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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:30 am
by Slasher
Not taking sides with you two blokes here but I think I mentioned it on this site somewhere once. I found my first jet (DC9-30) particularly difficult during LT. I was a young TAA F/O at the time.

Outside the Arrival terminal entrance was...the terminal gardener. An old bloke. Pom. Not an acquaintance really - more like a cigar Indian who you exchange mutual nods with but not actually walk up and talk to.

I was sitting outside on the bench in full regalia furiously trying to study up anything I’d forgotten for my line check due in a couple of hours. I get a tap on the shoulder - ‘twas the gardener. Thought he was going to get up me for flicking ash and cig butts into the flower bed next to me.

Can’t recall exactly verbatim since it was so long ago, but it went similar to...

“You doing a line check today young man?”
“Um...yes!”
“Who’s your check captain?”
“Ah it’s John Xxxxxxx.”
“He’s not too bad. Tends to concentrate on SOP and non precision approaches. His favorite questions are...”(I wrote down everything and then together went over the answers in the book).

“Where are you flying?”
“MEL-SYD-BNE-SYD-MEL.”
“He’ll probably give you the last 2 sectors to fly. Maybe an ILS into SYD and VOR here. He likes to see good approaches flown with the flight directors off. Big stickler for checklist discipline as I recall.”

We exchanged names. He was a retired ex-BA captain who decided to move out to Oz. He somehow gets all the TAA gen on who’s doing what. Dunno how. Maybe just potters around his plants and listens to the scuttlebutt.

I had to ask the obvious.
“Do you do this job to make ends meet?”
“No, I’m very well off. I just like being near ruddy aeroplanes.”

Bugger me with a pick axe! Lesson learnt: don’t prejudge people by their jobs, no matter how menial.

Passed my LC too!

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 1:00 pm
by BenThere
I'm pretty much on board with boing's recent posts.

I certainly don't claim any exclusivity based on any uniform or other societal status accorded to airline pilots. That fact is that I was an hourly employee, and I walked a long road to get to the pinnacle of the profession - Delta Air Lines - where I was fortunate enough to reside for a decade. Along the way there were times I lived precariously trying to pay the bills. So back to the trash collector, I do have respect for a man doing a job he has to do to put bread on the table and a roof over his, and his family's head. I know it's a grind, now, but I think the work ethic such a job embeds in the worker is valuable and will lead to ever-increasing prosperity, whereas sitting on one's ass collecting welfare is an almost sure path to dissipation, decline and ultimate misery - why the Left chooses this strategy to improve lives is incomprehensible to me.

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 4:50 pm
by boing
The uncomfortable truth Boing is that you are failing to respect the man in the blue overalls purely out of prejudice. For all you know he might be a wounded veteran who for what ever reason has taken a job 'on the bins'.

Do not deny respect due to a person who wears common work clothes and always bear in mind that a uniform is the favourite clothes of fakes, incompetents, poseurs and general bastards
John, are you not capable of seeing how you are demonstrating your own prejudices in that post?
The uncomfortable truth Boing is that you are failing to respect the man in the blue overalls purely out of prejudice.
Then you go on to say
always bear in mind that a uniform is the favourite clothes of fakes, incompetents, poseurs and general bastards[
You have the typical warped mental attitude of the caviar socialist. You criticise me for looking down on somebody because they wear overalls then you have the unhinged logicality to criticise anyone who wears a uniform as likely being "a fake, incompetent a poseur or a general bastard". Only someone with your attitude could even hold those two opposing arguments in their mind at one time.

And I particularly love the twisted logic of your attempt to raise sympathy for your man in overalls "For all you know he might be a wounded veteran ". Well, a wounded veteran must have decided he liked to be in uniform at some time. So now we have our fake, incompetent, poseur uniform wearer who has become the salt of the Earth by donning a pair of overalls. Get real John, head out for a trek or whatever you people do to preciously discover the real World.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:47 pm
by John Hill
I dont think Frank Abagnale ever posed as a bin man. Don't forget "All fire trucks in our town are red therefore all red trucks are fire engines."

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 8:27 pm
by boing
The problem with a brief and pithy reply is that sometimes the recipient hasn't the faintest idea what you are talking about.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 8:59 pm
by John Hill
See: "Catch Me If You Can"

One popular answer to why fire trucks are red goes something like this: “Because they have eight wheels and four people on them, and four plus eight makes twelve, and there are twelve inches in a foot, and one foot is a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth is a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth was also a ship, and the ship sailed the seas, and there were fish in the seas, and fish have fins, and the Finns fought the Russians, and the Russians are red, and fire trucks are always “Russian"
around, so that's why fire trucks are red!"

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:05 pm
by bob2s
Hang on a minute you lot am just getting seated wjth my bowl of popcorn.

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:38 pm
by Alisoncc
bob2s, +1

PS. Uniforms have great value when you have a BN2A behind you full of NR's getting stroppy in PNG.

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:46 pm
by FD2
John - please explain to a simple pilot - a conman and a mis-applied piece of 'logic'. It's all a bit opaque. Anyone please?

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:55 pm
by John Hill
Why of course FD2, the conman chose to impersonate (among others) an airline pilot but I have never heard of a conman in blue coveralls. All fire engines are red but that does not mean all red trucks are fire engines, Frank Abagnale was a fraudster in uniform but that does not mean all uniform wearers are frauds although some are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_impostor.

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:14 pm
by FD2
Thanks John....

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:20 pm
by boing
Ok, I looked up the fellow you mentioned, seems to be a smart cookie even if a bit twisted.

