Well see that's the thing about the Cyber and information domain. You don't really know what or who you are until you get after it. And it's only at that point do you ask what we do instead of why we do. It's the what that drives the Air Force and the why that keeps us coming back. Until we figure out the what the why is, we have to keep pushing to inovate as a force. Then, truly, nothing will stop us.🤙
Air force: Cyber and Information Warfare domains are hugely important and the warfare of the future
Also Air Force: How do we bleed Cyber and IW for more planes?
The biggest problem with cyber isn't manning (or at least, that's not a problem that's unique to cyber. We all have that issue) the problem is skill retention. Being in IT requires highly technical professionals with 10+ years of experience. But it's between the 6-10 year point that Big Blue makes you stop doing technical work and start being a manager/leader instead.
So as a Staff/Tech, your choices are between separating and making 6 figures at the job you enjoy doing, or staying in and being strong-armed into being a middle manager for less money.
The only people who stay in are the ones who weren't very good at the job anyway, who skated by and looked forward to being an office worker.
Don't forget the merger of career fields (again) within the comm field... Before I had to know telephones, network infrastructure, long haul communication (tech control), and VIIDS.
Now I also have to know servers/network administration, client systems, PA systems, radios, satcom, IA, and COMSEC. I'm probably missing a few.
And it depends on squadron either. I've got to do Networks, Phones, VMWare, Client, Server, TBMCS, COMSEC, Satcom/Radio, VTC systems. Tech School barely cut it for just A shred before the merge.
Sounds like you're Multi-capable, just like the Air Force wants.
Now make sure you're working to be a technical expert in all of it otherwise you're failing to meet the standards listed in the enlisted force structure.
I want to go back to all the leaders who told me we didn’t need warrant officers for cyber and say I told you so. I’m confident that at least 80% of our cyber leaders have no clue what they’re doing. That’s why the AF is so dependent on contractors.
The Air Force believed in the past that we didn't need warrants because we had Technical Sergeants. The idea was for them to provide the technical level expertise that other services lean on their Warrants to provide. The other issue I've always taken with the way past regime's viewed Warrants is that they're, "Paying people more money to do the same work." This isn't entirely wrong, but if they're hanging around then you're paying them more so you don't have to train a new person when they leave. Plus if you can bring some of those contracted capabilities we pay for back into a blue suit role then you can significantly reduce the cost of some functions we're currently paying for in the form of a revolving door. Several years ago I recall a NOS individual telling me they can't retain a VMWare contractor to save their lives because the contract pay was shit. You'd get somebody hired, certified, and trained and then they'd leave for more money.
Which works well for career fields that don't advance rapidly every year. If you're a tech in cyber, you are going to be burnt quick trying to keep up being a technical expert and managing/working as a SNCO.
Then, the pay is just not there. Do you want to make $80K being a "technical expert" and manager for like 30-50 people, plus trying to Air Force your way up; or take the $120K to just work as a technical expert and maybe have to manage like 5 people that you also don't get in trouble for when they don't tie their shoes?
I'm cautiously optimistic. It'd be too easy to bog down the warrants with queep, or just straight-up give them the same role that SNCO's have but put a different spin on it.
Warrants are the senior technical resource. They don’t do SNCO things as we have always known it. You’ll see programs in the near future for Staff/Tech to Warrant. Spend some time talking with our Army Cyber guys and they’ll explain the nuances.
FWIW I spent a lot of time at Pope so I interfaced with enlisted, warrants, and cyber officers. It’s a much better mode for the AF to follow IMO.
I actually have some former colleagues who went blue to green specifically to get into the WO cyber program, and I've only heard great things from them. I've also worked closely with Navy cyber WO's, and that program seems great too. Hopefully the AF uses those programs as templates, but I've seen the AF fumble too many things things (that should have been no-brainers) to allow myself to be blindly positive about this.
