Post by EPIC Sir Tinley on Apr 29, 2023 6:41:30 GMT -8
Army aviators, ready to leave the military, are told they owe 3 more years instead The Army reinterpreted part of their contracts after a legal review, derailing the futures of hundreds of officers who thought their contracts were up.
Hundreds of Army aviation officers who were set to leave the military are being held to another three years of service after they say the branch quietly reinterpreted part of their contract amid retention and recruitment issues.
The shift has sparked an uproar among the more than 600 affected active-duty commissioned officers, including some who say their plans to start families, launch businesses and begin their civilian lives have been suddenly derailed.
“We are now completely in limbo,” said a captain who had scheduled his wedding around thinking he would be leaving the military this spring.
That captain and three other active-duty aviation officers who spoke to NBC News spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
As part of a program known as BRADSO, cadets commissioning from the U.S. Military Academy or Army Cadet Command from 2008 and 2020 were able to request a branch of their choice, including aviation, by agreeing to serve an additional three years on active duty.
For years, the Army allowed some aviation officers to serve those three years concurrently, and not consecutively, along with their roughly contracted seven or eight years of service.
In a phone call with reporters Thursday, Army officials admitted "errors" in the system, which they noticed a few months ago, led to the discrepancy.
"We are fixing those errors, and we are in communication with the unit leadership and impacted officers," said Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, deputy chief of staff of G-1, which is in charge of policy and personnel.
"Our overall goal to correct this issue is to provide predictability and stability for our soldiers while maintaining readiness across our force," Stitt added.
In letters the Army sent this month to the affected aviators as well as to members of Congress, which were obtained by NBC News, it said it “realized” after conducting a “legal review of this policy” that the three-year BRADSO requirement has to be served separately.
“This is not a new policy, but we are correcting oversights in recordkeeping that led some officers with an applied BRADSO to separate from the U.S. Army before they were eligible,” the letter said.
Thursday's media roundtable came after more than 140 aviation officers banded together to demand answers after learning one by one that they were being denied discharges due to outstanding BRADSO obligations beginning last fall.
More than 60 of them signed a letter to Congress outlining how they had been misled by the Army for years about the exact length of their service contract.
"It has been this unanimous uprising of emotions and frustrations," said another Army aviation captain, who is newly married and wanted to begin having children.
He called the reversal of a precedent an “injustice” to an already burnt-out department still regularly deployed despite the end of the longest war in American history.
"Yeah, the war on Afghanistan ended. There’s still a high demand for Army aviation," he said, while en route to another deployment. "We have units still in constant training or deployment rotations. They’re failing to recognize the human aspect."
The newlywed said it has been difficult for him and his wife to accept a three-year delay in starting a family.
"That was the big kick in the gonads," he said. "We wanted to start having kids, and we no longer can. It’s a stressor we didn’t plan to deal with."
Documents obtained by NBC News show officers were given conflicting information about their service obligations.
Army aviators, ready to leave the military, are told they owe 3 more years instead The Army reinterpreted part of their contracts after a legal review, derailing the futures of hundreds of officers who thought their contracts were up.
Hundreds of Army aviation officers who were set to leave the military are being held to another three years of service after they say the branch quietly reinterpreted part of their contract amid retention and recruitment issues.
The shift has sparked an uproar among the more than 600 affected active-duty commissioned officers, including some who say their plans to start families, launch businesses and begin their civilian lives have been suddenly derailed.
“We are now completely in limbo,” said a captain who had scheduled his wedding around thinking he would be leaving the military this spring.
That captain and three other active-duty aviation officers who spoke to NBC News spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
As part of a program known as BRADSO, cadets commissioning from the U.S. Military Academy or Army Cadet Command from 2008 and 2020 were able to request a branch of their choice, including aviation, by agreeing to serve an additional three years on active duty.
For years, the Army allowed some aviation officers to serve those three years concurrently, and not consecutively, along with their roughly contracted seven or eight years of service.
In a phone call with reporters Thursday, Army officials admitted "errors" in the system, which they noticed a few months ago, led to the discrepancy.
"We are fixing those errors, and we are in communication with the unit leadership and impacted officers," said Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, deputy chief of staff of G-1, which is in charge of policy and personnel.
"Our overall goal to correct this issue is to provide predictability and stability for our soldiers while maintaining readiness across our force," Stitt added.