So, I'll raise your bet. Let's see, Leonard Cheshire ex-617 who started the Cheshire Homes after the war, Winston Churchill needs to be in there of course, since he took part in the last real cavalry charge, John Gillespie MaGee who wrote the "High Flight" that we all remember by heart, the crews of the 15 outdated Swordfish that went head to head with the Bismark, everyone at the D-Day Party, the 1350 people who have been awarded the Victoria Cross, let me see, have I missed anyone, perhaps the 1,000,000 military personnel who died in WW1 and the 450,000 who died in WW2 should be included.

So,
and always bear in mind that a uniform is the favourite clothes of fakes, incompetents, poseurs and general bastards.
One and all. I think that statistically you have a problem John.

Oh, by the way the Roman Legions wore skirts, I suppose that makes them all females and don't even bring up the Scots. :|


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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:25 pm
by John Hill
An impressive list but including Churchill tends to support my point entirely, him being one of the biggest bastards ever to grace this earth. https://crimesofbritain.com/2016/09/13/ ... nt-page-1/

Statistically there does appear to be a higher incidence of fakes among the uniformed than among the bin men.

BTW, I dont know where you got your 400,000 military killed in WWII as the total is many times that, about 150 times.

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:34 pm
by John Hill
BTW, that was total deaths in WWII, military deaths were about 22 million (about 55 times Boing's figure).

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:39 pm
by boing
John,

Absolute twaddle. I just gave you a summary of over 2,000,000 uniformed personnel. How many of them would you say are fakes - just use some common sense, how many men faked their way in to the Army just for the fun of being sent to the Trenches? I think that you will find that more men/boys lied about their age to go and fight rather than joined up to fake something. If anybody fakes anything associated with uniforms it is the stinking criminal civilians, like the example you choose, who pretend to be uniformed personnel to carry out their crimes and this is clearly not the fault of the military or the uniform.

Now, how many bin men fake their time cards, how many call in sick when they want a day off, how many slope off early when the work day is nearly over, how many have corporation shovels in their tool shed at home? Your suggestion that more uniformed people cheat than bin men is ludicrous, statistically indefensible, insulting, unpatriotic and morally ridiculous.

Churchill can be blamed for being a tough operator but I wouldn't take the site you link to too seriously. For instance, when the author of the article you linked to discusses Africa he conveniently omits any reference to Mau Mau. On the other hand put these events into the scales on the side of saving Europe and, perhaps, the free world and how are the scales going to balance? Got news for you John, great leaders are not always nice guys, it comes with being successful.

John, the death totals I gave are only for UK and Commonwealth military personnel.

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:25 am
by John Hill
boing wrote:
Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:39 pm
John,
If anybody fakes anything associated with uniforms it is the stinking criminal civilians, like the example you choose, who pretend to be uniformed personnel to carry out their crimes and this is clearly not the fault of the military or the uniform.
Not all the fakes are civilians.
Now, how many bin men fake their time cards, how many call in sick when they want a day off, how many slope off early when the work day is nearly over, how many have corporation shovels in their tool shed at home? Your suggestion that more uniformed people cheat than bin men is ludicrous, statistically indefensible, insulting, unpatriotic and morally ridiculous.
Self-righteousness is a characteristic of some uniform wearers.

Churchill demonstrated he was an ah sole from his earliest days in Afghanistan.
Churchill can be blamed for being a tough operator but I wouldn't take the site you link to too seriously. For instance, when the author of the article you linked to discusses Africa he conveniently omits any reference to Mau Mau. On the other hand put these events into the scales on the side of saving Europe and, perhaps, the free world and how are the scales going to balance? Got news for you John, great leaders are not always nice guys, it comes with being successful.
Churchill demonstrated he was an ah sole from his earliest days in Afghanistan.
John, the death totals I gave are only for UK and Commonwealth military personnel.
Did you forget all the other countries caught up in WWII?

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2019 2:30 am
by boing
Not all the fakes are civilians.
Poor logic John. If a military person commits a crime wearing their issued uniform they may be charged with the crime but they cannot be accused of faking the uniform since it is a genuine uniform and they are entitled to wear it. Clearly if a civilian wears a current military or other official uniform he is going to be a fake and in some cases. ie impersonating a police officer, he could be in serious trouble.

It might be interesting if you can provide us with some examples to support your assertion. I can provide multiple examples of civilians who have dressed up as fake police officers or fake doctors.

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Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:05 am
by John Hill

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2019 4:42 am
by John Hill

Re: The US Hamster Wheel

Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:28 am
by boing
John, thanks for making the effort to find examples but we need something a bit more solid for your claim to be credible.

A Nigerian civilian (he had recently been dismissed from the Army) subsequently impersonating an officer actually counts as a civilian impersonating a member of the military which is exactly the reverse of what you were trying to claim. And this is Nigeria after all, is anyone surprised ?

A German soldier accused of impersonating a civilian (can you do that ??) doesn't really count either especially since although he was accused of his offense two years ago he has subsequently apparently never been charged with any crime.

Which leaves us with the British soldier impersonating a police officer. It actually sounds as though he needs some mental help. Regardless he was fined the sum of 835 pounds plus court costs which hardly suggests the judge thought he was a great threat to society. I doubt he warrants your vitriolic claim of " fakes, incompetents, poseurs and general bastards".

And finally your last post regarding PTSD and veterans. A tough subject. I myself have employed veterans with widely varying results. One was a delight to work with and he later went on to great things with our hearty endorsement. Another one of them appeared totally normal most of the time but you would sometimes find him smoking a cigarette during a break and he would sit outside for a long time with an unfocused stare into the distance in some sort of trance, very sad and disturbing. I really do think that it is unfair to accuse veterans who may have gone through traumatic experiences of faking their symptoms as the "Former top military psychiatrist" mentioned in this article did, perhaps that is why he is "Former".

You will be pleased to know I am going to be "off the air" for a few days since our internet infrastructure is being totally replaced. See you later.



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