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Great Opportunity for those getting out of AD

Old 05-01-2008, 10:35 AM
  #21  
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Originally Posted by Tweetdrvr View Post
I was an AGR in the early days of the program. Back then in 99, pre kid, the wife and I enjoyed Del Rio. She was trying to get a GS and we were going to stay, and I was going to commute from there to the civil job. Now, looking at it from the point of view with a five year old, there is no way I would live in Del Rio. The schools are not that great, unless you are going to pay private tuition or do the Ft. Clark thing. We even have an AGR who lives in Uvalde and drives almost 70 miles everyday, so his kid can attend better schools. I think at $3.50 per gallon, I would rather pay private tuition than drive everyday, but H.S. sports are also involved in his decision. The border is only getting worse with the crime in Mexico. It is coming up the river from the south. Nuevo Laredo, and Piedras Negras have already gotten bad, and Acuna is starting to go that way. A Mexican business owner who lived in Del Rio was killed in broad daylight in his driveway six months or so ago, and the drug traffic out on the lake has not slowed down. Eventually, some random act of Mexican drug cartel violence is going to happen in Del Rio and innocent people will get hurt. Things have changed for the worse since 9-11.

I have spent time in all the remaining traditional UPT towns. For single guys who don't do water sports, I think Enid might be a better place than Del Rio. Less than 125 miles to Wichita, Tulsa and OKC, plus having OSU and OU nearby can not hurt. For single guys who like water, hunting and fishing, and have a long term steady girlfriend and aren't hunting for that particular form of game, Del Rio is probably good. Just don't pop the question while until you have an assignment to leave, because it takes a special women to love you enough to live in DRT. If you want water, hunting, fishing, and need to find a woman, Starkville and Tuscaloosa are very close to CBM, and ATL is about 5 hours. MEM, and New Orleans are just a little more of a drive than the 148 miles from Laughlin's gate to the Lackland exit on 90 and that doesn't even get you to the River Walk. For family life, I gotta give the vote to Enid as a good place to be. Good schools, great neighborhoods, not just the reservation, and all close to base. The only thing they don't have to have made it perfect in the eyes of the wife was a Target, but the closest one is 80 miles away down Highway 81 to the Northwest Expressway on the Northwest side of OKC.

Highway 90 is not that bad for a once a month drive. If you can get the pass from the family and arrange your schedule, you can pull the last six days of one month, first six days of the next month, with a CT cross country in the middle on the weekend, fly your CT to where you live, spend the weekend evenings at home, and get 12 days of participation for one trip, and cover 2 months. Then you can disappear for almost 6 weeks and not come back until the last week of the next month.

Min running six days a month means you will accomplish 48 AFTPs at about $175 after tax each for a 16 year O-4 Texas resident. 48 UTA periods for the same pay. And depending on whether you use some travel days on the front and back of your trips or just drive down early in the morning on your first day of duty to arrive at the squadron by 1000L to work an 8 hour day, you will see a minimum of 24 AT/MPA days or a max of 48. A 16 year O-4 Texas resident gets about $220 per AD day after tax. All in all about $16,500 per year for IDT, and add another $5300 to $10,600 in AD pay potential.

If you min run the participation and only do six days a month average, you may not get reimbursed for every trip to DLF, depending on how your schedule works out. We have a pay bundle policy that has been blessed by our JAG as passing the necessary tests of not using MPA/AT for the purposes of paying someone to perform IDTs. If you do two duty days of MPA or AT on the front of your trip, you can then stick around and do as much extra IDT as you want. They will pay you round trip mileage and per diem for the AD days, then they pick up the lodging and you do not get per diem for AFTPs/RUTAs. The group policy is you will show a plan to accomplish all reserve funds, i.e. TPs/UTAs/AT before they will allocate MPA. So in a way, the reserves are helping fund the UPT mission, because you fly a predominance of sorties on reserve pay days. Unfortunately, AETC doesn't have the MPA available to have us all on MPA days for each and every trip to DLF.

If it takes 48 days to accomplish all your AFTP/UTAs at two periods per day, then it takes four days of IDT per month to get them finished, and the only way to get paid for that is to do two MPA on the front, then you have to do six days per month. This is getting difficult, because the AD squadrons are running out of per diem money, so the days of always being able to plan to take a student cross country are about gone. They are trying to accomplish the Nav block (8 rides) via out and backs and cross country will be the exception driven by weather and standard timeline issues. I used to come down on Tuesday as a travel day (paid MPA or AT travel), work Wednesday through Monday and go home. I was only subject to two days of local flag pole, if I see another jacked up TP stall I'm coming across the gap to the front to kill a student, flying, go cross country Fri-Sunday, sit SOF or fly CT on Monday and do my travel voucher and arrange my schedule for the next trip and leave. Meanwhile, they will only let you take a jet for weekend cross country once per half, and you have to have valid CT squares remaining or the AD OPS O may cancel it at the last minute so it doesn't appear to be a "reserve boondoggle" just to get us paid.

