Air Force
| U.S. Air Force Turbatio Est Solutio Licentiae |
The U.S. ChAir Force is the corporate branch of the U.S. military, created in 1992 by Gen. Merrill "Symington" McPeak and an elite cadre of fighter pilots from Nellis AFB. They envisioned war fought with total customer satisfaction, a holistic approach to bombing missions, and a shift from leadership to management and helicopter parenting. The Air Force embraces "dynamic heritage", effectively re-inventing itself every few years, its proud traditions dating back to late 2008. Comprised of airmen who are upheld to perfect standards, evaluation methods employ the whole person concept with little to no regard for actual work performance. Airmen must do their jobs, routinely volunteer, complete PME, obtain advanced degrees, and can never waver in any of these aspects. Those not exceeding expectations will be reprimanded and/or separated.
The first uniform was an "airline pilot" styled service dress, but this idea was abandoned around 1998 in favor a more civilian model. Air Force members wear ABUs and BDUs like the Army (except a "just for laughs" tiger-striped version), but are too good for guns. If at all possible they prefer to stay in the break room and watch TV for the better part of their work day. Almost all Air Force members are either whiny women, effeminate men, or just plain dicks.
Until 2011, the Air Force was organized into Commands, Wings, Groups, Squadrons, and Flights (just to remind people that even if only a small fraction of the service is represented by pilots, the Air Force is all about planes). General Schwartz, the Chief of Staff, announced in February that from now on, organization would be described by the kinds of aircraft employed for an operation. "We will be using 33 large aircraft, 112 small ones, 567 teenie-weenie ones, and 12 really big humongous ones in upcoming operations over Libya," said Schwartz. "This is in accordance with Secretary [of Defense] Gates desire to make Air Force organizational composition understandable to the Administration and Congress," he explained.
Work Responsibilities[edit]
Air Force troops, known as Air personnel Airmen, Airguy, Airfaggot, or Airmattress in the case of gay members, are highly trained in special skills, ranging from aircraft administrative assistant to postal clerk. Unfortunately, this very expensive training is often wasted because the primary responsibilities end up being sweeping, moping around, taking out trash, mopping, cleaning windows, dusting, scrubbing toilets, cutting grass, painting rocks, and watching other Airmen urinate into bottles for drug test. And that's just the officers.
Most of the responsibilities of Airmen consist of babysitting a computer that does not work right for eight hours, and not getting caught looking at MyFace or SpaceBook or Googling ex-girlfriends of officers, who have even less to do than the Airmen.
Deployments[edit]
Members of the US Air Force for the most part are a bit better off in this category than the other branches. It used to be that many Air Force members could make it 20 years without ever deploying. Times have changed, Airmen are deploying more than ever. Of the 75,760 AF personnel that were deployed in 2009, 40,000 were "in lieu of Army tasking. The Air Force used to deploy personnel for 120 days but have increased their deployment times to 179 and 365 to supplement the Army taskings. So many deployed Air Force personnel get to go play Army on an Joint Expeditionary Tasking (JET). In-lieu-of the fact that the Army and Marines do not have enough people to perform all the required tasks in Iraq, the Department of Defense (DOD) is using Airmen and Navy sailors in infantry roles. They are taking sailors off of ships whose job it is to run an engine room, Air Force personnel off the flight-line and making them "soldiers-for-the-month."
Enlisted Rank Structure[edit]
Here is how it goes. No ands, ifs or buts. Unless you are cool with the right people. (or you are a supply slut)
- Trainee (Retarded): Even if Albert Einstein was to enter in the Basic Military Training for the Air Force, he would be rendered a whining, whimpering, retarded, "Huh!" penguin, who runs into walls. You memorize random shit that changes day to day, and are incapable of doing anything right. Bottom line, YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!
- Tech Schooler (Semi-Retarded): Having graduated Basic, you now enter an unknown world where you can actually talk to girls let alone look at them. You find that right girl and get married after filling out your hotel wavier and 29b. Only to find out later how much paperwork it really takes to to do all that crap, and then get divorced. Also, you will still find yourself freaking out when anyone with a campaign hat approaches you, going to attention and spouting, "Sir, Trainee Airman reports as ordered!"
