All true but you have to also remember the era. We were also being sent to Asia for Young Tiger and a tacit admission that the environment there was a different focus was that you were NOT subject to a no-notice check ride for something like 45 days after you returned. I guess that was to get back into the paperwork world and get away from 3 months of focus on the mission, for us tanker pukes it was being there and making the refuelings. (remember too that during this era, a -135 crew did a double refueling and was almost grounded for making up stuff [up north and they wound up refueling a Navy A-3 which then was refueling some F-4s. all low on fuel]). (_ http://tiny.cc/vlzoc )

You're right. Funny story. I was charged with falsifying training records as a -135 IP. I got called into wing and asked to explain why I was logging more training than anyone else. I explained how I was breaking up the :90 required flying to do consecutive departures, holding at arrival fix, air work, penetration, approach, missed approach and then repeat that until we had all the airwork out of the way and could focus on approaches. And that we were going to nearby joint use fields where there weren't any other SAC machines flying 15 mile finals at close to approach speed. I was told I had no authorization to do that. SAC was the epitome of 'If we don't say you CAN, YOU CAN'T!"

But as I have related in all these old war stories, I was the rogue. I was frequently in the wrong. But I learned. Canning a new wing commander for muffs and a culture in place before he got there seems like some others have not. I could be wrong. Again.