? We have a president who thinks that our constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper," and an attorney general who thinks that the "Constitution is an outdated document". We have the Patriot Act undermining the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth ammendments. On the upside, people other than the most easily-ignored and most easily-mocked libertarians and far-left liberals are starting to complain. On the downside, now this. I'm really getting sick of this whole 'give up all your rights or the terrorists have won and you are one! Booga booga booga!'
Day by Day Comic
I was absolutely hooked after starting from the beginning and seeing this.
A Street Sweeper's Tale, an amazing, hilarious, occasionally touching series of stories about one man's experiences in the sweeper career field; available in your choice of SomethingAwful forums or in a straight-up, no BS pdf.
A HILARIOUS Whose Line is it Anyway? skit
A party quirks skit, featuring an above-and-beyond performance by Ryan Styles. =D
Courtesy of prester_scott: Hitchens, Sharpton, and Faith
Taking the atheist position was Christopher Hitchens, the journalist and author of a new book arguing that "religion poisons everything." In defense of God was none other than the Rev. Al Sharpton, a man of the cloth who is perhaps even better known for his political and civil rights activism than for his training as a preacher.
Anyway, neat article- this is the only time I'll agree with (most of) what Sharpton said...
Did we win or lose in Iraq; or, is Iraq winnable?
Favorite comment excerpts from said post:
WON. Hands down. We obliterated their army. Dissolved their govenrment.
Now the rebuilding and policing is a bitch. But nobody can argue that the "war" wasn't won. Our military was victorious. There's no other way to look at it. It's just this long-term policing and nation-building that seems to be sapping the glory from our victory.
...
A firm, resolute stance, right now, spoken uniformly from the members of the US government would do more to break the back of these thugs in Iraq than anything else. Instead, there is a constant drumbeat from the Left about time-tables, threats of withdrawal, cutting the purse, or baseless accusations that "our troops are over stretched". For every Iraqi that has information, or may be willing to join in the fight, the message is clear: Don't commit just yet, we still don't know who has the "stick-to-it-iveness" to win this thing. For everyone knows in Iraq that, when this is over, scores will be settled, and not pleasantly either if the Mujs take power. Why the Left can't see this, I'll never figure it out. Once a war is started, the only question that remains is who is going to come out on top: The Bad guys or the not-so-bad-guys. (Because war dirties everyone's hands, that's for sure) It shouldn't be too hard to see who the Bad guys are in this conflict.
...
Let me say first that I believe not only that Iraq is an important campaign in the war against radical Islam, but that military action against other states may be unavoidable. Iran is at the top of the list. Syria isn't far behind. Pakistan may be necessary.
I do blame the Bush administration for this. They saw that even after 9/11, there was sufficient dislike of Bush that even Operation Enduring Freedom had its opponents. (Hard to remember that far back, but it is true.) There are different views of how we will define victory in the GWOT, but it would appear that a large segment will be quite satisfied to declare victory upon the death of OBL. (In my mind, this would have been roughly equivalent to the US declaring victory in the Pacific on 18 April 1943.)
Iraq was the logical next choice. Hussein was a rouge element, and while he may not have the same spiritual goals as OBL and the Wahabbists, they certainly had practical goals that were close enough that they could use each other. In addition to that, Iraq is centrally located. Our military in Iraq puts us in a position to squeeze Syria and Iran both.
But the White house feared it could never justify Iraq as an expansion of the GWOT. Here is where the major miscalculation began. Instead of pushing to explain the links between the governments that support fundamentalism, Bush looked for an entirely separate reason to justify the Iraqi campaign. WMDs were supposedly a "slam dunk." When none were found, Bush was accused of being a liar. Ironically, the accusation is true, but not in the sense that he didn't expect to find them...but in the sense that WMDs were not the reason for invading Iraq.
What Bush should have explained was something akin to "...Iraq is not connected to 9/11, just as 60 years ago Morocco was not connected to Pearl Harbor. But Operation Torch was a necessary step in the ultimate victory over fascism in the 20th century. Today, Operation Iraqi Freedom is a necessary step on the road to victory over Islamic fascism in the 21st."
But he did no such thing. And now here we are. Even the supporters of military operations in Iraq don't see the connection.
We've lost the big picture.
Is Iraq lost? No. Is it winnable? Yes. Is it losable? Yes, very much so.
That is all.