- Airman Basic (Worthless): You are not held accountable for anything and your qualification requirements are a cakewalk. Since you have no chevrons, you are usually saluted when out in public (not including Lackland AFB), giving you a valuable ego boost. You can secretly run your own errands while doing chow runs and taskings for higher-ranked servicemembers, and if no one can find you, hey, you're just an Airman Basic out getting lost and screwing up, know what we mean? No one will waste their time imposing an Article 15 on you. You are untouchable. Enjoy it! However soon the fun will end, and you will grudgingly pin on E-2.
- Airman Tier (Pee-on): If you are E-2 through E-4 — with the exception of E-4 supervisors — you are worthless, and have no brain, and do all the responsibilities listed above. Despite your lack of experience and low human worth (as reinforced by the NCO Tier) you are given the most important jobs in the Air Force, e.g., fixing $20M aircraft, guarding the front gate of the base from untrustworthy Dominos Pizza and UPS drivers, and being accountable for munitions build-up that could clear the entire base population with one mistake. Just remember (and you will be reminded!) that you're at the bottom of the totem pole and get pissed on whenever leadership gets a chance. Of course, if you happen to be a E-4 supervisor, congratulations... you are actually an NCO, but without the stripe and pay.
- Junior NCO (The Dude): If you are E-5, you're the shit. Nothing gets done without you there. Airmen still see you as one of them and happily do your bidding as long as you give them breaks or bring in food every now and then. Under your oversight, the unit runs like a well-tuned engine. Officers actually give you sincere compliments. Congratulations!
- Non Commissioned Officer (Bureaucrat Select): If you are E-6 or E-7 you are entering the muddy echelons of Air Force bureaucracy. You find yourself increasingly unwilling to "Git R Done" unless there's accompanying paperwork. It is your job to make sure the lowest ranks do both their jobs and yours, or you are in trouble and it is all your fault. Once you break your troops and gain the allegiance of your SNCOs, you can sit around and play on the computer all day long. If not, the most you can hope for in your short career is a couple of games of Minesweeper.
- Senior Master Sergeant (Management): If you are E-8, you have a keen interest in the nuances of petty rules and regulations. You are an avid connoisseur of bloated management and training programs, and you see every one of them as having a home at your squadron, even though they will invariably be uprooted after you PCS. As you get more incompetent and lose qualification in your career field, you will be asked to a lot of golf games and unit volleyball events. Accept these appointments or you will be effectively cast out of the management hierarchy. You believe you are really more qualified than officers to be in charge and, if it weren't for your 1.8 GPA in high school and being technically "retarded", you'd be in charge, that's for freaking sure.
- Chief Master Sergeant (Fat Ass): If you are an E-9, you may have thought you made it! But you can't relax...stay on your toes and beware of the demi-god COMMAND CHIEF...to them you're just a "SLICK-SLEEVED CHIEF." You still have to be the guest speaker for ALS graduations at least once a year, raise funds for all the other organizations on base looking for a quick hand out, and read the roll call notes to all the mindless sheep...or you will be forever shunned by all the other demigod wannabes! However, you do get to manage the squadron's weekly barbecue.
- COMMAND Chief Master Sergeant (Demi-God): Still, an E-9 in reality, but in your fantasy world of ass-kissers, you're an E-10! YOU have COMMAND AUTHORITY over all other E-9s within your domain as deemed by your god- or goddess-like COMMANDer.... When dignity and respect are the order of the day, you remind all your slick-sleeved E-9 minions that they must bow down to their victim-minded Airmen in deference...TIMES HAVE CHANGED! You can relax, but you won't be able to rest until you have your own parking spot in every parking lot, are treated as an equal to Generals, and get to be first in line to everything. Don't worry, the officers will be deathly afraid of you; but they could give a rat's ass about any of your slick-sleeve minions, so go ahead and do any ridiculously outlandish thing you can think of...no one will say SHIT!
Officer Rank Structure[edit]
Awesome; you get paid more for doing nothing! And the higher rank you are, the more your ass gets kissed.