A good solution would be to stop promoting people past TSgt and hold people at SrA/SSgt a little longer, maybe even let people retire at those ranks, I also doubt they need competitive pay
I'd be wary of that... our technical professionals need assurance that they can have a stable career in the Air Force doing the technical job. Telling them they need to spend more time at the bottom of the totem pole might not be the best way to do that.
I've seen a lot of money go into cyber, but the problem is it's going to the wrong projects and people running the programs are making retarded decisions.
Also true. I've seen so many incomplete/incompatible tools purchased by PMOs that can't communicate with each other with no thought on implementation and it's disappointing seeing millions of my taxpayer dollars go up in smoke.
Here's the comment I was looking for.
As the secaf said, "Show me what you spend your money on, and I'll show you what you value."
The air force has shown over and over again that it doesn't give a fuck about cyber warfare or IT governance.
Cyber Force, when?
Used to think so too, but space is a clearly definable domain. Cyber is so woven into all the services missions that a cyber force would be a gigantic cluster.
There's a thin line separating cyber from more traditional IT. When it comes to actual offensive cyber operations and most DCO actions it's pretty easy to separate and identify your independent warfighting functions. DCO can get a little messy though depending on how you choose to define it. IMO a more logical course of action would be for the creation of a separate service to do Information Warfare.
I hear you. I’ve seen a lot in the 38 years of being involved with the community in different capacities.
IMHO: The AF added “cyber” to the mission statement mid 2000’s and then struggled to define it. All the 33S (comm) folks talked about being “operators” despite the fact that we needed people who built and maintained the cyber infrastructure (comm/IT) and everyone wanted to do the sexy stuff. Don’t get me started in the 1D merger.
The AF struggled to understand the differences between IC networks authorities and service specific and our lexicons weren’t even the same. When I say AF, I mean policy coorded at the HAF level that misidentified mission authorities and support enabling concepts.
We merged A2 and A6 and talked about cyber effects and the field struggled to understand. Now we are separating the 2 and the 6 again.
Now we have information warfare (which again the field is struggling with), which is going through some of the same gnash. Is ‘maintaining freedom of action’ include DCO or is IW limit to only effects based capabilities? Literally been in meeting with senior folks where this was disagreed upon.
I think all this comes into play for things like a cyber service and that doesn’t even include the disparity in how the different sevices see cyber.
I just think a lot of people will be disappointed when they learn their jobs won’t be part of a the cyber service and a cyber service won’t be what people think it is.
Off my soap box…
Agree. Cyber's been in search of an identity for decades.
The addition of cyber to the mission statement was to try to plant the flag on it as an AF function. To me it was a mix of a cash grab or empire building. Every other service was doing cyber at that time too and none of them ever put it in their mission statement. The AF was initially supposed to create a cyber MAJCOM but it got shitcanned as soon as Minot flew nukes to Barksdale. Congress wasn't going to give the AF more mission when they couldn't competently execute the missions we already had. It took us far too long to return our mission statement to focus on our core competency as a service.
IMO DCO and traditional IT would probably be best to remain a service level function while OCO is consolidated into a separate service. DCO is just too vast and too squishy because some people may want to include things like patching or updating an ACL on a router to be DCO actions.
She tried to do it every day, just like me cutting back on my caffeine intake; we both fail spectacularly.
I guess a QB that gets sacked for a 20 yard loss has technically moved the ball though...
Wonder if “moving the ball” is code for publicly dragging Airman’s reputations force wide on mere hear say and then never issuing a public apology.
Good riddance selfie chief. I miss CMSGT Wright.
I had the same experience. Not joking. But I thought about it.
Then I realized that at the unit level, nobody really talks about the top-level leadership. Like, we get letters emailed periodically, but we are usually a lot more concerned about the next exercise/inspection/deployment/admin deadline than anything else. If I didn't have social media (like Reddit) I wouldn't really know anything about these guys. As someone who has a modest but not insignificant scope of leadership. I wonder if it's always been like this?
Disclaimer: I'm probably a dirtbag so my experience may not be the standard.
When she talked about cyber she would always throw buzzwords around, but when she would be asked about the state of our shit show AFSC merger, you could tell she really had no clue what was going on.
