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Thread: Airforce may be be going out of business

  1. #101
    Council Member Jayhawker's Avatar
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    Default Our own worst enemy?

    I'm the first to say (and I've said this to AF cadets in my classes) that the USAF has an awful record and predicting what kind of planes/missions we will need in the next war. B-52s are the most striking example. Purchased for the specific purpose of long range high altitude nuclear bombing they've never done any of that, but instead have more CAS experience under their belt than many other jets. However, while our own record is poor, the fact remains that since I've been in the AF (18 years) only the C-17 and the F-22s have succeeded in seeing an operational flight line. KC-135s, KC-10s, C-5s, F-15s, -16, A-10s, have been in service long before I showed up and will be asked to remain long after I'm gone. Ask the F-15 Air Guard pilot what its like to have your jet disintagrate during flight. http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/438454.html Fortunately for him, it was over Missouri and not Al Anbar. While serving in Germany in the mid-90s the old C-141s developed a similar structural problem (hair line wing cracks) that pulled some of them out of operations and restricted the rest in very meaningful ways. Load restrictions forced very expensive and inefficient practices of transporting stuff across the Atlantic ....but better that than search and recovery ops off the coast of Ireland.

    When the senior Boeing guy colluded with the Senior AF procurement official to jack up the price on leasing tankers and got caught (only because McCain waved the BS flag on the price) it was another example of doing it to ourselves. The deal sank and now we're enjoying a new round of bidding. The KC-135s aren't getting any younger.

    When a large frame jet, falls out of the sky, and its only a matter of time....they'll be an investigation and plenty of blame to go around. But unfortunately we can't avoid the cost of having to buy jets to replace the current 30 - 60 year old planes we currently fly while our maintenance and depot budgets are hemorrhaging. The AF recently cut 6000 manpower billets in order to fund new jets, but had to spend the money on current ops instead so it got us nowhere. Now the AF is the leader in developing synthetic fuel because the price of JP-8 is eating our lunch!

    I understand the Army's current stress is bad and perhaps strategically debilitating, but the AF is breaking too. But instead of the stress of combat rotations, it is largely due to things within Congressional and AF control, only exacerbated by the "war time footing" the USAF has been on since 1990. That is making it very frustrating for those in charge now like Wynne and Gen Moseley who have to try to fix it.

    Bottom line is we won't know what force we'll need for the next war as our track record on predicting that is a part of the problem manifesting itself now in the AF. Realizing that, we have to have a good mix of capabilities and even me (an AF guy who loves studying small wars) has to advocate for fast movers, efficient air lifters, effective bombers, and other things.

    The Air Force is guilty of corruption (the tanker lease debacle) and poor planning in the past. And yes over hyping things, but that doesn't change the very real need to buy new jets. And as for faking F-15 problems in order to have an excuse to buy new planes.... well I'll let that slide as it surely is headed for the conspiracy theorist hall of fame.

  2. #102
    Council Member Umar Al-Mokhtār's Avatar
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    Default Not trickery or corruption...

    planes do break and must be grounded for safety reasons. I will posit the USAF (as with all the services) will highlight problems when it is to their advantage and downplay them when it's convenient.

    However, the savings from the personnel cuts do not pay for current ops, there are GWOT supplementals to cover those costs. What is not always fully covered is the additional wear and tear on the gear.

    Here's where the USAF gets my goat: They whine and cry about recapitalizing the fleet AND buying new, very expensive systems. They continue to sink an inordinate amount of R&D money into go nowhere systems (ABL comes to mind). Finally, they are paying a high price in O&M because they decided to put people first (vice recapitalizing) when they were flush with cash and now have a very expensive infrastructure to maintain coupled with all sorts of monetary “entitlements” to pay Airmen (e.g. while we grunts lose our BAS when deployed, Airmen do not; while Marines are billeted in tents, the USAF uses hotels).

