Originally Posted by
scrapdog
Sorry charlie - I'm not hiding behind anything, nor am I abusing anything. I serve my country when my unit needs me and I take military leave to do it. That includes everything from deploying on long or short TDY's to one or two days here and there to keep all my required currencies. I've done it in the past and I will continue to do it. It's my right as a military member AND it is my duty to be the best fighting/training aviator I can be. I owe it to my country to be ready and current at any point my government needs me. That includes balancing military duties with airline flying.
When I take military leave, I AM always on military duty. Don't you dare call me a "sharpshooter" or whatever other garbage you think is fitting. You have zero clue who I am, nor do I with you. If my unit needs me to deploy or fly over a holiday, you bet your a$$ I'm going to do it to support whatever mission is required of me. If they need me on a Wednesday in August, I'll do the exact same thing. I don't discriminate on which days I take mil leave...I do it because that is my duty.
You want to make this personal, be my guest. My integrity is solid as a rock and I'm proud of all I've done - from my days at the Academy to now as a major and USAF flyer. Never once have I cheated or taken the easy road on any task, and I say that with the upmost sincerity.
I'll gladly welcome any of your further spears...by all means fire away (even if you still have "NO" respect for me).
Well said. I think these are conversations that are best had face to face. There is SO much context missing in a keyboard conversation (I'm not talking about intimidation by size
). I don't think anyone who spends any amount of time with me would even consider making the accusations that krudawg threw at me right off the bat. His ease in making serious accusations, without ANY personal knowledge of the target, says more about him than any of us. The fact is that there are many different 'flavors' of reservists, and their required duty is very different. A pilot in a fighter unit will have different demands than a tanker or airlift pilot. An IMA at the Pentagon will have different requirements than a COCOM watch officer in EUCOM/PACOM/CENTCOM/ect... I don't feel any need to justify my actions to any individual pilot. If a flight manager would like to discuss my work patterns then I'd be game for that. To top all of this off, unless someone has lived the post 9-11 ops tempo in the reserves, they will not understand what we're juggling. We should put them in a room with our wives and have THEM explain it