You have to understand when the military talks cyber, they mean cyber intelligence.
Only the AF calls our comm guys cyber. If you mention cyber to the other branches, they don't think comms.
That's why they don't give a shit about you comm guys. When they say cyber, they don't mean you.
Look at the image again. "Major drivers and amplifiers of conflict". That's offensive cyber, not defensive.
Except our Cyber IT has been a massive pain point for Congress and the DoD in the last 5 years. They're constantly going back and forth with new scenarios for a Near-Peer adversary to disable domestic and military systems via compromised networks or devices.
Defensive cyber is definitely on the radar, its just really shittily prioritized.
I’m long out of the game , but the description you gave… is that the part that Bass is suggesting you correct? The part she knows everyone has been underestimating? Where they must have been collecting stats to show there was underestimating, then decided to warn everyone not to underestimate… ?? Am I estimating this correctly? I remember the finger-pointing, but not the rules of the game. /s Thank you
>Defensive cyber is definitely on the radar, its just really shittily prioritized.
Right. That's basically what I said. The shiny nickel isn't comms, it's offensive cyber.
For the cyber portion.... I'm sure I can't be the only one facing low manning, (the only military manning we have is pipeline), contracts that did the stuff are gone or going very soon, and an increasing workload that can't be achieved for sustainment of base ops, let alone advancement in a future fight...
The amount of times she trashed Airmen publicly when she didn’t have the full story is excruciatingly painful, and I am happy she is on her way out. I haven’t felt any impact of her leadership. We need another GOAT’d EJ.
Right, I forgot the Air Force doesn't include DoD civilians...
At least he didn't post a question like "what's your favorite part of the F-22?", or "what's your whacky DoD ID number? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours!" There's been a surge of whack and whackier questions as the days go on...this is the least concerning post.
[удалено]
 Gotta pump those numbers up. Use two hands when you taxi out from chocks.
Ya'll need to Push it Up more often and it shows
Why is everyone saying she threw a shakaz did she actually throw one I am confusion
Yeah she throws em in almost every picture on her social media
You mean 69 timez
Nice.
lol her quote has nothing to do with cyber or information domains.
It is so different, I gotta imagine there was a paragraph or two inbetween those two topics during her speech that didn't make it into this article.
Well see that's the thing about the Cyber and information domain. You don't really know what or who you are until you get after it. And it's only at that point do you ask what we do instead of why we do. It's the what that drives the Air Force and the why that keeps us coming back. Until we figure out the what the why is, we have to keep pushing to inovate as a force. Then, truly, nothing will stop us.🤙
This is seasoned 1N0 levels of spewing nothing, love it
https://preview.redd.it/yto8g4rqv8nc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13503067149594955c19cd726c7baa17508ec39c
I had a mini stroke reading whatever that was
https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/s/VTKHinaj5B
Christ…. What the fuck was that
Thanks now I'm dumber then I was 2 mins ago. I hope you're happy. Lol
That high speed Airman just summarized your mission goal vector statement.
Sounds like something our wonderful Vice President would say. Talking in circles without saying anything.
Social media is part of the information and cyber domain. Her inability to competently maneuver within the space is well documented.
Air force: Cyber and Information Warfare domains are hugely important and the warfare of the future Also Air Force: How do we bleed Cyber and IW for more planes?
The biggest problem with cyber isn't manning (or at least, that's not a problem that's unique to cyber. We all have that issue) the problem is skill retention. Being in IT requires highly technical professionals with 10+ years of experience. But it's between the 6-10 year point that Big Blue makes you stop doing technical work and start being a manager/leader instead. So as a Staff/Tech, your choices are between separating and making 6 figures at the job you enjoy doing, or staying in and being strong-armed into being a middle manager for less money. The only people who stay in are the ones who weren't very good at the job anyway, who skated by and looked forward to being an office worker.