In letters the Army sent this month to the affected aviators as well as to members of Congress, which were obtained by NBC News, it said it “realized” after conducting a “legal review of this policy” that the three-year BRADSO requirement has to be served separately.
“This is not a new policy, but we are correcting oversights in recordkeeping that led some officers with an applied BRADSO to separate from the U.S. Army before they were eligible,” the letter said.
Thursday's media roundtable came after more than 140 aviation officers banded together to demand answers after learning one by one that they were being denied discharges due to outstanding BRADSO obligations beginning last fall.
More than 60 of them signed a letter to Congress outlining how they had been misled by the Army for years about the exact length of their service contract.
"It has been this unanimous uprising of emotions and frustrations," said another Army aviation captain, who is newly married and wanted to begin having children.
He called the reversal of a precedent an “injustice” to an already burnt-out department still regularly deployed despite the end of the longest war in American history.
"Yeah, the war on Afghanistan ended. There’s still a high demand for Army aviation," he said, while en route to another deployment. "We have units still in constant training or deployment rotations. They’re failing to recognize the human aspect."
The newlywed said it has been difficult for him and his wife to accept a three-year delay in starting a family.
"That was the big kick in the gonads," he said. "We wanted to start having kids, and we no longer can. It’s a stressor we didn’t plan to deal with."
Documents obtained by NBC News show officers were given conflicting information about their service obligations.
Post by EPIC Sir Tinley on May 1, 2023 4:53:00 GMT -8
Super Biden, 'defender of democracy' --- only when he's not undermining it
Joe Biden's video announcing his reelection bid makes much of his supposed defense of democracy.
If it weren't for that, it strongly implies, he'd be happy to decamp to Rehoboth Beach to a content retirement rather than stay on the job until age 86, guarding against threats to the republic.
There is no doubt that Donald Trump's conduct after the 2020 election was a disgrace, but Trump's failings don't excuse Biden's lapses.
One would think posing as a defender of our system would force Biden to be more fastidious about his own relationship to our institutions and norms, although that doesn't seem to have occurred to him.
Biden has shown himself to be a determined enemy of the rule of law and constitutional constraints on the power of the executive branch.
This is one of the most consequential aspects of his presidency.
Put aside the big kahuna, the student-debt forgiveness, which has no plausible basis in law, and the ongoing treatment of immigration law as a mere suggestion.
Just consider the acts that have been in the news the last couple of weeks: the frank defiance of the Comstock Act prohibition on sending abortion-inducing substances through the mail; the rewriting of Title IX on the fly to include gender identity and to impose new nationwide rules on schools regarding males in women's sports; and the distortion of the rules to make illegal immigrants covered under DACA — itself the product of an edict with no basis in the law about a decade ago — eligible for ObamaCare.
All of this alone would be a pretty good record of lawlessness.
None of it rates, but it should.
First, in a nation of laws, defying, ignoring or defying the law is simply wrong, period, full stop.
Second, by further untethering the executive from lawful bounds, Biden is doing his part to reverse one of the foremost achievements of Anglo-America.
Through a couple of centuries of political struggle, bloodshed, constitutional thought and trial and error, we neutered the monarchy in England and created a chief executive in America embedded in a constitutional system designed to keep the position in check.
Third, in a two-party system, any action is going to create a reaction.
The more Biden governs by willful edict and pretextual legal reasoning, the more incentive it creates for a Republican to do the same.
Fourth, ends-justifies-the-means reasoning, which undergirds all these acts, is inherently dangerous and can take you to unexpected places.
Fifth, government by administrative edict is itself a form of indirect disenfranchisement by taking power away from senators and representatives who were elected from a dizzying array of states and districts to sit in Congress and actually write the nation's laws.
Finally, there is no substitute for presidents and other elected officials who take their constitutional oaths seriously.
We have grown used to the courts as the sole arbiter of constitutional matters and the backstop against lawlessness.
But they don't always fulfill this function — bad judging and procedural questions such as standing take a hand (and the Biden administration has, in some instances, gamed the system to try to keep the courts from checking it).
If the political actors are faithful to our system, the responsibility for preserving it doesn't fall entirely on the courts.
Now, clearly the attitude of the Biden administration and a supportive media is that a little bit of lawlessness in behalf of a good cause isn't so bad.
So long as Biden isn't trying to undermine an election result (although his side did that in 2017) or gin up a mob outside Congress, what's the harm?
