And non-wooden seats.

“Legitimate” doesn’t mean “good” or “nice”. Feel free to look up the word in a dictionary. Saddam Hussein was the legitimate ruler of Iraq, even though a brutal despot. We’ve all seen what good came from the US overthrowing him.

The 4th gear point is about the fear of deflation. It’s a bugaboo ... i.e., false and imaginary threat. Financial analysts ALWAYS trot out the “threat” of deflation whenever some sector gets a little soft. Cheap gas will NOT cause any notable deflation in the prices of consumer goods (as it never has in any previous…

I like the looks of the PW in general, but I can still not get behind or beyond the brutally stupid rebranding of Dodge trucks to “RAM”. Stupid stupid stupid. There has NEVER been a “RAM Power Wagon” ... only Dodge Power Wagons. The RAM brand has NO history or cache. Junk. Pure unadulterated garbage (speaking of the…

I don’t wear a seatbelt in my Dad’s Silverado, or my old F250 Superduty.

Very cool, hope you don’t think I was being disrespectful just because I’m ignorant of Army structure. Has it always been thus, or is this a configuration that occurred in the last 2 or 3 decades?

I think you also need to be able to walk around with a coffee cup pretending to be doing meaningful work.

I agree with and appreciate your point of view. That being said, there are factions and cliques in all aspects of society. Always have been, always will be. No, Rodney, we actually can’t all just get along, it’s not in human nature.

Yup. ATGATT = All Teh Gear All Teh Time. Another acronym used by certain other (and generally philosophically opposed) riders is DILLIGAF ... often this is a term used by your “Murica Fuck Yeah Freedom!!!!1!” types, as it is used to reply to anybody who makes any comments about any perceived misbehavior or potential…

Call it a Volvo if you want, all I see is a gussied up Pinto.

Thanks Chief :-) ... appreciate the detailed clarification.

Well, I’ll just respectfully disagree with you on the ‘ease of reading at 80 mph in the rain and dark’ issue (let alone reading in clear daylight at 20 mph). I don’t have 20/20 vision, but being farsighted means that I can read road signs without glasses (I only need glasses to see things within arm’s reach of my…

I was in agreement with you up until the nonsense about the “e” .. the new font is absolutely superior for the alpha characters (mostly due to better kerning in my opinion).

Hmmm ... from the original page I linked up thar, I interpreted the following bolded line:

Okay, well, I can’t help with any further explanations. I don’t know the Army’s processes and policies beyond what I’ve read online from various sources including the Army’s own website. Your comments are littered with jargon that means nothing to me (drop a packet, AIT, SF pipeline) so I honestly can’t tell how much…

Ma Bell (the original AT&T) was broken up back in the 80's (iirc) into the Baby Bells (aka Regional Bell Companies), one of which was Southwestern Bell which then proceeded to grow and buy up other baby bells (such as Pacific Bell out here in California). The “original” AT&T was run as a long-distance-only company…

You say you’re familiar with the Army aviation pipeline, but sound mystified by the notion of someone joining up and going straight to WO as an aviator. My source is the US Army website which I linked in that comment up there, so you can read what the US Army themselves say about if you want to understand the current…

You’re a ‘commissioned’ Warrant Officer?

Protected designations (see several preceding comments) are protected not by local law, but by international treaty. So this particular protection is legal and valid in the US as well as Mexico. And probably Europe. And probably Canada. And probably other regions and nations.

Technically, CWO’s are NCO’s (non commissioned officers) ... a warrant officer is an officer that is not commissioned, so by definition a warrant officer is a senior “non-commissioned officer”. They do occupy a higher strata in the rank structure — the lowest WO is still a higher rank than the highest enlisted NCO.