From the Task and Purpose website
Anyone who served in the U.S. armed forces in the last half-century or so is likely familiar with the standard-issue GI eyeglasses. With thick brown rims and lenses that looked like magnifying glasses, they were so unattractive that wearing them effectively reduced the chances of getting laid to near zero.
The S9s, more commonly known as “birth control glasses” or BCGs, were issued to U.S. troops for decades until 2012, when officials at the Department of Defense realized their iconically awful prescription eyewear actually functioned as a major cockblock for thousands of libidinous service members who would rather be blind than wear such atrocious spectacles.
From the U.S. News & World Report website
When you retire, a wide array of new possibilities become available to you. You have the opportunity to create a life that’s determined by your interests, desires and priorities, unencumbered by the constraint of having to earn a living. Yet many people don’t take advantage of the possibilities that retirement offers. They just continue with their daily routine, minus the job.
Here are nine suggestions for how to get the most out of your retirement years.
Before MSgt Henry “Uncle” Chang became a loadmaster with the 204th Airlift Squadron, he served on the fighter flightline. This photograph shows him on a F-4C Phantom in the early 1980s.
In the early-1990s, he transferred to the 204 AS, as a crew member on C-130H Hercules and C-17A Globemaster IIIs until he retired.
In civilian life, he worked with the Honolulu Fire Department.
Uncle passed in 2013 after encountering medical challenges.
A great individual.
From the Military.com website
It’s one of my favorite military family perks — a free pass to America’s National Parks for active duty, National Guard and Reservist military members and their families.
The program, started in 2013, allows anyone holding one of those ID cards to get a free America the Beautiful pass. The pass gives you free entrance to national parks with fee stations for the driver and anyone else in a personal vehicle, or up to four adults for places that charge per person. It also waives those fees at national forests and grasslands, and at lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
From the USA Today website
The median household income in the United States is $56,516, according to 2015 data from the U.S. Census. But that rises and falls depending on close you are to peak earning age, which is typically around age 49 for men and 40 for women.
Air Force Magazine’s back-page feature is “Namesakes.” Every month it profiles the person or people after whom an Air Force facility was named. This post is about Sheppard AFB
Sheppard Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located five miles north of the central business district of Wichita Falls, in Wichita County, Texas. It is the largest training base and most diversified in Air Education and Training Command. The base is named in honor of Texas Senator John Morris Sheppard, a supporter of military preparations before World War II.
The 82nd Training Wing is responsible for aircraft maintenance and armament and munitions including nuclear munitions. The 82d Training Group provides aircraft maintenance and munitions training to satisfy the full range of customer requirements for respective apportioned United States Air Force specialties, including officer and enlisted initial skills courses in 17 different Air Force Specialty Codes, advanced and supplemental courses, the Maintenance Course for Operational Commanders, and the Mission Generation Road Course.
The major tenant unit, the 80th Flying Training Wing hosts the world’s only internationally manned and managed pilot training program. Celebrated 35 years in 2016, the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program has now delivered more than 6,600 trained combat pilots to our NATO allies. (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom)
Related:
Sheppard AFB website
From the Kiplinger Magazine website
Any big changes in your tax bill are likely to be a result of changes in your financial life and do-it-yourself moves to trim the tab.
From the Military.com website
All 12,000 members of the Texas Army and Air National Guard were mobilized Monday and active duty units were on
standby to deal with the catastrophic flooding and continuing hard rain triggered by Hurricane Harvey.
“It is imperative that we do everything possible to protect the lives and safety of people across the state of Texas as we continue to face the aftermath of this storm,” Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, said in quadrupling the number of Guard personnel activated.
From the Task and Purpose website
At the end of fiscal year 2016 in September that year, the Air Force had 1,555 fewer pilots than it needed, including 1,211 missing fighter pilots.
That shortfall is expected to increase, and the service has considered a number of steps to shore up its ranks, including broader recruiting, changing training requirements, increased bonuses, and even stop-loss policies.
The Air Force is also looking for outside contractors to provide “red air,” or adversary training, support.
From the CheatSheet website
The road to retirement requires a lot of planning and a little luck. If you’ve planned appropriately, you’ll have many years to relax and enjoy life. However, you have to be careful that you don’t overdo it when it comes to living your best retirement life. If you don’t make wise decisions, you could end up in a bit of financial trouble and find yourself on your way back to the rat race.
Here are seven of the worst things you can do when you retire
From the Military.com website
States sent National Guard air and ground assistance along with Fire Department rescue units to Texas Sunday and the Coast Guard joined rescue and disaster relief efforts in heavily-flooded Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
Texas authorities said at least two people had died, but the National Weather Service said the death toll through Sunday morning may have reached five in the hurricane that reached shore as a Category 4 storm Friday and has now been downgraded to a tropical storm.
click on photograph to enlarge
The 154th Wing fighter flightline is filled with aircraft shelters for more than a decade. One of the biggest benefits for sheltering the jets is corrosion prevention. As much as the shelters protect the exterior of the airframes, some of the most expensive damage happens to the electronic components on the inside of the jets with humidity and moisture.
Retiree News asked Dave Snakenberg to comment on these shelters.
The shelters went up around early 2000s. They were part of a corrosion control initiative a contractor was trying to sell to the Air Force. Hawaii was the fighter test site, so they put up the shelters. When the Air Force did not go with shelters, it would have cost too much money to take down and ship out, so they just gave them to us.
With the Wing’s conversion to F-22 Raptors, the flightline construction continued and is a far cry from what was there in the sixties and seventies, which Retiree News will cover in future posts.
From the Kiplinger Magazine website
It isn’t easy to find a financial professional these days.
Oh, there are plenty of us out there — but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find an individual or firm you know you can trust.
First, there’s the confusing collection of certifications I call “designation soup.” Then, there’s the current contentious debate over fiduciary vs. suitability standards. And to top it off, we have the “testimonial rule” in the Investment Advisers Act, which says Registered Investment Advisers can’t directly or indirectly distribute an advertisement that includes a client testimonial or a client’s endorsement. So, we can’t give out a list of references or publish an online review.
This all means it’s up to individuals to do some research if they want to find an experienced, knowledgeable and honest financial professional to handle their retirement planning.
Here are seven steps that can help put you on the right track:
From the This Day in Aviation website
28 August 1972: Captain Richard Stephen “Steve” Ritchie, United States Air Force, and Weapons System Officer Captain Charles B. DeBellevue, leading Buick flight with their McDonnell F-4D Phantom II, shot down a North Vietnamese MiG 21 interceptor.
This was Ritchie’s fifth aerial combat victory, earning him the title of “ace.” [Chuck DeBellevue would later be credited with six kills.]