But our democracy depends on more than simply holding a vote every four years.
Lots of countries have votes; fewer have a system that balances and distributes power so you have elected officials beholden to a system bigger and more important than they are.
The republic would be safer if Biden were indeed enjoying himself back at Rehoboth Beach.
Army aviators, ready to leave the military, are told they owe 3 more years instead The Army reinterpreted part of their contracts after a legal review, derailing the futures of hundreds of officers who thought their contracts were up.
Hundreds of Army aviation officers who were set to leave the military are being held to another three years of service after they say the branch quietly reinterpreted part of their contract amid retention and recruitment issues.
The shift has sparked an uproar among the more than 600 affected active-duty commissioned officers, including some who say their plans to start families, launch businesses and begin their civilian lives have been suddenly derailed.
“We are now completely in limbo,” said a captain who had scheduled his wedding around thinking he would be leaving the military this spring.
That captain and three other active-duty aviation officers who spoke to NBC News spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
As part of a program known as BRADSO, cadets commissioning from the U.S. Military Academy or Army Cadet Command from 2008 and 2020 were able to request a branch of their choice, including aviation, by agreeing to serve an additional three years on active duty.
For years, the Army allowed some aviation officers to serve those three years concurrently, and not consecutively, along with their roughly contracted seven or eight years of service.
In a phone call with reporters Thursday, Army officials admitted "errors" in the system, which they noticed a few months ago, led to the discrepancy.
"We are fixing those errors, and we are in communication with the unit leadership and impacted officers," said Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, deputy chief of staff of G-1, which is in charge of policy and personnel.
"Our overall goal to correct this issue is to provide predictability and stability for our soldiers while maintaining readiness across our force," Stitt added.
In letters the Army sent this month to the affected aviators as well as to members of Congress, which were obtained by NBC News, it said it “realized” after conducting a “legal review of this policy” that the three-year BRADSO requirement has to be served separately.
“This is not a new policy, but we are correcting oversights in recordkeeping that led some officers with an applied BRADSO to separate from the U.S. Army before they were eligible,” the letter said.
Thursday's media roundtable came after more than 140 aviation officers banded together to demand answers after learning one by one that they were being denied discharges due to outstanding BRADSO obligations beginning last fall.
More than 60 of them signed a letter to Congress outlining how they had been misled by the Army for years about the exact length of their service contract.
"It has been this unanimous uprising of emotions and frustrations," said another Army aviation captain, who is newly married and wanted to begin having children.
He called the reversal of a precedent an “injustice” to an already burnt-out department still regularly deployed despite the end of the longest war in American history.
"Yeah, the war on Afghanistan ended. There’s still a high demand for Army aviation," he said, while en route to another deployment. "We have units still in constant training or deployment rotations. They’re failing to recognize the human aspect."
The newlywed said it has been difficult for him and his wife to accept a three-year delay in starting a family.
"That was the big kick in the gonads," he said. "We wanted to start having kids, and we no longer can. It’s a stressor we didn’t plan to deal with."
Documents obtained by NBC News show officers were given conflicting information about their service obligations.
All of the Services are having an awful time retaining pilots. Once trained they can make more money and enjoy a much better and SAFER life outside the military. Significant increases in expenditure for wages, living conditions, equipment and SAFETY measures are desperately needed.
All of the Services are having an awful time retaining pilots. Once trained they can make more money and enjoy a much better and SAFER life outside the military. Significant increases in expenditure for wages, living conditions, equipment and SAFETY measures are desperately needed.
Those conditions have always existed (well, at least since the military began using aircraft). The military countered with a few desirables the civilian side couldn't offer- paid training, access to amazing aircraft the civil side doesn't and can't use, more interesting/involved flying...
What has changed is the military attitude/approach/treatment of troops/focus/leadership. It has caused a shortage from the top down. From pilots to recruits, shortages are growing.
All of the Services are having an awful time retaining pilots. Once trained they can make more money and enjoy a much better and SAFER life outside the military. Significant increases in expenditure for wages, living conditions, equipment and SAFETY measures are desperately needed.
Those conditions have always existed (well, at least since the military began using aircraft). The military countered with a few desirables the civilian side couldn't offer- paid training, access to amazing aircraft the civil side doesn't and can't use, more interesting/involved flying...
What has changed is the military attitude/approach/treatment of troops/focus/leadership. It has caused a shortage from the top down. From pilots to recruits, shortages are growing.
