Originally Posted by
robthree
USMCFLYER,
I browse all the forums on APC. I'm not now, never will be, nor ever have been a rated military aviator. Am I welcome to post in this area when some point of discussion interests me?
You will have to show me where I ever said that you were not allowed to share your thoughts on any forum on APC. Saying that you don't understand the culture certainly isn't the same thing as saying that you aren't allowed to post. Now another user asked why you came to the military forum in the first place. Maybe this part of your response was directed at that person?
Assuming I am, I read the article you started this topic with and thought, that's pretty stupid on everybody's part. Complaining about the handle and filing suit looks to me like this guy's retirement plan. The guys who planted it on him sure seemed to have low SA to not be aware(or care) that their target 1) might not like it, 2) have any effective countermeasure.
Care would probably be more accurate. Those are fairly common/standard names that get thrown out at alot of Callsign Reviews and others are obviously spefific to this guy's love of the Cowboys. I remember someone walking into the det ready room once and seeing the list of names on the board for our students and saying that there were quite a few 'non-PC' words up there. Yep. It is part of what you go through. Of course come to find out - in today's view - we were all tortured at the hands of the government too when we went to SERE school, but I don't I'll ever see a dime of the money owed me from that traumatic experience
As for the super awesome comment, yeah it was snarky and could have been better put. The life expectancy of a Spitfire pilot in 1940 was 4 weeks. The average B-17 crew survived just 14 missions, including the period in which the Luftwaffe was no longer effective. As close as I can tell 13 US tactical aircraft were lost in the Iraqi theater 2003-2009, with a loss of 9 souls. You risk your lives every time you strap the jet to your back, but you don't honestly expect to die. Seventy years ago, they really didn't expect to come back. The US Army casualty rate is awfully hard to find, but the British are taking about 10% KIA/WIA in their infantry units. My point being, there is a lot of talk about the need to blow off steam after being involved in combat, but other groups, and your own group in other times, seem to have coped with a bit more decorum, even when faced much harsher conditions.
Yes - strike fighter TTPs have evolved to the point that the training is more dangerous than the combat.
And how many Civil War soldiers died in a single day at any number of battles? Or maybe how many Roman Legionaires died in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest? So were the warriors of the greatest generation still not proud warriors?
Who's smarter, your average grunt, or your average fighter pilot?
It is often said that the best strike fighter pilots are the ones with 'Underwater Basket Weaving' degrees and not the aeronautical or mechanical engineering degrees because they are usually ruled by black and white and (right side brain people?) and flying is a much bigger picture, things are always changing, must be flexible type of environment and left brain people are better able to adapt with those changes. I don't believe any of it. I think there are smart pilots and not so smart pilots and in my time working with Grunts I've run across both kinds of people in 03 community of both types as well.
"Unless you've ever been in a combat flying squadron, then you will never understand what namings are about. They aren't about insults, they are about acceptance."
As UAL phlyer pointed out they're also about exclusion. And yeah, everybody gets that, because its not very subtle. (Even if they don't get that it can be a positive motivator.) I said in both my previous posts, that I don't know if I'm right. But I'm not wrong that you look bad. It really doesn't affect me one way or another if you find any value in what I write. But if you're too arrogant to even consider an outsider's opinion, well why are you even reading this?
Do you think that you are the first to ever bring this up? It has been considered over and over robthree and each time found to usually have some hidden agenda or former hurt feelings behind the curtain. EVERY special group of people get targeted by those that wish they were part of it and aren't. Even back in Middle School when that kid didn't make the Junior Varsiety football team then all of the sudden all of those kids that did were "stupid doo-doo heads".
Every one can have their opinions robthree, but if their opinion is found to be off base then you can expect it to be challenged.
What is it that I read on these boards all the time when the 'traveling public' has the opinion that pilot's are all over paid for the easy job of watching the computer that they do? How many times have I read that they just don't understand what it takes to get to where 'we' are and how uninformed they are and they will never get it because they don't understand the business?
USMCFLYR