Found this on youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXx5td6_IqM

US/UK special forces fighting in Afghanistan.

-LAFF

 

Making an offensive post and then making the "not trying to offend" disclaimer doesn't work.

The Air Force doesn't do stress for fun and practice like the other services. We just do stress for real.

Anyone making fun of USAF special forces just doesn't have a clue what they actually do. Really, you just don't know.

 

No, I was not referring to the pararescue jumpers. In fact I do believe we were discussing what would happen to the original poster if he did in fact wash out of special operations training. I'm pretty sure anybody in there right mind has a high respect for a member of any special operations group, as well as a member of any branch of the armed forces.

And thank you for agreeing with my opinion in your argumentative post. I'm pretty sure that what I stated was that the Air Force doesn't intentionally and constantly try to impose a lot of stress on enlisted airmen. You said it yourself, the Air Force doesn't do stress for practice or 'fun' you only do it for real whereas the Army and Marines (Not too sure about the Navy) are always making their enlisted members perform under high amounts of stress to 'practice' or 'train' for when we are put in combat.

Sorry you don't agree with my opinion, and for clarification I never said an ill word about the PJ's. Quit trying to make it sound like I was disrespecting the Air Force.

 

Not sure how you wouldn't mean it as an insult but, okay. Having spent the last several years with the Army, whenever they started *****ing about the AF I'd usually remind them that "life's about choices," smile and move on.

Fact of life, AF has been in Gulf since 1990. I know all sorts of non PJ's/SOF who spent 5-7 rotations in the Gulf well before to 9-11, something most people like to ignore.

I was also an Infantryman, a soldier. There was a moment of dawning comprehension one day when I suddenly determined that the vast majority of people on my post lived lives that in no way even remotely resembled mine. I suspect that once you move past the "every Marine a rifleman" line you might realize that the life of a Marine admin clerk has far more in common with the life of an Army or even AF admin clerk than it does with a Marine grunt.

QOL and stress aren't the same thing. The USMC does take a bizarre pleasure in making sure their lives are a miserable as possible in terms of living conditions, that isn't synomous with stress. How about doing multiple deployments coming home and finding out the AF is downsizing more than 10% and your career field just got axed? That's stress.

You speak of the AF as though you have a clue what you're talking about. We'll skip over SF. Do you know much about the LRS career field? Go find one of them and ask them how their lives are. AF guys all make fun of cops but take a look at their deployment rates and living conditions down range. Or how about your average Herc crew dog, spending 135 out, 115 back, going on four years now. Little bit of stress on the homefront. Do you know what a TACP is? It isn't SF yet they live rather stressful lives, and the vast majority of it downrange. How about my favorite, AF transporters? We have a small unit where I'm at with a couple KIA and far too many purple hearts considering what they enlisted for.

Is any of that equivalent to a Marine Infantryman? Other than the TACP probably not, though the war is completely different 24 hours or 100 yards away. Step outside the grunt comparison...and really it's pretty clear you didn't bother to let the fact you'd no idea what you were talking about get in the way of opening your mouth and sticking your foot in it.

 

Okay, I concede defeat here gentlemen. It was not my intention to say that the Air Force is free of stress or easy by any stretch of the imagination. It seems that what I said was interpreted that way by many of you. But yes, I do know how long the Air Force has been deployed abroad. I also know quite a bit about the different job fields within the Air Force. It is amazing what you can learn about a branch by having family members that serve, I guess since I enlisted in a different branch then my opinion is null and void though.

You are correct however, from my position within the military I probably have a skewed perspective of what is normal in a four year enlistment. And despite what you say I was not insulting anybody that chooses to serve in the military in any capacity. I was trying to point out something that the original poster would want to consider when deciding upon which branch to join.

If anybody here would like to continue this discussion via PM feel free. However I do not think that we need to derail this thread anymore with pointless bickering.

 

This horse is still moving, I must kick it again!

Spartan; I'm guessing from your post that you think USAF SOF are limited to PJ's. When I think of USAF SOF forces, I'm thinking of some other career fields too. Some that might not be as obvious but are very much on the tip of the spear.

 

Yep, I'm very well aware of them but I do mostly think of the PJ's when I think of SOC. However, with interest toward maintaining civil, informative discussions on this forum I think it would be more appropriate to either discuss this via PM or not at all.

My hat is off to all those brave men and women still manning (Or is it now unmanning CPO?) the front lines!

 

He doesn't have any. Think of his physical attributes as being perfectly inline with Bobby Hill. On another note LAFF I had no idea you'd been around so much. Thanks for the service!