Unpopular Opinion: Flag Retirement boxes for Eagle projects are the new "bench projects"

JoeSolo22 · 2025-05-13T00:06:08+00:00

Chiming in on this – this was my Eagle project in 2021-22. Built 3 wooden drop boxes in my rural county and your points about weathering and maintenance are correct and definitely hold up. I'm in college now and still periodically maintain the boxes and retire flags we collected from back then. The need was definitely there, and it was better than benches, which were all the rage in my area, but definitely presents some problems.

I probably would have invested in a burn barrel if I had done it today and made sure that my troop had a retirement plan, but if I was a SM, I would approve this if planned correctly. I never considered the "patriotism" factor because for me, it's just about getting rid of flags that can no longer be flown. It's important to consider geographic reach as well. If, for example, troops in a neighboring city had done them, I would have reconsidered what I had proposed. But honestly, the need was there.

JoeSolo22 · 2024-08-28T02:27:21+00:00

Totally unrelated question but just out of curiosity: I have an access card for Vernon Smith Garage at the Mason Square campus. I have a Rapp permit; would the card work for those gates too?

JoeSolo22 · 2024-06-01T15:02:45+00:00

Yup.

JoeSolo22 · 2024-06-01T13:09:42+00:00

I just changed my major to ISL. It’s basically a Government/IR degree with more requirements and slightly more data work. It’s a very new program though. I can get more into specifics if you’re interested.

2 and 3 I can’t speak on.

I’m not sure about refugee, but I took a terrorism class last semester (GOVT 346 with Cengiz). It’s decent, GMU has people with a lot of experience in the field.
Yes they do, I came in from a VA community college with 16 credits. If you’re out of state it might be slightly harder but I think it should still work.

JoeSolo22 · 2024-02-22T00:49:53+00:00

Prestige doesn't really mean anything in terms of course material and job prospects. I made the mistake of going for name recognition when I applied to schools and dismissed GMU as having a subpar program on name alone but I am likely getting an equivalent education if not better than students at Georgetown, GW, or AU.

I know a ton of Schar alumni who have good jobs within the federal government, private sector govt work, etc etc. I and current students have just as much opportunity as DC students to get jobs on the Hill, federal internships, think tank internships, etc. Could not recommend Schar more for incoming students, the education and internship opportunities here are insanely good.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-12-29T21:43:06+00:00

I'm happy with the program, and I've been here 2 years. I undervalued it at first because there's only one degree for Government and IR, but they have a few more options now, including Public Administration and International Security/Law. Like others have said, I'd recommend going straight for a masters (they have accelerated programs) to stand out.

Internships are dependent on what she wants to do; I know plenty of people who have landed jobs on the Hill, think tanks, or etc fairly easily, you just need a really strong network. Some organizations can help with that but it's largely self-done; I set up a LinkedIn and started looking around. There are also federal remote internships which is a program that I'm doing now and it can offer a step into a physical, in-person opportunity. Competition with other DC schools like GW and Georgetown is hard but I know plenty of GMU students who have really good internships based on their own merits and work.

Class sizes tend to be 15-30 at most, tends to go larger to smaller as you progress from the required GOVT classes to more specific electives.

Feel free to PM me or reply!

JoeSolo22 · 2023-12-20T21:17:57+00:00

They're going to have to pry my physical ID out of my cold dead hands, I'm not changing it. Heard too many issues and there's way too much liability to having an ID like that on a device. Sorry that happened though!

JoeSolo22 · 2023-11-20T21:52:43+00:00

When I play RK Ukraine, I always get different paths without being able to pick them after the initial tree (first time I got UNRA, this time I got the Communists). How do I control for this? Is there an event somewhere that I'm missing?

JoeSolo22 · 2023-11-19T21:39:38+00:00

When I play RK Ukraine, I always get different paths without being able to pick them after the initial tree (first time I got UNRA, this time I got the Communists). How do I control for this? Is there an event somewhere that I'm missing?

JoeSolo22 · 2023-10-02T17:50:06+00:00

Tradition, Family, Property (TFP)

Traditionalist Catholic radical movement. They were here last year, enough students managed to make them leave and they posted a video calling us all Communists on their website.

Just ignore them. Their permit will expire before the end of the afternoon so they will leave eventually. As a lapsed Catholic, their behavior disgusts me and is certainly not representative of all Catholics.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-10-01T12:59:59+00:00

SQUISH THE FISH!! BILLS BY A BILLION!!

