It's not hate. I love my job. I'm just saying the things that 200 other JOs in my community say every day. Kind of goes back to the whole CRM concept. Senior pilots (O4s and O5s) love to talk about how junior pilots "need to be more assertive and communicate more" but then their egos get hurt when the JO asks "why are we doing it this way?" or speaks up and offers a common sense alternative. Maybe we should change the way we do business, but that would involve the influential DHs and Front Offices to put the good of the community ahead of their careers which isn't going to happen.
Agreed. Very much so. Like I said, I believe our operational HSC squadrons should be the "major leagues" where we are ready for these things should they arise. The problem arises when you have a community that is slap FULL of people who have never done any of this stuff for real yet they will sit around and tell you all day long "how it's gonna go down when we're in the shit". I agree with the above posters that we should have tactics that are based on lessons learned from other services and, most importantly, common sense. But, like Flying Low was implying earlier, having 2000 page powerpoint briefs and outlandish weapons school check-rides that are being taught by people who have never done anything, yet think they know it all because they have a SWTI patch on, is a HUGE problem.
We need to get real and look at tactics from a realistic standpoint. It is FAR more realistic to put our pilots in an environment with limited resources (i.e. no powerpoint, no whiteboard, limited options for fuel, limited support etc...) and say, "In 3 or 4 days we've gotta put SOF team 'whoever' on a rooftop/back of a ship/whatever...get it done."
If that's what the seawall WWS has gotten to, then it's fucking depressing. (I've always known the west coast was like this, but the east coast used to be grounded with some common sense.)
One thing I enjoyed about my time as the WTU/WWS and subsequent squadron WTI job was that I got to make mission planning more realistic. (At least that's the benefit of being FDNF) If the local EOD or NSWU had an event come up a few weeks out I would send the next check ride/lvl 3 guy over to help build the brief with them and learn how it really goes down. Similarly, if a last minute opportunity presented itself with Marines or whoever, I would hand the guy a whiteboard marker and tell him he had 3 hours to prep the important shit and leave out the fluff. I guess that's the benefit of actually working with real people instead of fairyland.