After all is done, as Jet IP said, we have a great bunch of people on the reserve side, and I would do anything to help anyone of them, we are tight. This is still a better deal than dealing with the possibility of getting activated or being volun-told to go to the desert. We are not going to be BRAC'd unless they shut down UPT in favor of an all UAV force, which ain't gonna happen in our remaining careers. We don't have chem gear or shots, our currency requirements are minimal, 48 student sorties per year minimum, 20 CT sorties per year minimum, a backseat landing, a night backseat, and a spin every 45 to 90 days depending on event, and accomplish one non precision and one precision approach per month on average, and fly form and low level once every 120 days. The students are still motivated (at least until the UAV drops to T-38s) and are a blast to teach.

Del Rio has gotten better since 2000. Applebees showed up in 01, Chile's followed, Wal-Mart built a new super center, K-Mart is no longer the anchor store at the Plaza del Sol, Wendy's came back to town, there is a Schlotskys and a Jack in the Box, they tore down the old Whataburger and built a new one, and there is a Home Depot on the north end of Avenue F. Don Marcelinos is still not a place to go, Cripple Creek, Wright's Steak house and Avanti's are still open. Crosbys is still in Acuna. The lake is at conservation pool since it's near record low in 98 and again in 01-02. Last year it rained more than ever in the summer and never went over 100 degrees for the whole year.
FWIW...unless you're wanting an AGR position or living in Del Rio/Brackettville isn't your thing, you certianly don't have to live here. A lot of what Tweetdrvr said is true (really good people, tons of economic development, etc), but I don't ever make the mistake of thinking I'm living in Colorado Springs. However, the crime rate here is actually low and we just don't have gunbattles breaking out in the streets. I think you'll find that San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Waco, etc. and the balance of Texas cities the same size and larger than DR have higher crime rates (its all based on "X" number of thousands of people). I've been here a really long time and crime has never been an issue. The drug traffic here is absolutely no worse that anywhere else in the state. Don't kid yourself, drugs are everywhere. I will say, however, that gangs (which normally go hand in hand with drugs) are almost non-existant. Virtually no tagging. Waaaayyyy to many law enforcement (Customs, FBI, Border Patrol, DEA, US Marshals, etc).
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Old 05-01-2008, 12:16 PM
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I did not mean to imply DRT has a high crime rate. I think the potential for things to go south in DRT is there. When you look at the number of people being kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo and the stuff going on across from El Paso, one certainly has to consider the likelihood of something like that happening in the future. I don't think drugs are prevalent in DRT, because it seems most people can not afford anything more than pot, but Del Rio is a major corridor for human and drug traffic on the way to other destinations/markets in the U.S. As enforcement steps up in other areas (Laredo, El Paso) the traffic will naturally push toward other ways to get their product to market. Del Rio and Eagle Pass are merely other places with a good transport system to reach their market.

Maybe I am a little over cautious in my viewpoint, or maybe I have been watching too many of KENS-5's crime bureau reports about the violence, lawlessness and corruption on the other side of the border. If we had stayed there, would I have moved over crime or potential crime? NO, I would be more likely to have moved away for school issues than anything else. But when it comes to deciding to living in DRT again, the potential for crime related to the border would be one of the factors to consider.

Did the threat of a tornado keep us from living in Enid, especially when the realtor told us it wasn't that big of a deal because tornados have not hit there or hit in a long time? NO, but you can be sure I bought my family the best tornado shelter we could get for the house we lived in. I hope it never happens, and I hope no one gets killed, if it happens. But, when you live in the heart of tornado alley, it is not a question of if, but a question of when will an Oklahoma F2 or greater hit. Be informed, be prepared.
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Old 05-05-2008, 04:22 AM
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Old 05-05-2008, 04:44 AM
  #24  
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Originally Posted by Tweetdrvr View Post
But, when you live in the heart of tornado alley, it is not a question of if, but a question of when will an Oklahoma F2 or greater hit. Be informed, be prepared.
Actually its a question of how often.
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