Quick pitch for those of you who find yourselves on a FAC tour with a MEU. Fight the good fight against your BLT Commander for troops riding as passengers be slick in the aircraft (flak off, horse collar only) while feet wet for non-combat missions. When the horse collars get passed in you can throw flaks back on. I lost this fight, but ended up doing it myself anyway, I just didn't think it was worth the risk. From what I had been told from some folks, flying with out flaks was a significant factor in cases where everyone got out after a water landing.
The biggest argument against it was "we need to train like we fight." I argued that it was actually easier/ less moving parts to keep flaks on the entire time for combat mission, so we would have actually downgraded to something easier for combat, but I lost that argument.