The Military.

Was particularly interesting hearing several people mention Robins AFB, and in particular the 5th Combat Comm Group, especially since I'm at said base and part of said unit. I personally help maintain a deployable airfield systems package which keeps aircraft from smashing into each other and lands them safely even when visibility is poor at bare-base locations. We're preparing to do another practice deployment next week, in fact, which is pretty much our mission until we deploy again... train, train, and train some more.

How ya doing, buddy?

I don't know where he gets his information from, but since I just finished a 14 hour day with lot more of those on the way after this weekend, I can safely say that the Air Force isn't all fun and games. And it shouldn't be, either.

To answer your earlier question, been in for three years. I enjoy it. PT five times a week and standard military duty hours for me at Robins AFB. Most people here in the 5th CCG cry and whine about PT all the time, especially over the rucksack march, but I think they're lazy pussies. A rucksack march is a walk in the woods. There's some serious irony when you have people in a Combat Communications Group having trouble carrying a 50 pound rucksack. My opinion is that if you can't handle PT, get the fuck out of the military.

I always have too much work and not enough time to do it, which I find to be a good thing since I prefer to stay busy. I practically don't have a supervisor though, since I'm one of the most knowledgable individuals on the equipment. All the sergeants just let me do my thing and never have to ask/tell me to get to work, and knowing that I have that kind of respect is a good feeling.

Unfortunately, they're aiming to cut a lot of people out of the Air Force, and my career field is one of the ones that's having major cuts. Cross training isn't looking all that swell either, so it's looking like I'll have to seperate. Considering the blue-to-green program at this point, and perhaps put my skills to use in the Army. I know I'd make rank faster in the Army at least... we'll see.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The cuts are the result of choices made by the officers much further up the chain. The farther up the chain you go, the more politics that are involved. There are a few major things wrong with the way things are currently handled in the Air Force, and I've made my point of view clear each year when they have you fill out those useless climate assessment surveys, but nothing's ever happened.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the EPR system. Airmen are graded on a scale of 1 to 5 on various aspects, and just about everyone gets all 5's, which is lame. Also, entries regarding what individuals have done are put on the EPRs and are extremely vague, which I hate a great deal. For example, I could work my ass off for countless hours helping with equipment setup while another co-worker could pass a tool or two, then sit on his ass all day, yet both of us could have this same bullet on our EPR:

"Assisted in ASR setup, providing air traffic control for an entire air base wing"

And he could justify having said bullet because he passed some tools, and technically, that IS assisting with the setup of the equipment. It's sleezy as fuck though, and it continues to happen all over the Air Force. With EPR bullets emphasized to be vague, this kind of crap will never stop.

The end result is that you have lazy fucks getting the same EPR ratings as the hard workers. The Air Force has to make personnel cuts, so that issue combined with the inability to filter out the lazy garbage from the actual workers who earn their pay, results in valuable personnel being cut.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Marines are cocky because they usually can back up their talk with action. You almost sound like you took his comments personally, heh...

As far as Air Force PT goes since it was brought up, it's a cakewalk. I listen to people bitch and moan about it regularly, and half of the complaints are in regards to the waist measurements being unfair or whatever. 99.9% of the time, these comments are from fat, lazy individuals who make every effort to get out of PT if they can manage it, and regularly down a Big Mac with a side of Diet Coke. 30% of your score is waist measurement. 10% is push-ups, 10% is sit-ups, 50% is your run. I don't know what moron came up with this PT test scoring method, but I'm sure he went to college for four years. I've seen lazy scrawny fucks who make a regular diet out of Little Debbie score higher than a few others who are built like tanks but lose points for not having a super thin waist.

Personally, I missed a perfect score on the test by 9 seconds, running a 9:45 1.5 mile run, which ticks me off since I had tested on a day where it was below freezing two months ago. Felt like needles being jabbed into my lungs, that sucked... if I had run on a day with reasonable weather, I'd have made better time. 57 push-ups and 59 crunches in 60 seconds, respectively. Yeah, I'm tooting my own horn here... but hey. The Air Force gets referred to as the Chair Force for a reason... there's a lot of lazy fucks in it. I pride myself in not being one of them.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?