Yeah. Ask the Navy about reinlistment rates. They be shanghying sailors like the old days before long.
What has changed is the military attitude/approach/treatment of troops/focus/leadership. It has caused a shortage from the top down. From pilots to recruits, shortages are growing.
Yeah. Ask the Navy about reinlistment rates. They be shanghying sailors like the old days before long.
Is this the Navy's Dylan Mulvaney moment? Drag performer Harpy Daniels is Navy's new 'digital ambassador' in bid to boost recruitment that's set to fall short by 8,000 Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, announced he would be the Navy's first 'digital ambassador' The program was part of the Navy's efforts to 'reach a wide range of potential candidates' as it seeks to recruit more Gen Z sailors Authorities say the Navy is still expected to fall 8,000 short of its recruitment goals for the year
Yeah. Ask the Navy about reinlistment rates. They be shanghying sailors like the old days before long.
Who Will be the next Chief of Naval Operations?
Last September, the Navy promoted and installed a new Vice Chief of Naval Operations. Then Vice Admiral Lisa Franchetti got her 4th star and was appointed to the second-highest position in the Navy. Now after a scant seven months, the betting line going around D.C. is that she will likely be the next CNO based on the identity politics track record of President Biden. When President Biden had an opportunity to appoint to the Supreme Court, before assessing anyone’s qualifications, he announced that a black woman would get that seat, and he followed up on that promise. Would an identity-based selection for the Navy’s top leader be in the best interest of the Navy and the Nation? No, the nation needs and deserves the very best warrior to lead the Navy into our threatened future.
Admiral Franchetti is a journalism graduate of Northwestern University NROTC, a non-STEM degree which itself is unusual, as the Navy strongly favors STEM degrees for officers. She has a Master’s Degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix, an online university. Her biography does not mention any war college credential. In contrast, her predecessor Admiral William Lescher had multiple commands in combat zones, was a test pilot, had multiple advanced degrees in naval technical fields and his commands won multiple combat zone merit awards. To naval professionals, for someone to have been promoted to the Navy’s highest rank and second highest position based on a NROTC commissioning source with a liberal arts degree, an online masters, no war college or combat zone credentials, would be considered inconceivable. Perhaps her success is based on a particularly spectacular service record?
Admiral Franchetti’s career path reveals sea tours on a tender, oiler, and three destroyers including command of the USS Ross (DDG-71) and command of a destroyer squadron. Her biography does not mention any of her commands received awards while she was in command.
Ashore her assignments were CO of a Reserve Center, being an aide, a protocol officer, an Executive Assistant, and a stint at the Naval Academy in charge of a battalion of midshipmen.
As a flag officer, her assignments were to the Joint Staff as the J5 (Strategy, Plans and Policy), Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Korea; Commander, Carrier Strike Groups 9 and 15, both training strike groups; Commander, 6th Fleet and Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO. All are important assignments for sure, but not front-line experience in any of the real hot spots. The rest of her flag assignments were staff positions.
One must ask the question if Admiral Franchetti’s educational background and duty assignments have adequately prepared her for the rigors of being CNO? Has Admiral Franchetti had the type of assignments that test one’s mettle for the highest position in the Navy? Has Admiral Franchetti been tested in the crucible of combat or had command in a combat zone? Perhaps she has. We have only her public record to rely on which is surprisingly limited. Traditionally, CNOs have all been Naval Academy graduates with only two exceptions dating back to the CNO position being established more than a 100 years ago.
The CNO is responsible for delivering lethal naval forces and personnel to the warfighters. Naval forces consist of warriors in ships, aircraft and submarines that are capable of engaging and defeating the enemy anywhere in the world. The CNO is not a ceremonial, managerial, or political position although it has elements of all of those things. The preeminent requirement of the CNO is to be the advocate and architect of creating deadly naval forces and people who can quickly and effectively destroy and defeat our nation’s enemies. Many of our other three- and four-star admirals are scattered around the world in combatant commands facing our adversaries. They are forward deployed potentially in harm’s way, standing the watch. They know the dangers, the capabilities of our enemies in real time. These senior leaders know best what is needed to fight and win wars both in manpower and weapons including combatant ships and aircraft. Traditionally and historically, the CNO appointees have come from these ranks.
