I was one of the captains in 97 who went to talk to USAFE CC Gen Ryan (later CSAF) on these issues. I also have had 3 good bros work assignments at AFMPC working as fighter assignment guys.

The whole thing is quite cyclic. What is old is new and vice versa. I remember when one Korea ALO assignment led to 17 seperations. The idea the AF had was "we cannot afford to DO DEALS with pilots". They were concerned pilots would try to make the assignment process a "Burger King" deal...when it really is about needs of the AF.

That sounds good on paper, but when 17 fighter dudes bail you wonder if a little common sense or exceptions could be made. Fact is, however, a bunch of not so desirable assignments have to be filled. If I were King I'd just attach a first choice follow on to each UAV or hard to fill remote and do some dealing, but nobody asked me either. That is part of the reason I am retired ANG, not retired USAF.

I also think everyone realizes that at some point flying is not the ONLY thing in life that matters. I watched a show on the making of porn movies on a layover recently--turns out those dudes and chicks only do 2-3 scenes a day, and sometimes not that many. Why? They are TIRED. So--if getting paid to screw can get tiring, even flying the coolest jet out there (the Raptor) if you are working 12-14 hour duty days covered in additional duties probably has its limits too... I'm too fat and my skin is too pasty to have been a porn star, but having flown the F-15 for 15 years I can tell you that while I loved it dearly doing it as an ops squadron bro for 6 years straight meant there were some days I came home just wiped out. I really didn't do nearly as much with family back then as I do now as an airline pilot, even though I spend a lot of time on the road. M-F I came home to eat and sleep, then up early for another round. Add the deployments in there and I realize how much of my family life I really missed.

On a side note--I do see a ray of hope. On another thread, I am recruiting folks for additional manpower in UAV squadrons. I expect if these programs succeed (and they should) we'll eventually see a move to put similar help in ops squadrons. If I could have spent more time in the vault, sim, WTT, or gym instead of pounding out gradebooks, OPRs, and some of the other queep of running a squadron, I might have been a lot less likely to bail. What got old was wanting to be BETTER, but being told YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH NOW, go do this unimportant stuff. In a nutshell, we are told to go be the best warfighters we can. But the reality is go be the best warfighters you can be on x sorties a month, x sims, a few hours in the weapons shop and gym, and the rest of the time you need to do these mundane tasks. No disrespect to anyone, but I often wondered why a highly trained warrior in fighters was spending more of his time doing paperwork that a couple of highly trained NCOs could have tackled. Now that the SecDef has finally thrown a tizzy that only 30 of 50 or so desired UAV caps are manned 24/7 (published in USA Today, not classifed) we suddenly have the money to let UAV pilots do what they should....blow $hit up, study to blow more $hit up, and get some rest so they can blow $hit up tomorrow. My hope is that some of that same picture flows out to the rest of the CAF. We can always hope....