- O-1 to O-3 (company grade officers): Yes, you still have to kiss a lot of ass! But you think that all enlisted members should kiss yours. Tell that to a Chief! Everyone in the Air Force knows that your rank does not mean shit unless someone below you fucked up. You share something in common with the junior enlisted members. Your rank has been given to you, except for the Academy grads. They work their asses off for 4 years, only to obtain the exact same rank as all the ROTC grads and 13-week OTS wonders! (Keep in mind though, that Academy Officers are the worst of all. They have the biggest ego and think they have more power then anyone else. Only if they had a clue what to do with it! The academy officers are also known as ring tappers because when they gather in groups of two or more will cry out, "Wonder twin powers activate, Form of 2 star," then they transform into a general after accomplishing little to nothing except pissing everyone off.) But still, not even an E-1 will take any thing you say seriously.
- O-4 to O-6 (field grade officers): Your ass kissing skills are great! You somehow fooled your superiors that you should gain rank. But by this point you should have learned that no morale problem is so great that it cannot be corrected by cracking down on your subordinates. If morale is in the gutter, it just means your people aren't spending enough time basking in the glory of the Air Force. Try assigning them more work. Even if they're working 24 hour days with no break, pile on even more work. Furthermore, you have achieved job security because even if you rule like Caligula or indulge in some corruption, you'll be relaxing at home in forced retirement rather than busting rocks at Leavenworth. How about that! But you're not going to fall into disgrace because you've got some ass-kissing to do if you want to make general officer. Yes, Truman might have said "the buck stops here", but standing up for your troops jeopardizes your promotion chances. So make sure your first shirt cracks down on those conniving airmen and NCOs. Convene commander's call when problems develop with things like improper edging on base housing lawns, low air in POV tires, and missing cakes in the urinals. Your promotion is the priority; the mission will go on.
- O-7 to O-9 (general officers): Some moron has to be in charge of our air bases. Why not you! Especially since you have no skills at managing troops. But guess what: you can rule with an iron fist, making and breaking careers at your whim. Most of the Air Force's colonels would sell their souls to the devil to please you. So what do you do for a living? No one knows, but it is believed this amounts mainly to giving pointless talks, co-opting VIP planes and fighter jets for pointless official business, and inventing pointless AFI changes, for example For all junior enlisted personnel, handlebar mustaches are mandatory starting 1 Jan 2012, including on females and Effective 1 Apr 2012, all AFSCs will immediately be changed to their equivalent negative number..
- O-10 (God) - You are the great and almighty General of absolutely nothing. You have been finally entrusted with the truth. Your allegiance is solely with the Cabinet and White House. The Air Force is a bunch of fools that like to dress up as bus drivers, who sit in front of the computer just to look busy for the guy who outranks them. You answer to no one, so go ahead, visit Facebook or play your favorite RPG while on duty. Just remember what happened to Congressman Foley!
Average work week[edit]
The Air Force puts in long hours. They are a bunch of workaholics, determined to do what it takes to secure the nation's freedom. This is evidenced by the long hours they put in. Here is the typical schedule of a Personnel or Supply office:
- Monday, PT (physical training) 0800-1600 with one-hour lunch break.
- Tuesday through Thursday, 0900-1700: Closed for lunch from 1100-1300; Closed for "training" from 1400-1700.
- Friday, Weekly Wing PT Test: 0800-1000. Errands: 1000-1500. Group PT 1500-1700 (summer) or 0500-0700 (winter)
- Saturday and Sunday: Closed
They also have all holidays off, including Halloween and St. Patrick's day, and they get time off for any other excuse they can think of. Most holidays also have a "bonus" day off, usually called something innocent sounding like "family day".