    In these fiscally lean times you cannot have the trifecta of high tech gear, recap the old gear, and maintain an overly comfortable life style. As I said in another post the USAF has over the years developed a Champaign and caviar taste but now are faced with a beer and pretzels budget.

    They seriously need to do a culture shift.
    "What is best in life?" "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women."

  3. #103
    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jayhawker View Post
    The AF recently cut 6000 manpower billets in order to fund new jets, but had to spend the money on current ops instead so it got us nowhere. .
    PBD 720 may have required an overall AF personnel reduction, but the AF base where I work as a contractor is growing in its government civilian manpower. It also has more GS13-15's than I can imagine are needed (or would be found in a comparable Army activity). I won't even try to count the O-5's and 0-6's that floodd the organization (and this is not a mjaor headquarters. And as far as warm body counts go, how can the AF cry poor mouth when it is in the middle of establishing AFCYBER as a new AF MAJCOM?

    AF deployments to SWA are for 6 month not 15 months and are largely done on an individual replacement basis. I wonder how much O&M money could be saved if the deployment technigues were changed.

  4. #104
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    Well, after 20 years in the USAF, I think I pretty much completely disagree that the USAF has done a bad job of predicting what airplanes they need. After we got our asses spanked over North Vietnam, the USAF went back to the fighter drawing board and came up with the F-15, which has a perfect record in air combat. Its capabilities were one of the things that helped keep the peace in Europe, and it did very well in Operation DESERT STORM, and during SOUTHERN WATCH. The F-16 has done yeoman's service in a variety of roles; the F-117 did its part; and on and on. Which airplane in the inventory do you think we shouldn't have bought? Also, your example of the B-52 doesn't really fly (pardon the pun)...the B-52 did exactly what it was purchased for most of its life. I think it speaks to the adaptability of the B-52 and the B-1 that they have gone from Cold War nuclear bombers to CAS platforms, not the USAF's predictive powers.

    There seems to be a perception on this board that the USAF should focus its acquisition efforts on aircraft that are more useful in a COIN fight. Knowing how the DoD does acquisition, by the time such an aircraft entered squadron service, those COIN aircraft would be sitting on a ramp in the states without a job.

    Buying aircraft means trying to figure out what the world is going to look like for the next 40 years...it took 20 years to go from concept to squadron service for the F-22, and it will likely serve at least 20 years. And while you can adapt a high end fighter or bomber to a COIN fight, you can't similarly adapt an aircraft that is purchased specifically for that role for high intensity conflict. The USAF has to buy a fleet that can guarantee air superiority against a peer or near-peer competitor, and for something like that, you need aircraft like the F-22. While we can all look at our crystal ball and say that a conflict like that is unlikely, I don't think anyone of us can really predict with any kind of accuracy whether or not we will fight a peer in the next 20 years. If its even within the realm of possibility, then we have to have a fleet that can guarantee that US forces will have complete air dominance.

  5. #105
    Council Member Jayhawker's Avatar
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    Default Trifecta of replies

    To Umar...: I agree on your main point that the Air Force needs to do a culture shift, and certainly has been doing it since about the mid 90s. We used to be a completely stay in our nice "cavier" equipped bases to fly and fight from there. But now we deploy.... The implications of the AEF have settled in and will continue to,...even if we, gasp, have to sleep in a tent. OH, The HUMANITY!!! I see changes like that coming. I don't know how we're going to function otherwise. And I'll see your ABL for one Crusader system. Every service, even the Marines, I imagine have put resources into stuff that gets cancelled.

    To WM: You could send squadrons over to SWA for 15 months, but the aircraft have mx cycles requiring attention at a full up base. That tends to mean that the people have training cycles to attend to as well. I'm no expert on this but I know the AF gets grilled on this from time to time by Congress and always seems to answer their inquiries and the cycle is maintained. And Congress, I recall Senator Glenn in particular, has gone after the high number of officers the USAF had compared to the other services. It is a function having a lot of pilots, navs, engineers, scientists, etc. As to the number of field graders at your location....well, walk around Ft Leavenworth. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting an Army O-5 or above. The function drives the grade. I don't care for all the condotterie personally, but you're OK!