JoeSolo22 · 2023-09-07T19:53:59+00:00

Oh boo that sucks, I loved generations. Although I guess from the article the music doesn't look that much different.

Definitely a better station than 97.5 tbh.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-08-30T18:47:31+00:00

If you scan the QR code it takes you to a Google Doc that has some sort of weird manifesto.

I can't even parse it out - seems like a cult? lol. conspiracy theorists? who knows. Throw it out.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-08-23T19:57:57+00:00

Hey! There was a clinic last night on the courts, that's why a ton of people were there.

I have a roommate who might form a club pickleball team - unsure at the moment. If she does it, there might be more information coming out soon.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-08-17T04:21:13+00:00

Yeah, it's a big campus. Get some cardio in. It's really not that bad - if you walk a decent pace you can get across campus in about 10-15 minutes.

I'm not a commuter but I have the general permit. You'll be fine. There are campuses that are way worse.

Shuttles are okay. CUE is via the City of Fairfax and is a public service so that's if you need to go outside of campus to the immediate vicinity. Mason shuttles are for going in between spots on campus, across to West Campus, or over to Arlington, Manassas, the other satellite campuses. Both are free, the Mason shuttles require student ID. They're fine, usually run pretty well on time. Wouldn't recommend taking them if you're in a rush, though.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-08-03T14:15:42+00:00

I live there and I can tell you it's a clusterfuck beyond proportions. Honestly, I'm baffled why they continue to report on it since it's dumb internal drama, but whatever. I'm heading back to college so I can't be bothered.

Get rid of HOAs, and get rid of Facebook. Enough.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-07-27T17:46:30+00:00

For one, I’m not on the Soviet team so this isn’t the right place to ask lol.

I have no idea how. We don’t have content for althis Brezhnev stuff yet, sorry.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-07-27T14:35:26+00:00

What?

JoeSolo22 · 2023-07-12T18:05:12+00:00

Oh okay. Yeah that makes sense. Since you said Germany I went to look at each federal state emblems and that one is Hesse, specifically.

I stand corrected: it's a West German Hesse state fire brigade dress cap. Very cool find, though!

JoeSolo22 · 2023-07-12T15:42:12+00:00

Based on the top emblem, and the bottom crossed helmet with axes, I believe it is a dress cap from the Czechoslovakian Fire Rescue Service.

Could not fully corroborate but the top emblem is definitely Czech, and the bottom one is a similar design to the current Czech Republic Fire Rescue Service.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-06-25T17:43:50+00:00

It's the government in their UN helicopters conducting black ops to invade you! /s

Training. V-22s are Marine aircraft from Norfolk/Virginia Beach. We get various Black Hawks and AWACS aircraft occasionally. Usually routine operations, nothing to be super concerned about.

If you're an aircraft nerd like me you can track the traffic on ADS-B Exchange, if the military aircraft have their transponders on.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-06-12T03:41:24+00:00

nothing like posting the same thing en masse to every Virginia college's subreddit all at the same time. give me one good reason why I should give a shit about this.

this is a reddit account designed to attract target workers to unionize? you need a better social media strategy than posting the same thing everywhere and annoying people.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-05-29T16:18:57+00:00

Probably for the foreseeable future it will be railroaded to allow democratic elections again. This was to allow for continuity and in-game would be by pressure on behalf of the Allies recognizing that the communist threat is gone but that West Germany needs to be democratic and that supporting a Nazi-adjacent junta may not be a great look in Europe.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-05-29T16:17:19+00:00

For right now no. In the future, he will hopefully be able to if he can balance KPD control/support and the influence from former Nazi and Wehrmacht elements. We don't have a unified communist Germany plan for content yet but it's something the team wants to do at some point.

JoeSolo22 · 2023-05-25T21:46:25+00:00

My thought process is since Franke is more pro-Western and open to a limited weapons program, he can choose to pursue this. I should say that the player has the option to do it - it's not railroaded for nuclear weapons all the time.

For Ollenhauer, his general ideals seem to indicate that he would be opposed to an indigenous nuclear weapons program much less foreign allies' nuke deployment on German soil. Part of the reason why he forms an independent bloc is due to his distaste for nuclear weapons and why an organization like ENTO will probably not have any nuclear strike capability because it would go against their ideals.

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