Dudes,

Holy cow. I didn't expect such awesome feedback and words of advice. I haven't visited the sight in a couple months (got sent TDY to do a SIB) and am surprised at so many posts.

Update....I decided to try and stick it out. My wife and I basically came to this conclusion: We know we're going to school next. We know we'll likely get one of our top 3 picks. We know we'd accept the PCS and therefore the 3 year commitment for the IDE/PME. Therefore, that's my 5 year commitment right there. However, we made some assumptions though: 1) school will be a little bit of a break, 2) we're rolling the dice that we'll get an FTU assignment after school/staff since I haven't done an AETC assignment yet and will likely be ripe for one; especially now that CAF fighter assignments will be tougher to get with less CAF bases (BRAC) and outside pulls on the community (UAV, ALO, UPT....don't get me started on those). CAF fighter cockpits will be tougher to get back into in the near future....fine by me (reference deployments)!

So, looks like I'm in for the long haul....unless I'm miserable at 15 yrs. I'll let you know how it goes. Albie , I wish I would have read your post before I made the decision...can I have you email address?...just in case.

It's funny. While procrastinating on day 360 of 365 of my deadline to decide, I finally made the decision when a dude I know said: "Duke, their not going to call you Duke in the civilian world." I said "F$%X that", and went down to the fax machine and sent my "re-up" paperwork to AFPC (I was TDY at the time...again...kinda ironic huh? ). Damn comraderie and patriotism. Although, I did take about 2 minutes with my finger on the green "send" button of the fax machine before pushing it....hope it was the right choice....no looking back now.



Duke