It’s a scam? Ummm, they deploy all the time. Get shot at. Mortared. Rocketed. Gone from their families for months at a time over holidays, birthdays, anniversaries etc. Risk their lives flying over hostile forces that will kill and torture them if captured. Yeah, it’s a scam. Kinda myopic and disrespectful view. Can their service and sacrifice work out as a positive with a civilian employer? Absolutely. Is it an affront to their civilian counterparts? I guess it is to you. Ask some of these military folks if it feels like a scam while they’re sitting in some $hithole with the “incoming sirens” wailing, knowing they’re not gonna see their loved ones for 3-6 months... If they come home in a box draped in a flag, as some do, was it a scam then? Do some get more lucky with timing as far as airline hiring, reaching mil retirement or deployment schedules? Certainly. You as a pilot, of any flavor, know this whole aviation business is so much “luck and timing” despite your road to being hired at a major airline. I’m not trying to sound elite, or disrespectful of your flying background, just hopefully paint a picture of a side you clearly don’t understand.[/QUOTE]

I do understand, did my 30yrs in the army/arng. Many of these guys are getting orders immediately after indoc to sit at the unit (not deployed) to take the sting out of first yr pay/seniority. Fact.

FedEx had a fairly big issue a couple years back. To say it doesn’t happen isn’t factual. To say or imply all abuse it isn’t factual. You both have probably valid points so let’s move to agree to disagree and stop the measuring contest. I know in today’s political world it’s not popular. However agreeing to disagree use to be common so why not do it now ;)

I do understand, did my 30yrs in the army/arng. Many of these guys are getting orders immediately after indoc to sit at the unit (not deployed) to take the sting out of first yr pay/seniority. Fact.[/QUOTE]

If they are on active duty orders they are subject to deployment and are needed or the orders wouldn’t be available. They’re still serving on active duty. So, they get orders to “sit at the unit” and you think they’re doing nothing? On “vacation orders” maybe? Lmfao! I didn’t know those existed in my 29 years. Maybe in the ARNG you experienced but not ANG or AFRES. Everyone I know on long term orders does an actual job/mission and works their ass off, way harder than they do at an airline job. Do they make decisions based on pay/time at home/what’s best for their families/retirement options etc? Sure! You wouldn’t? How is that a “scam”?

Yikes, didn't mean to open a can of worms.

I don't deny that some guys abuse the system, but that is not always the case. I think one aspect about all of this that the civilian pilots may not understand is that full time military pilots don't just fly airplanes, they have other jobs to make the squadrons run.

In my case my intent was to go to the airlines and be a traditional Guardsman. With that being said, our unit is hurting on full time bodies due to the airline hiring wave and my replacement is no longer able to take my job due to health issues. There is literally no one else to fill my position and it's a critical job.

I bring this up just to highlight the other aspects of managing 2 jobs that not everyone is probably aware of.

Don’t hate the player. Hate the game. That said, kind of a thoughtless move to get hired, show up to Indoc and drop a 5-6 year absence on your new employer. How many guys do we need to hire to get one guy to come to work?

I mean, don't look now...but you just hated on the player. Make up your mind. :D

Jest aside, I agree with you, but you are contradicting yourself. You can't hold both positions; they're mutually exclusive, since it's legal to exploit the benefit in said way(s).

As to your last rhetorical question, I just thought that was a given, and sort of par for the course when it came to airline work. Meaning, airline pilot is the only job I've witnessed in this life where people spend half a lifetime grinding it out for years, under undesirable pay and working conditions in many instances, elbowing each other on a rabid race to some seniority list just to get a job where the primary motivation is to develop an allergy to showing up to work. Paradoxical occupation, to say the least...:D

Yeah well I believe in the duality of man

I’ve always found the hypocrisy entertaining. Airline pilots hating other airline pilots for being able to game the system better. It seems mil leave is no worse than bidding a bunch of lines, only to drop them so that you can pick up time and a half pay over someone else, or just not work at all. You are still gaming the system in your favor to maximize pay or to benefit you in some way

There's a difference in gaming the airline via the contract and abusing a federal law in place to protect those who actually need it.

Seems like different shades of the same color. For those taking extended Mil leave, there is a definite loss of revenue with potentially more time away from home. Besides, our tax money in the order of $10M+ per person to train and continuously train/upgrade a mil pilot means I want to get my money’s worth as I hear there is a massive pilot shortage