100 Flights For F-35B BF-4

RAF Sqdn. Ldr. Jim Schofiield was the pilot of F-35B BF-4 for Flight 100, which involved open weapon bay door  environmental testing with an AIM-120 on 22 March 2012.

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Leadership, troop griping and a lost Marine Corps.

Marines bitch.


Soldiers bitch.


Sailors bitch.


Airmen bitch.

Its all part of serving in the military.  But this article from the USNI blog has been bugging me for weeks.  Read it here, but check out this tidbit....

“Hey Lance Corporal So-and-So, how’s your day?”  “Oh, sir, you know, I haven’t seen my friends or family in 200 days, my old man just lost his job, my boots melted to the asphalt yesterday and I’m about to go on a four hour patrol in 120 degree heat on the most heavily mined city in the world – and that’s just the way I like it!!”
“You don’t say! Well, have a good patrol.”
And then, not being able to do anything about the weather or his father’s job, my platoon sergeant and I could go and put in the paperwork for some new boots.
The Marines now had a vehicle that they could use to voice honest concerns, worries and complaints and get some of that darkness off of their chest, and I not only had the benefit of hearing those complaints as their platoon commander (and thus could be a better steward to them) but also had the advantage of not having to hear their complaints as complaints – they were now, somehow, an aggressively positive affirmation of what Marines believe anyway.  That IS just they way we like it.
And so, in a world full of feel-goody false wisdoms and soft band-aid approaches to real problems, I recommend the actual “that’s just the way I like it”-wisdom of two pretty fascinating adventurers.  It worked for us in combat.  And it works for me today.
And in this way the philosophy of the Marine Corps, the traveling adventurers and Nietzsche are uniquely analogous…they did not promise us a rose a garden.  We didn’t get one.  And that’s just the way we like it.

I called the author on it because it bugged me so badly.

Ya know...mission accomplishment first, troop welfare second...

The commenters slammed me back...and hard....but it still bugged me.  I know that simply getting my men to say "that's the way I like it" doesn't seem like leadership to me and then I hit upon this quote from General Powell...

 Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
Colin Powell

My big problem is this.

The blog isn't to blame.

But the readership is.  A leader can't solve every problem but he should put forth an effort.  Not gloss it over with a few words that cover up the issue.  If this is how the majority of leaders are responding to our Marines problems then no wonder my service seems lost now.

We are facing leadership failure from top to bottom.

God help my Marine Corps.

F-35 Night Refueling

Et tu General Allen?

General Allen is a Marine's Marine.

Hardcore.

Will look you in the eye and give you the bad news.

But this is hard to fathom....via Military.com

Marine Gen. John Allen told reporters at the Pentagon that he and other top leaders were doing their best to prevent so-called “green on blue” killings, but that the nature of counterinsurgency means fratricide could remain constant or even increase.
“The enemy is going to do all that they can to disrupt our operations and to disrupt the integrity of the government forces,” Allen said. “We should expect this.” He cited examples in Iraq, Vietnam and “historically” throughout counter-insurgency wars.
But he said the threat of attacks from allies would not derail what Allen believes is the steady progress in the war, and he praised the overall capabilities of today’s Afghan National Security Forces.
“They really are better than we thought they would be at this point,” he said. “More important, they are better than they thought they would be.”
Allen tried to stress the closeness of U.S. forces with their Afghan counterparts despite this season’s setbacks – he said many of the advisers that had been pulled from the Afghan ministries had returned, and talked about the closeness between American and local ground troops.

That my friends is utter bullshit.

The British just lost two more soldiers to attacks from Afghans.

They aren't better than we thought they would be at this point.  They're fucking pathetic.  They're illiterate, get high and since DADT is gone I won't tell you about another bad habit that they have.  


Oh and lets talk about advisers with the Afghans.  You have perimeters and then you have interior perimeters and then you have the rule of not turning your back on anyone that isn't a Westerner.

Geez.

You got bit by the politics bug too General.

A really sad day.

Dr. Thompson get rugged and raw on the critics...

via Forbes...