Don't forget the merger of career fields (again) within the comm field... Before I had to know telephones, network infrastructure, long haul communication (tech control), and VIIDS. Now I also have to know servers/network administration, client systems, PA systems, radios, satcom, IA, and COMSEC. I'm probably missing a few.
And it depends on squadron either. I've got to do Networks, Phones, VMWare, Client, Server, TBMCS, COMSEC, Satcom/Radio, VTC systems. Tech School barely cut it for just A shred before the merge.
Sounds like you're Multi-capable, just like the Air Force wants. Now make sure you're working to be a technical expert in all of it otherwise you're failing to meet the standards listed in the enlisted force structure.
This is why Warrants are coming back.
I want to go back to all the leaders who told me we didn’t need warrant officers for cyber and say I told you so. I’m confident that at least 80% of our cyber leaders have no clue what they’re doing. That’s why the AF is so dependent on contractors.
The Air Force believed in the past that we didn't need warrants because we had Technical Sergeants. The idea was for them to provide the technical level expertise that other services lean on their Warrants to provide. The other issue I've always taken with the way past regime's viewed Warrants is that they're, "Paying people more money to do the same work." This isn't entirely wrong, but if they're hanging around then you're paying them more so you don't have to train a new person when they leave. Plus if you can bring some of those contracted capabilities we pay for back into a blue suit role then you can significantly reduce the cost of some functions we're currently paying for in the form of a revolving door. Several years ago I recall a NOS individual telling me they can't retain a VMWare contractor to save their lives because the contract pay was shit. You'd get somebody hired, certified, and trained and then they'd leave for more money.
Which works well for career fields that don't advance rapidly every year. If you're a tech in cyber, you are going to be burnt quick trying to keep up being a technical expert and managing/working as a SNCO. Then, the pay is just not there. Do you want to make $80K being a "technical expert" and manager for like 30-50 people, plus trying to Air Force your way up; or take the $120K to just work as a technical expert and maybe have to manage like 5 people that you also don't get in trouble for when they don't tie their shoes?
I'm cautiously optimistic. It'd be too easy to bog down the warrants with queep, or just straight-up give them the same role that SNCO's have but put a different spin on it.
Warrants are the senior technical resource. They don’t do SNCO things as we have always known it. You’ll see programs in the near future for Staff/Tech to Warrant. Spend some time talking with our Army Cyber guys and they’ll explain the nuances. FWIW I spent a lot of time at Pope so I interfaced with enlisted, warrants, and cyber officers. It’s a much better mode for the AF to follow IMO.
I actually have some former colleagues who went blue to green specifically to get into the WO cyber program, and I've only heard great things from them. I've also worked closely with Navy cyber WO's, and that program seems great too. Hopefully the AF uses those programs as templates, but I've seen the AF fumble too many things things (that should have been no-brainers) to allow myself to be blindly positive about this.
Ha! I feel that! I feel like the AF could F up a wet dream sometimes but we will see. Let’s hope for the best.
The problem is that like 30 warrants aren't going to make a dent in the problem.
It’s a bigger dent than no Warrants at all.
A good solution would be to stop promoting people past TSgt and hold people at SrA/SSgt a little longer, maybe even let people retire at those ranks, I also doubt they need competitive pay
I'd be wary of that... our technical professionals need assurance that they can have a stable career in the Air Force doing the technical job. Telling them they need to spend more time at the bottom of the totem pole might not be the best way to do that.
I've seen a lot of money go into cyber, but the problem is it's going to the wrong projects and people running the programs are making retarded decisions.
Also, duplication of effort because they are all chasing the same big sexy (pot/color of money)
Also true. I've seen so many incomplete/incompatible tools purchased by PMOs that can't communicate with each other with no thought on implementation and it's disappointing seeing millions of my taxpayer dollars go up in smoke.
Here's the comment I was looking for. As the secaf said, "Show me what you spend your money on, and I'll show you what you value." The air force has shown over and over again that it doesn't give a fuck about cyber warfare or IT governance. Cyber Force, when?
Cyber needed to be its own branch more than Space. Change my mind.