    To George: Well, OK, as to predicting aircraft types we'd need for the next war: We thought we'd fight the Soviets over Europe and fortunately for us the same kind of planes largely worked out well for us in DESERT STORM.... except for the sand storm grit, persistent high temps, and so on that no one really equipped them for and the mx guys had to improvise in order to overcome. I could say more about the F-16 but that might get me in trouble with classification issues. As to the adaptability of the B-52 and B-1: That same Sen Glenn caused a test WSO I met at Edwards AFB in 1988 no end of heartburn. Glenn insisted, against the AF's wishes, that the B-1 be able to drop conventional munitions or he would kill the program. Held hostage, the AF had to figure out how to do it. Thank God for Glenn's persistence. (I just read in the newspapers some of the tonnage on AQ in Iraq yesterday came from B-1s.) Your other examples of aircraft however are correct. They've all been fair buys. But then again since the Serbs "didn't know the F-117 was invisible" so we had to rescue the pilot in a 40 year old oil leakin' MH-53.... so I should have qualified my comments above by saying the USAF, since 1947, has done a mediocre job of providing the right kind of aircraft. We even have the MV-22 coming on line to handle AFSOC missions, so the old MH-53s can perhaps have much better successor. Wait a minute.... then again the MV-22 was a MFP 11 SOF buy and not out of AF PBD so I have to subtract that comment!

    But the lesson for the AF seems to be: have a mix of aircraft and systems so you can do your job, even though you're not sure what that might be!

    Sorry this is so long....to paraphrase of James Madison, I didn't have time to write a short post.

  6. #106
    Council Member Jayhawker's Avatar
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    Default Oh, and one more thing...

    There are now many AF TDY's to CENTCOM for a year. I myself may be taking one. I may be puttin' the I in indigenous, personally!

  7. #107
    Council Member Umar Al-Mokhtār's Avatar
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    Default Well said

    Jayhawker, totally agree that no service is immune to scrutiny. Can you say V-22? Not sure but I think the USMC expended nearly 70% of its R&D budget on that bird, which still hasn't become IOC. A portion of the blame lies in the Marines don't really do large $ R&D projects so I think they bite off more than they could chew with the Osprey. The USAF, on the other hand, did a great job with its MV-22 program for AFSOF. The USMC would have been smarter to have teamed with the AF in developing the system.

    Unfortunately, once a program is created, especially one with Congressional patronage, it is difficult to kill. That needs to be fixed. I hear the term “good stewards of the taxpayer’s dollar” too often uttered by folks who think it should be the other services who should take the cuts.

    I also question the whole MRAP program. On the one hand they will certainly save lives, on the other what is their usefulness? It has been shown that the best way to combat insurgents isn't to hid in vehicles, it truly is "boots on the ground." Plus the MRAPs are slow and not too maneuverable, which are not exactly good characteristics in MOUT. So $22 billion was spent for a surge in production for what? I read recently that the bad guys are leaning more towards suicide vests vice IEDs. Thanks in part to JIEDDO (although that program sucked up some serious ducats), but I think the main reason we are seeing a decline in IEDs is the fact that we are working with the best weapon to halt the bomb builders: the local people.

    George, I don’t think anyone here advocates tossing out the USAF’s conventional capabilities and retool itself into a COIN force. I do think the USAF has given lip service to COIN, but hopefully they will change and now see that it is a viable mission set. In Vietnam the Firefly and Spad were seen as COIN aircraft because they could fly low and slow to add a component of accuracy in munitions delivery that the fast movers didn’t have at the time (the good old days of "we had to destroy the village in order to save it"). PGMs have completely changed that paradigm so the fast movers do have the accuracy, and now the standoff, to support COIN.