There are exceptions, i.e. Flight-Line Aircraft Maintainers (Not AGE, unless you're working in servicing to be the flightline's gophers all day) who work 12 hour plus shifts six days a week (Sundays off!) with food shoved in your mouth when possible; Security Forces, who spend time wondering the base pulling people over for going 1 mile over the speed limit; POL, Base Operations, Weather (Who don't actually look at the weather, It's been lightning within 5 for 15 minutes already, and NOW you decide to call it), Help Desk, and Command Post. Days off are never, ever seen, and many hours are spent fuming over the emails received letting them know everybody else in the Air Force has the day off, which are sent out in triplicate, just to be sure. So they just sit and guard a closed base talking on their cell phones, watching DVD's, and getting drunk on the job.
Air Force benefits[edit]
Despite what a lot of people think the Air Force does get paid. They get paid substantially less than their civilian counterparts who are doing the same jobs, except for all the unemployed people, of course. The Air Force says this is better because of "perks and benefits." Some of these perks include but are not limited to:
- Physical Training (PT) - You will get valuable aerobic exercise running to the nearest available building every day at 5 pm when retreat starts playing. Unless you are on a profile, like 43% of enlisted and all female officers. Then, you have to walk slowly around the gym looking pained while the rest of the squadron runs.
- Military Leave - You get 30 days of leave a year. Anytime you go anywhere, you must use your leave. You must even use leave on days you wouldn't have been at work anyways. However, none of this is binding.
- Free Base Housing - Live in a disgusting dormitory or house that has had tons of people and families in it before you and not one of them kept it clean.
- Medical and Dental - This is provided for free. It will take 5 months to get an appointment and you use it at your own risk. It's so bad you probably know someone who was hurt or disfigured by a misdiagnosis. AF medical people came from the same recruitment pool as you, after all.
- Tuition Assistance - You will probably never get to use this unless you got a job like Finance or MPF that requires you never actually be at work.
- Base Exchange - Base Exchange is a store that is tax free but charges more than any civilian store. Despite having hundreds of items on the shelves, they also never stock things you want. They do however, carry Pringles, underwear, and 10,000 copies of movies no one ever wants.
- Commissary - This is where you can get groceries. This is also tax free however, while goods are tax free without surcharges, there is a 5% surcharge on the food you need and buy that "goes to base programs." You also get the luxury of finding more than half of the dairy and cold products expired. You know, the kind they serve in the desert.
You're probably not reading this part because you're already speeding to the Recruiter's office asking how soon you can sign up, but keep in mind these are only some of the wonderful benefits.
Air Force life[edit]
Dormitory life[edit]
You awaken suddenly at 4:30AM by the sound of reveille being played on some far-off 1940’s era phonograph attached to a 10,000 watt P.A. Time to get up, you think as you turn off the re-run of Saved by The Bell on TBS, and make your way from the couch (which you passed out on about a half an hour ago) to your bed. It’s difficult for you to fall asleep as you think about those poor marines in the next dormitory over who have to go to work now, but you persist and fall asleep anyway. You forget to set the alarm but it doesn’t matter… you don’t need it. You wake up around 1 or 2, probably to the sound of your idiot pissmate’s favorite Jackopaws song, or that stupid fucking Disturbed song (where the guy makes the monkey sound at the beginning) and stumble into the shower. The water will be cold and the plug blocked with hair. When you get out of the shower, you are suddenly hungry. Since you slept through lunch at the chow hall(the chow hall staff probably slept through lunch, also), you go to your refrigerator; there you find a moldy orange (that you took from the chow hall), a 3 month old bottle of Mountain Dew (that lost its fizz about 3 months ago), and about 13-28 bottles of Bud Light. You opt for the Mountain Dew.
The next hour of your morning is usually either spent napping (all that sleeping made you tired) or, heading over to the BX to pick up a new computer game. As 3:00 approaches, you pick up your uniform from behind the refrigerator (where threw it on Friday afternoon), shave off that sweet goatee you had going for 2 days, get in your 2001-2004 Ford Mustang (usually red, black, sometimes orange.) and start the 38 second drive to your shop.
