Originally Posted by More Bacon

...and how did you perform on that 9-hour sortie?

I don't know about you, but my job was to show up mentally and physically prepared to fly so I could provide the best possible support for the guys on the ground taking fire or running the convoy.

Saddling us with ancillary tasks such as building a place to sleep prior to flying was a ridiculously mismanaged leadership snafu. There are guys trained and paid to set up a base in a fraction of the time it takes us to do it. That's why they're here--they are "support" troops. Just like I am trained to support the ground troops, there are guys trained to support me.

Thanks for the war story, but I rolled into the sack 4 hours before my 8 hour sortie on night 1 of OEF on 7 Oct. I consider it a complete leadership failure.

Short answer, yes, I did expect a "squad of E-4s to build my freaking tent for me." Or O-6s. I don't care. The AF ****ed up.