    Predicting the future is always fraught with chance, even the political pundits can’t get it right. We need to maintain the force mix necessary to deter any peer or near peer adversary, but with the recognition that in doing so we must be prepared to fight conflicts with forces that try to mitigate our strength by attacking our weakness, which is to rely heavily on high tech solutions for what are often low tech problems.

    “So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.” Sun Tzu

    "Those generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every point, while those who are better acquainted with their profession, having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater." Frederick the Great
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  8. #108
    Council Member Jayhawker's Avatar
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    Default Mv-22

    I thought the USMC and AFSOC did work in cooperation. The Marines were the lead and the AFSOC, SOCOM, and the Air Force test guys were doing the tweaks AFSOC needed to make it effective for their mission. And aren't some Marine Squadrons flying? I know they had great difficulty, but aren't they operational now?

  9. #109
    Council Member CR6's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jayhawker View Post
    And aren't some Marine Squadrons flying? I know they had great difficulty, but aren't they operational now?
    Marines are flying (I've got a good friend who is a V-22 driver, prepping to deploy at some point in the near future); but the formal declaration of IOC has not occured. I was supposed to happen last fall, but has yet to to the best of my knowledge.

    Although the "baseline threshold" for initial operational capability (IOC) of the MV-22 is September next year (read 2007: CR6), Taylor says the decisions on declaring IOC and deploying the aircraft are independent. A number of factors determine IOC, including availability of aircraft and trained crews. The first operational squadron, VMM-263 formed in March, will have nine aircraft by November and its required complement of 12 MV-22s by February. "I believe the programme will be ready to deliver IOC no later than summer 2007, possibly as early as spring," he says.
    http://www.navair.navy.mil/V22/index....detail&id=155
    "Law cannot limit what physics makes possible." Humanitarian Apsects of Airpower (papers of Frederick L. Anderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University)

  10. #110
    Council Member pcmfr's Avatar
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    MV-22s are in combat in Iraq right now. AFSOC's CV-22s won't be too far behind.

  11. #111
    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jayhawker View Post
    To George: Well, OK, as to predicting aircraft types we'd need for the next war: We thought we'd fight the Soviets over Europe and fortunately for us the same kind of planes largely worked out well for us in DESERT STORM.... except for the sand storm grit, persistent high temps, and so on that no one really equipped them for and the mx guys had to improvise in order to overcome. I could say more about the F-16 but that might get me in trouble with classification issues. As to the adaptability of the B-52 and B-1: That same Sen Glenn caused a test WSO I met at Edwards AFB in 1988 no end of heartburn. Glenn insisted, against the AF's wishes, that the B-1 be able to drop conventional munitions or he would kill the program. Held hostage, the AF had to figure out how to do it. Thank God for Glenn's persistence. (I just read in the newspapers some of the tonnage on AQ in Iraq yesterday came from B-1s.) Your other examples of aircraft however are correct. They've all been fair buys. But then again since the Serbs "didn't know the F-117 was invisible" so we had to rescue the pilot in a 40 year old oil leakin' MH-53.... so I should have qualified my comments above by saying the USAF, since 1947, has done a mediocre job of providing the right kind of aircraft. We even have the MV-22 coming on line to handle AFSOC missions, so the old MH-53s can perhaps have much better successor. Wait a minute.... then again the MV-22 was a MFP 11 SOF buy and not out of AF PBD so I have to subtract that comment!

    But the lesson for the AF seems to be: have a mix of aircraft and systems so you can do your job, even though you're not sure what that might be!

    Sorry this is so long....to paraphrase of James Madison, I didn't have time to write a short post.
    And let's not forget that the AF wasn't overly excited about the MH-53 in the first place and practically had to be ordered by Congress to buy them in sufficient numbers (don't have the book in front of me, but this is discussed in Marquis' Unconventional Warfare). The B-52 really came into its current mission by accident in a way, and it caused no small amount of heartburn in the 1960s when SAC kept certain models (the C if memory serves) restricted to nukes only, hammering the D and G communities for the conventional mission while others only rode alert. They didn't want to buy either the F-16 or the A-10 in the first place, and really restricted the role of the old OV-10 (compare the AF use to that of the Marines).