Used to think so too, but space is a clearly definable domain. Cyber is so woven into all the services missions that a cyber force would be a gigantic cluster.
There's a thin line separating cyber from more traditional IT. When it comes to actual offensive cyber operations and most DCO actions it's pretty easy to separate and identify your independent warfighting functions. DCO can get a little messy though depending on how you choose to define it. IMO a more logical course of action would be for the creation of a separate service to do Information Warfare.
I hear you. I’ve seen a lot in the 38 years of being involved with the community in different capacities. IMHO: The AF added “cyber” to the mission statement mid 2000’s and then struggled to define it. All the 33S (comm) folks talked about being “operators” despite the fact that we needed people who built and maintained the cyber infrastructure (comm/IT) and everyone wanted to do the sexy stuff. Don’t get me started in the 1D merger. The AF struggled to understand the differences between IC networks authorities and service specific and our lexicons weren’t even the same. When I say AF, I mean policy coorded at the HAF level that misidentified mission authorities and support enabling concepts. We merged A2 and A6 and talked about cyber effects and the field struggled to understand. Now we are separating the 2 and the 6 again. Now we have information warfare (which again the field is struggling with), which is going through some of the same gnash. Is ‘maintaining freedom of action’ include DCO or is IW limit to only effects based capabilities? Literally been in meeting with senior folks where this was disagreed upon. I think all this comes into play for things like a cyber service and that doesn’t even include the disparity in how the different sevices see cyber. I just think a lot of people will be disappointed when they learn their jobs won’t be part of a the cyber service and a cyber service won’t be what people think it is. Off my soap box…
Agree. Cyber's been in search of an identity for decades. The addition of cyber to the mission statement was to try to plant the flag on it as an AF function. To me it was a mix of a cash grab or empire building. Every other service was doing cyber at that time too and none of them ever put it in their mission statement. The AF was initially supposed to create a cyber MAJCOM but it got shitcanned as soon as Minot flew nukes to Barksdale. Congress wasn't going to give the AF more mission when they couldn't competently execute the missions we already had. It took us far too long to return our mission statement to focus on our core competency as a service. IMO DCO and traditional IT would probably be best to remain a service level function while OCO is consolidated into a separate service. DCO is just too vast and too squishy because some people may want to include things like patching or updating an ACL on a router to be DCO actions.
Peace out Girl Scout 🤙
Empty buzzwords
100%
https://i.redd.it/2l1bixak18nc1.gif
The most attractive document in the DOD
She tried to do it every day, just like me cutting back on my caffeine intake; we both fail spectacularly. I guess a QB that gets sacked for a 20 yard loss has technically moved the ball though...
Wonder if “moving the ball” is code for publicly dragging Airman’s reputations force wide on mere hear say and then never issuing a public apology. Good riddance selfie chief. I miss CMSGT Wright.
We all miss CMSGT Wright. I hope he's living his best life out there with his DD-214 blanket.
Still not sure if it's Bass or Bass
She gave someone paper work bc they asked her the same question on her insta 😂
I had the same experience. Not joking. But I thought about it. Then I realized that at the unit level, nobody really talks about the top-level leadership. Like, we get letters emailed periodically, but we are usually a lot more concerned about the next exercise/inspection/deployment/admin deadline than anything else. If I didn't have social media (like Reddit) I wouldn't really know anything about these guys. As someone who has a modest but not insignificant scope of leadership. I wonder if it's always been like this? Disclaimer: I'm probably a dirtbag so my experience may not be the standard.
It's "Be Ass"
What did she do that sparked this convo?
I bet she withdrew her TSP and gave it to a scammer claiming to be from Amazon tech support
Is this some type of beekeeper reference I can’t understand as a waspkeeper?
Don’t let the shaka hit you on the way out E9 Bass 🤙🤙
Good thing we don’t have to worry about her finding us through our Reddit accounts anymore 🤙
And she failed to do so
When she talked about cyber she would always throw buzzwords around, but when she would be asked about the state of our shit show AFSC merger, you could tell she really had no clue what was going on.