E-8 life[edit]
It's 6 a.m. on base housing. You wake up and have coffee. You spend 0630 to 0730 edging your lawn, then have some more coffee. You then stop by Military Clothing Sales. They are out of absolutely everything except for an RVN Gallantry Cross and maternity blues. Praise God, what a stroke of fortune, because a bit of shoe polish got on your RVN Gallantry Cross last week and your pregnant daughter is in the Air Force and would appreciate the uniform. After cleaning out Military Clothing Sales, you see an airman in front of the barber shop wearing nothing but underwear and passed out in a pile of his own puke. You go ballistic and chew him out for not wearing a reflective belt, and advise him to go in there and get a high & tight if he considers himself a warrior. You arrive in the office bright and early at 9:30 am, have coffee, and chat with the section chief, then you begin working at 10:30 am. Just as Powerpoint loads, you see it is time for lunch. So you head out to the Officers Club with your commander, have a quick lunch, and then since it's a nice day you all spend the afternoon at the golf course. You all opt to decline the golf cart (hooyah!) to log some PT time. After the game, you then stop back at the shop to find out how the ORI is going and make sure your NCOs have things in tip-top shape. You then head home and eat dinner with your family and go to bed at 8 pm so you'll be ready for the grind tomorrow.
Personal Time[edit]
The Air Force is best known for drunken parties, and is the number one importer of beer in most nations which have air forces. It manages to consume it from the hours of 1600 to 0730.
The air force also has superhuman power to be able to drink beer more than any other branch...And yet they still don't beat up on army troops. We don't know why. It's suspected that it's because if they were tough guys to begin with, they probably wouldn't join the Air Force. Then again the Air Force is the only branch that will hand out Article 15's for the slightest conflict.
Many rumours about LARPing or World of Warcraft being a part of this personal time are highly inaccurate, and fit under a subculture of the military in general, the DLI student.
National Air Forces[edit]
Despite having fewer planes than the Navy (according to the Navy, who know everything), the AFUS (Air Force of the United Statesians),is the greatest Air Force in the world. The IRA (Iraqi Royal Airforce) comes in second according to George Bush. Rumor has it that Canada may also have an Air Force. This is most likely false considering it is widely known that Canada has no military.
Air Force of the Future[edit]
The Air Force of the future has decided to take some examples steal from the other services with their new uniforms. The most current theft would be the Air Force PT gear. Even though the primary job for an Air Force member is to watch a computer all day, there's always time to play Army. When the Marines and Army got a new BDU now known as ACU (and still BDU for Marines because its too hard to remember new acronyms), the Air Force felt left out. So they changed the color of the Army's already less useful ACU's and came up with their current fruity number and decided to throw in styling PT gear to fit their needs. These needs include walking during a mile and a half run, sports days, and barbecues.
The next phase in the Air Force of the Future will be to get rid of the BDUs. They felt a bit hurt by the Army's change so they've decided to go with their own style. Top Generals in the Air Force decided that they needed a distinctive Air Force uniform of their own, so they stole the Army's new color pattern and added blue, because the sky is blue and they are the Air Force after all. With their new uniform ready, the airmen quickly discovered that the only thing they blended in with was flightline concrete, but even that didn't matter because if you are a bad guy, all you have to do if shoot at the reflective belts anyway. It was decided that an effective camouflage pattern was not needed, because let's face it: If an Air Force member is ever so close to combat action that he has hide from the enemy, somebody fucked up big time.
But wait, there's more! You may think that during this time of massive global war, funds might be a little tight. But you'd be wrong! There's always money for half-brained attempts at changing the uniform to give the General-du-jour another impressive bullet for his OPR. The newest design for the Air Force of the future would be the Service Dress Uniform. The Air Force became a bit tired of people comparing them to civilian pilots and bus drivers when dressed up showing off their Bronze Stars that every Airman gets straight out of Basic. They needed another new uniform. They needed something to be feared, something that demands respect, something that blatanty copies one of their sister services (see: Marines) and something that inspires awe, particularly from Nazis and Star Wars fans. Thank God this idea has been nixed.
Just remember everyone, the Army actually has more planes than the Air Force. And more boats than the Navy. And more idiots than the Marines.
Other Military Forces[edit]
The Army is known for its large numbers, and constant failure to make recruiting goals, hence its slogan, "an army of one".
In the Navy is the worst, mostly because of the guys showering together.