The tortured path of the Pentagon’s biggest weapon program is beginning to look like a case study in poor management.  The problem isn’t the F-35 fighter, which is making steady progress towards becoming the best tactical aircraft ever built.  The problem is a federal acquisition culture that has grown so risk-averse it no longer cares about long-term consequences.

That bureaucratic myopia will be in abundant display next month, when the Department of Defense releases updated cost estimates for the fighter program.  The estimates will reveal a modest increase in the cost of each plane, and Pentagon policymakers will repeat for the umpteenth time all of the heroic steps they have taken to rein in a wayward contractor.  But don’t expect them to take any responsibility for the cost increases because, after all, they’re the good guys.

If you follow the F-35 program closely, which almost nobody outside the Pentagon does, a different narrative emerges.  It is the story of what happens to major technology programs in a balkanized, distracted political system when there is no urgent danger to push them forward.  Bureaucratic and personal agendas fill the vacuum once occupied by the threat, and so programs seldom stay on track — leaving the nation unprepared when the next big threat appears.

Maybe you’re incredulous that the real reason the F-35 program has become so controversial is government behavior.  After all, I advise many of the companies involved in the program so I’m not objective, right?  Fair enough.  I’ll abandon generalities and provide concrete examples of what the Pentagon has done wrong (the examples aren’t hard to find). Here are six ways that the military acquisition system makes a bargain seem unafforbable.

Wow.  Read the whole thing but....Thompson NAILS it on all points.

I absolutely love it.

Somewhere I can see him sitting in his office feet on his desk, drinking a shot of whatever it is he drinks, pulling a long drag off his favorite cigar thinking boy, this is almost as good as me being able to walk up to one of those SMART ASS Aviation Writers and saying....

Sikorsky makes an offer NAVAIR better not refuse!

NAVAIR just received an offer from Sikorsky that it better not refuse...via Flight Global...

The US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) is evaluating a proposal from Sikorsky to build four production-representative CH-53K Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopters, says the US Marine Corps' programme manager.
"We're looking at the proposal now," says Col Robert Pridgen.
NAVAIR received the proposal at the beginning of March, he says. A contract award is expected some time after this has been evaluated, although Pridgen says: "I don't want to nail down a date."
The four pre-production aircraft will be "fleet-representative" and be used for operational evaluations, as well to finish developmental testing.
The CH-53K is now scheduled to become operational in 2019 - one year later than previously slated - and the Marines hope to buy about 200 of the three-engined type.
When the programme first started, the service only wanted to buy 156 aircraft, Pridgen says. Initial operational capability was then set for late 2015, but the USMC upped the order and stretched the programme out by three years in August 2007. Production numbers were to have reached as many as 227, before they were trimmed back to 200.

A few points...

*The Marine Corps delayed this program in order to get its full compliment of MV-22's.  I have no issue with that airframe except one.  Its more tailored to what Special Ops needs and not the Marine Corps...except during the assault phase of a forcible entry or raid.  The CH-53K would fill that niche nicely.  We don't need more MV-22's...unless all we want to be is the ride to SOCOM and MY Marine Corps is better than that  Maybe not the Marine Corps that AMOS wants but my Marine Corps is more capable than just being perimeter guards and a taxi service to SOCOM.

*This offer is the cat's meow.  Four production representative airframes?  Isn't this the kind of thing the Pentagon's been pushing industry to do????

*Only the AAV upgrade and the MPC program are more important to the future of the Marine Corps than the CH-53K.  Not the F-35, not the JLTV and not any of the goof ball initiatives coming from HQMC.

Let's get this done.

Today!

CDR Salamander says it best.

When I heard that the President said this, I almost lost my mind!  If this doesn't make you want to punch walls then nothing will...

Unaware that a microphone was recording him, President Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday for breathing room until after Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign to negotiate on missile defense.

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev at the end of their 90-minute meeting, apparently referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Medvedev replied, “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…”

“This is my last election,” Mr. Obama said. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”

The Russian leader responded, “I understand. I transmit this information to Vladimir.”

That my friends sounds like the talk of an enemy within.

That sounds like a man that is plotting against his own country with the leaders of another country.

This type of talk sounds like...well....treason.

But that's my gut reaction...CDR Salamander has a better take.  Read it over at his house.