Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
Thrust, Women in Aviation, really? That's about the easiest sell out there for PTDY, if anyone actually gets PTDY to go to those. Military leadership and civilian leadership (all of them in recent history) has made it abundantly clear that the services will do ALL that they can to attract qualified women and minorities into the military. I don't care what you, or I, or anyone else thinks of that except for the fact that sending women military pilots to represent the service to other young women who are interested in aviation and who may become future military aviators themselves is clearly in compliance with that directive. The bosses give the marching orders, plain and simple.
The same goes to sending military SOF members and sponsorship to various triathlons, extreme sports venues, etc. Are you not aware that many competitive SOF members get PTDY or even TDY and entrance fees paid for various competitions? The impact to a young aggressive athlete of meeting and competing with an actual SEAL, and talking to him before/after the event, can be immeasurable; the recruiting value of potentially influencing those targeted audiences carries a lot of weight.
I agree with you- perhaps you should check your reading comprehension. I'm just saying that only an awful commander (and yes, we know of tons of those out there) would hold it against FLY (and hurt his "credibility", despite his VSP applications, pending IG complaints, etc) for even asking the question. If he doesn't at least try, the answer will definitely be no.
Not sure why this has people so spun up.