Dudes, I really appreciate all of the advice. (I even appreciate the spears.) You have given me some good stuff to think about. I feel like I need to share just a little bit more of my story though for full affect. I didn't want to do this originally in the off chance that someone I know is on here but whatever...

As far as what you guys have said about the airlines and guard and reserves I think you gave me some great advice. If I get out my plan would be to get on with a guard/reserve unit and fly for food or get some other job. However, I would probably have to transfer airframes to do that and I don't know how likely that would be? Also, isn't it really hard to get picked up by any fighter unit even if you are an experienced fighter guy? Doesn't everyone want that?

As far as not trying to be #1 that is great advice. That will be hard because I am used to being pretty competitive but I'll give that a try.

A couple people commented about the situation in my squadron and not really believing what is going on. Well, I can see why you would say that but I am going to give a little bit more information that will make it even more unbelievable... believe it or not. I am a prior FAIP and this happens to be my first fighter squadron AND I just finished MQT not that long ago! If it wasn't happening to me I wouldn't believe it myself! You would think that a brand new guy who just got CMR would be flying a little more than this. That is what I just can't understand. MY CC even stopped me in the hall the other day because we had just flown in the same formation and he said, "Were you originally scheduled to fly today?" I told him "no", and he said "good" because I've told everyone to fly my young guys a lot so I'm glad you got put in to fly. He then asked if I've been flying a lot and I gave him the deer in the headlights look because I had no idea how to answer that without blatantly lying to him. If I would have been 100% truthful and forthcoming with him I would have had to say, "No sir, I haven't. I got put up to fly today after complaining to my flt/cc no less than twice a week for the past month about how often I am flying. I had to call people over the weekend to get into this flight today and for the week or else I would have been placed on probation next month. That is how often I am flying sir."

So, as you can guess I've got 7 years in so I'm no where near retirement. I am a hard worker and love flying and it is killing me to be going through this. I feel like I could go to work for 4 hours a day and no one would be the wiser and I would be doing just as good as I am now. Ugh.

When I first got to this squadron a dude that I knew from before pulled me aside and told me that there was no place that he would rather be less and that he was jumping ship asap. He seems really happy actually because he's made his decision and he volunteers to not go on all of the TDY's and deployments and seems to get to stay behind a lot. Sure, his career is probably totally shot but he's happy. Something that I am not.

So, I've got <5 years of this left and am approaching 2,000 flight hours total. Most of which is PIC multi-engine turbine and I've got about 800 hours of IP time as well.

Does this info help you to see my situation any better?