    One thing the AF seems to have really gotten into the 1980s development cycle was the idea of gold-plating. That has driven so many of their projects over budget and put them so far behind schedule. I tend to lump the fascination with stealth in with gold plating...sure, you do need it for SOME aircraft and missions, but I really question the wisdom of delaying and running projects over budget just to make everything 'stealthy.'
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  12. #112
    Council Member Sargent's Avatar
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    Default New Mantra Needed for USAF and the rest of the services

    Quote Originally Posted by Jayhawker View Post
    Bottom line is we won't know what force we'll need for the next war as our track record on predicting that is a part of the problem manifesting itself now in the AF. Realizing that, we have to have a good mix of capabilities and even me (an AF guy who loves studying small wars) has to advocate for fast movers, efficient air lifters, effective bombers, and other things.

    This would be less of a problem if the USAF learned to love "need to have" more than "nice to have." If you haven't spent decades trying to develop an aircraft that is the best in the world with every possibly conceived capability that ultimately costs more than the GDP of many small countries than it's not so much a problem if you don't get the future predicting just right.

    The US and allies won WWII not with the best aircraft, ships, and tanks, but with the ones that were good enough and that could be gotten to the battlefield in a timely manner without breaking the bank.

    I would suggest that the way to get to having this sort of frame of mind is to drop the idea that a force can arrive on the battlefield with "superiority" or "dominance" already settled. If that were the case, then war would be made relatively obsolete. To believe it's possible is not only problematic for R&D, acquisition and procurement, it's also the fast route to hubris.

    Cheers,
    Jill

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    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sargent View Post
    I would suggest that the way to get to having this sort of frame of mind is to drop the idea that a force can arrive on the battlefield with "superiority" or "dominance" already settled. If that were the case, then war would be made relatively obsolete. To believe it's possible is not only problematic for R&D, acquisition and procurement, it's also the fast route to hubris.

    Cheers,
    Jill
    Well said. In fact, this is a much better way of making the point I was trying to make about being in a one nation arms race on the "We Still Need the Big Guns" thread in response to a post by Zenpundit. Thanks

  14. #114
    Council Member Umar Al-Mokhtār's Avatar
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    Default Hubris...

    it's not just for breakfast anymore.

    Sargent's point is well made: our techno-crack habit could well head us down the primrose path to financial ruin. The Pentagon needs to show a lot more restraint in its habit of throwing millions, or even billions, at a plethora of potential solutions.

    Hey, it certainly worked for the Soviet Union.
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  15. #115
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sargent View Post
    The US and allies won WWII not with the best aircraft, ships, and tanks, but with the ones that were good enough and that could be gotten to the battlefield in a timely manner without breaking the bank.
    In the Pacific, at least, the US and its allies did have vastly superior aircraft, ships and tanks; and most everything else too. We had vastly superior numbers too.

    In Europe, the qualitative superiority wasn't so marked but I think it still existed. For example the German Army was mostly horse drawn to the end of the war. And there too we had vastly superior numbers of machines.

    This was not an exercise in fiscal restraint. The national debt increased six-fold during the war years. B-29s and atom bombs did not come cheap

    "I would suggest that the way to get to having this sort of frame of mind is to drop the idea that a force can arrive on the battlefield with "superiority" or "dominance" already settled. If that were the case, then war would be made relatively obsolete. To believe it's possible is not only problematic for R&D, acquisition and procurement, it's also the fast route to hubris.

    Cheers,
    Jill"

    I think it essential that the Air Force arrive on the battlefield more or less certain that it can achieve and maintain superiority or dominance. If that were an open question it would not be prudent to travel to that killing field. If the Air Force doesn't win its fight, the ground forces almost certainly won't win theirs; or rather, ours, the Americans.
    Last edited by carl; 01-14-2008 at 05:40 PM. Reason: additional comment

  16. #116
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    Carl: The problem is hardly that the AF wants superiority.

