Gorilla
King of Belize
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2005
- Posts
- 1,132
I do... I freely admit it. In 1991, I was instructing in the AT-38B at Holloman AFB, fighter lead-in training when they still had that program there. Gulf War #1 was over, and we (the IP's) had all missed it. Didn't matter how good a stick you were, or how many hours you had, none of us had that Mother-bleeping gold star on our sleeves.
How stupid was that... sleeve stars? Talk about isolating people.
Anyway, the basic question was "When it comes time to command a squadron, who is going to get the job? Those of us who were IP's here, or those who were blowing up tanks and MiGs in Iraq?" We felt isolated and uncompetitive. We had no war stories for the bar. The airlines were hiring like crazy, the pay was awesome, and the rest is history.
Fast forward 16 years - most airlines are dying a slow death of a thousand cuts. The pay is gone. The fun has been engineered out of the job by bad schedules and overworked crew. I was holding 78 hour 12-day months in 1993. Now, I am struggling to hold 15 day lines and avoid reserve as a 16 year FO at AA.
Hindsight - Leaving the Air Force was stupid. I miss the challenge, the awesome hardware, and above all I miss my buds. It always comes down to the people you worked with, and my old squadron pals were the best. Yes there was a lot of Mickey-Mouse stuff, but if I could go back in time, I'd not resign.
Does anyone else have any regrets about leaving the military? I'm curious... I don't believe I'm alone in this.
How stupid was that... sleeve stars? Talk about isolating people.
Anyway, the basic question was "When it comes time to command a squadron, who is going to get the job? Those of us who were IP's here, or those who were blowing up tanks and MiGs in Iraq?" We felt isolated and uncompetitive. We had no war stories for the bar. The airlines were hiring like crazy, the pay was awesome, and the rest is history.
Fast forward 16 years - most airlines are dying a slow death of a thousand cuts. The pay is gone. The fun has been engineered out of the job by bad schedules and overworked crew. I was holding 78 hour 12-day months in 1993. Now, I am struggling to hold 15 day lines and avoid reserve as a 16 year FO at AA.
Hindsight - Leaving the Air Force was stupid. I miss the challenge, the awesome hardware, and above all I miss my buds. It always comes down to the people you worked with, and my old squadron pals were the best. Yes there was a lot of Mickey-Mouse stuff, but if I could go back in time, I'd not resign.
Does anyone else have any regrets about leaving the military? I'm curious... I don't believe I'm alone in this.