XBradTC

From the mailbag:

“You know all the homeless vets we see out there on the streets?  Half of them are just 2LTs that got lost on a Land Nav course.”

Thanks, LT Rusty.

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The Army faces a morale problem:

More than half of some 770,000 soldiers are pessimistic about their future in the military and nearly as many are unhappy in their jobs, despite a six-year, $287 million campaign to make troops more optimistic and resilient, findings obtained by USA TODAY show.

Twelve months of data through early 2015 show that 403,564 soldiers, or 52 percent, scored badly in the area of optimism, agreeing with statements such as “I rarely count on good things happening to me.” Forty-eight percent have little satisfaction in or commitment to their jobs.

The results stem from resiliency assessments that soldiers are required to take every year. In 2014, for the first time, the Army pulled data from those assessments to help commanders gauge the psychological and physical health of their troops.

Well no kidding. Faced with slashed budgets and personnel cuts, and uncertainty, troops are going to be a tad stressed. Further, the social engineering that civilian leadership insists upon isn’t helping. Finally, computer based training and mandatory surveys such as this are universally despised, so making PFC Joe Snuffy take the survey, and inviting him to bitch, is virtually guaranteed to elicit a negative response.

That’s not to say there aren’t morale issues, but don’t panic just yet.

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An update on Brazil’s C-1A Trader modernization. Brazil wants to use them as COD and as tankers for their airwing.

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The X-47B managed to plug a tanker.

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More to come.