    The problem is that that superiority is a subjective thing, apparently only measurable by the Air Force.

    That'd be like the student deciding what the passing grade is on a test.

    It's gotten, IMHO, a bit strange that Congress hasn't demanded, say, that the AF quit gold-plating billeting arrangements and other "perks".

    Every service's RDA structure is screwed up - however, only the AF has such apparent excesses in the rest of their funding.

    That said, it's not good to gripe only. A possible way forward:

    1. Joint Accommodation Standards. No more hotels for AF, tents for Marines. Just a bad idea. If the deployed AF servicemember can't live in the same conditions as Marine or Army (Navy, being on ships largely, doesn't count much!) personnel, then perhaps there's problems with the AF.

    2. Pays eligibility should be set at the DOD level, not each service. One standard for gain/loss of BAS, one standard for gain/loss of BAH, etc.

  17. #117
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Penta:

    I think the Air Force is probably in the best position to judge what is required to achieve superiority, since that is their reason for being and they think about it more than the other services. But that is a debatable point and an argument could be made to the contrary.

    As far as the billeting goes, it is my understanding the AF does this to enhance their ability to get and keep good people. If that is the case, and if it works, I should think we should be looking to upgrade the standards of the other services to match those of the AF in this respect.

    I can't begin to comment on pay because I have zero experience and almost no knowledge of how it all works. I will defer to your judgement.

    By the way, at the one big base I have experience with, the Air Force people have exactly the same standard of living as the Army people. It is an Army base though.

  18. #118
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    The AF may do it for recruitment/retention - however, your idea (pulling everybody up to their level) is a nonstarter. It would be difficult to afford, to say the least.

  19. #119
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default True. I'd add that some small efforts by the

    other services to attempt to match even partly the USAF largess in the TDY / Per Diem / Specialty pay areas has already had an adverse impact on total DoD personnel funding.

  20. #120
    Council Member Umar Al-Mokhtār's Avatar
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    Default Oh, but they get paid extra...

    for the "misery" Carl.

    The Air Force has what I, somewhat derogatorily, refer to as "putting up with the Army pay.” You see, while the Airmen are living at the Soldier’s level, this is not amenable to “momma” Air Force who claims that the Army’s quarters are “substandard.” Thus they pay Airmen a stipend, as it were, to live on an Army base.

    Also, when Marines and Soldiers deploy (which usually means they go somewhere hot, cold, wet, nasty, etc…) they lose their BAS. Why, cause they get their sustenance via MRE’s or the chow hall. Sailors also pay the price when they are afloat although this is somewhat offset by sea pay (which Marines can also qualify while afloat). Not so the Air Force, so while they might be eating on the Gubmint’s nickel they also continue to draw BAH.

    The Air Force also has a unique definition of the term “deploy.” To the Army, Marines, and Navy this is time away from home often under austere conditions. The AF will “deploy” personnel from the Pentagon to Crystal City (if you didn’t know they’re walking distance apart). After this arduous deployment the Airmen gets the same two weeks of off the books leave as folks returning from the AOR do. That’s fair.

    As to hotels, more QOL hocus pocus, since they could get by with AC tents, and do without the rental cars.

    And I know some Airmen who actually resent the level of pampering; most do not enlist knowing their lifestyle “in the field” will approach the lap of luxury when compared to Marines and Soldiers.

    The AF whines about it’s aging fleet and inability to recapitalize it, while Dunlap, et al rant about buying more. Yet it is a problem of their own making since they decided years back, when there was plenty of cash, to invest heavily in extra pays, perks, and infrastructure that has no other purpose other than QOL.
    Last edited by Umar Al-Mokhtār; 01-14-2008 at 09:44 PM. Reason: sp
    "What is best in life?" "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women."

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