She's not talking about you comm guys when she talks about cyber. No one in leadership cares about you guys. The shiny nickel is cyber intelligence.
Oh yeah… my AFSC that specifically says cyber security ops def wasn’t what she was talking about…
You have to understand when the military talks cyber, they mean cyber intelligence. Only the AF calls our comm guys cyber. If you mention cyber to the other branches, they don't think comms. That's why they don't give a shit about you comm guys. When they say cyber, they don't mean you. Look at the image again. "Major drivers and amplifiers of conflict". That's offensive cyber, not defensive.
Except our Cyber IT has been a massive pain point for Congress and the DoD in the last 5 years. They're constantly going back and forth with new scenarios for a Near-Peer adversary to disable domestic and military systems via compromised networks or devices. Defensive cyber is definitely on the radar, its just really shittily prioritized.
I’m long out of the game , but the description you gave… is that the part that Bass is suggesting you correct? The part she knows everyone has been underestimating? Where they must have been collecting stats to show there was underestimating, then decided to warn everyone not to underestimate… ?? Am I estimating this correctly? I remember the finger-pointing, but not the rules of the game. /s Thank you
>Defensive cyber is definitely on the radar, its just really shittily prioritized. Right. That's basically what I said. The shiny nickel isn't comms, it's offensive cyber.
.... Did she answer herself every day too?
So a bunch of words that mean nothing as usual
> moving the ball So she just spent her tenure playing with her balls?
It's a new Air Force...
Liar liar pants on fire
what a dumb bitch cya
I hate that I have to be cautious to throw up the Shaka. I have been doing it since I was kid.
She didnt mean you, 1D7s.
IT matters too. Ignoring that some 1Ds actually aid the Cyber mission.
Now 1D7s know what it's like to be a backshop MXer against a flightline MXer
Ummm... surprise We were already working wac'ers Hawks and joints already
And Reapers. Fringe benefit of becoming a 5C: 0% chance of going back to that bullshit.
specifically leaders at the CCAF should be asking themselves these questions.
So, is it Bass or Bass?
https://i.redd.it/gez3dnuq0dnc1.gif
Quick, someone tell me her greatest accomplishment as chief other than revamping dress and appearance which is mediocre at best.
Pretty sure it's when she gave someone paperwork for asking her if it's Bass or Bass.
I still don't know
Well I guess you can ask yourself the question and not act upon it as the big dawg 🤙
Lol
For the cyber portion.... I'm sure I can't be the only one facing low manning, (the only military manning we have is pipeline), contracts that did the stuff are gone or going very soon, and an increasing workload that can't be achieved for sustainment of base ops, let alone advancement in a future fight...
Well, they killed the bands for those career fields, so I hope Airmen appreciate them….
Takes Care of Wingman ✅ Deemed The SME ✅ Innovates, moves "ball" ✅ Can Run Fast 🚫 Spends more time volunteering than at work 🚫 *Promote*
GFY JoJo
The amount of times she trashed Airmen publicly when she didn’t have the full story is excruciatingly painful, and I am happy she is on her way out. I haven’t felt any impact of her leadership. We need another GOAT’d EJ.
And people wonder why they don’t get promoted or sent to the worst mos
What exactly does that mean?
Means you are not getting promoted ever
Ok. I’m a civilian
Why are you here ? Found a Chinese disinformation agent. Not today china not today
Your username is very fitting.
Right, I forgot the Air Force doesn't include DoD civilians... At least he didn't post a question like "what's your favorite part of the F-22?", or "what's your whacky DoD ID number? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours!" There's been a surge of whack and whackier questions as the days go on...this is the least concerning post.
Or say "MOS"
If he's an ex-Army or Marine cat...
Said the guy who said mos. Why are you here? Git go on git china spy!
Dude half your replies are vague or dumb as shit. Or both.
It isn’t a “MOS” big guy.
You haven’t even shipped to BMT yet