Admiral Franchetti has obviously performed well in all her assignments and for that she certainly should be commended. But, at a time when China is threatening to attack Taiwan, and North Korea is threatening South Korea and the U.S., with the expanding war in Ukraine, the Navy’s top leader must be fully prepared to deliver the ships, carriers, submarines, aircraft, and personnel for complex combat operations to deter and fight our enemies. The question should be asked by the Congress and the nation, is she up to the task?
Her nomination and approval as the VCNO was typical of the administration’s prevailing mantra: “Diversity is a strategic imperative.” There is zero evidence that statement is true. On the contrary, the most senior positions must be occupied by individuals who inspire confidence based on their experience and abilities, not their appearance. With war with the People’s Republic of China potentially on the near horizon, a war which will mostly likely be primarily a maritime conflict, we must hope and pray that whoever is selected to be the next CNO is someone of extraordinary education, skills, experience, leadership, courage, and tenacity to ensure our victory. Patriots should unite and urge President Biden to pick the very best qualified officer to lead the Navy into the future regardless of that person’s gender, race, or other non-merit factor. Americans of good will and good sense must unite behind merit being the basis for top leadership in our military, not identity politics. Lives and the future of our nation are at stake.
Post by EPIC Sir Tinley on May 9, 2023 6:44:21 GMT -8
EXCLUSIVE: US Air Force Ran A Social Experiment To Graduate More Minority Pilots. It Didn’t Go As Planned
The U.S. Air Force abandoned an experiment aimed at boosting pilot training graduation rates for women and minority pilots after the 2021 initiative failed to achieve the intended results and officers privately warned it could violate anti-discrimination policies, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
As part of the larger military-wide effort to promote diversity in the service’s pilot ranks, the 19th Air Force command near San Antonio, Texas, “clustered” racial minorities and female trainees into one class, dubbed “America’s Class,” to find out if doing so would improve the pilots’ graduation rates. However, not only did the effort fail to boost minority and women candidates’ success rates, but officers involved say they were ordered to engage in potentially unlawful discrimination by excluding white males from the class, documents show.
Unlawful or not, the Air Force’s actions raised red flags for an active-duty pilot instructor who spoke to the DCNF.
“When other priorities, like gender or race, are introduced as a metric of assignment and advancement, the foundations of performance-based competition are sacrificed and the emphasis on safety takes a backseat,” a current Air Force instructor pilot and former trainer for Undergraduate Pilot Training, who spoke on a condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal, told the DCNF.
A “significant backlog” of pilot candidates waiting to begin classes offered the 19th Air Force, which conducts pilot training for the entire service at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, a chance to build a class from scratch, a spokesperson for Air Education and Training Command (AETC) told the DCNF. So, the 19th Air Force “clustered” candidates from “underrepresented groups” into Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT) class 21-15, with the initial intent of roughly mirroring the racial and gender makeup of the U.S.
Class 21-15 was known as “America’s Class,” according to a class patch also embroidered with the motto, “hand picked for excellence.”
Officers ordered to participate in the creation of class 21-15 expressed concerns that selection criteria amounted to unlawful discrimination, according to a memo obtained by the DCNF.
“We have been verbally ordered through the chain of command by the 19AF/CC [19th Air Force commander] to purposefully restructure the students assigned to [SUPT] class 21-15 to meet specific racial and gender demographics,” reads the 2020 memo signed by two 19th Air Force officers whose names were redacted.
The 19th Air Force initially intended the class to include roughly the same race, ethnicity and gender proportions as in the broader U.S. population, according to the memo, echoing the AETC spokesperson who explained the class to the DCNF. However, as of fall 2020, base officials realized the demographics of the incoming cohort would prevent such an arrangement, and so the order was changed to exclude certain groups from the incoming class, the memo said.
“The order was changed by verbal order of the 47 OG/CC to restructure the class with ‘anybody non-white,'” on Aug. 10, the officers wrote.
How the fuck does this happen? Everyone involved must be relieved from the service.
And about that headline- It didn't go as planned. What does than mean? You pick candidates based on factors other than best qualified, what was the plan, exactly? We need pilots and they waste time and money focusing on social games instead of training new pilots?
It didn't go as planned? What was the fuckin' plan?
Post by EPIC Sir Tinley on May 10, 2023 10:37:34 GMT -8
In response to its FOIA request filed last year for a breakdown on how Kerry’s office spent its approximate $16.5 million 2022 budget, the State Department said it could not comply with the request until April 2025.