Leaderboard

Exactly. My last feedback session with my flt/cc involved him telling me, through gritted teeth, to get my MA finished up and to get SOS in correspondence knocked out ASAP. He's a former fighter dude and honestly I could tell what he wanted to tell me was to stay in the vault and concentrate on my upgrade, but he's saying what he has to say to keep his people competitive. The pendulum has swung way too far in the direction of queep and like it's been said numerous times before, being good, even excellent at your primary duty does not factor in to you being promoted almost at all, which is absolutely insane when our primary duties are as important as they are and our MAs in Basket Weaving and SOS completion certificates are as worthless as we all know they are. Like Danny said above, I don't exactly need to spend time "grasping the bigger picture" here as a CGO in a flying position during wartime. I like education and would probably pursue masters work even if it wasn't required, but that (and entry-level PME) should not be the focus and they are because you will not get promoted without those boxes checked. There are 6-9 thousand FGOs above me who can get working on the bigger picture and another 6-9 thousand O-6+ who can actually be in a position to affect broader strategy. Someone needs to give almost their entire focus on cultivating and maintaining tactical excellence and that person should be the crew dog flying the line every day.

I don't want to be rude, however, your post fills me with an overwhelming urge to murder a baby seal, step on a kitten, shake a baby, or untuck my PT shirt in front of a Chief. Instead of induldging those options, I'll simply tell you that I totally disagree. I DO want people working for me who do the absolute minimum amount of queep to get by. Why? Because I want to fly into combat with dudes who are in the vault, know their systems cold, understand capabilities of every platform they'll work with, know CDE, understand the LTA process, have the confidence to assault a target in any weather, and most importantly: are filled with a burning desire to hunt and kill the enemy. Because at the end of the day, battles are won by a handful of dudes with the diligence, persistance and passion to fight despite the myraid of obstacles they face. Maybe you don't have this kind of job, I don't know what you fly. But I'll tell you point blank there are terrorists alive today because the people persuing them were young captains focused on their masters whose minds weren't in the game the night an opportunity presented itself. 100%. We are smothering our combat forces with bullshit. The majority of guys around me have accepted we'll likely burn out as career Majors or LtCols for the chance to be on the line in the fight. And people like you question their place because they've only done "the minimum?" See why I want to step on a kitten? The AF recently retired a guy who logged the most combat hours of anyone in any service. He retired as a Major after 17+ deployments. That should tell you the system is fucking broken; instead you ask if I really want to fly with someone like him who only did "the minimum." The answer is yes, he was a warrior and I'd fly with him into the worst.

What the AF "Leadership" needs to realize is that officers at the tactical level should be focused on things tactical. Do you want to know what the leadership is stressing during the "Welcome Brief" for new CGOs?? "Get your masters done, do PME via correspondence," and it becomes the culture of our youngest officers to focus more on self-serving actions than the mission of the squadron. Commanders are only relaying information they are getting from higher levels on "what it takes to get promoted." And they are right. The Air Force really doesn't seem to care much about how well we do our jobs...just that we have masters degrees, and that we look good trying to do our jobs. That literally seems to be the focus. And what we end up seeing are people doing everything they can to make sure they stay promotable instead of doing their primary jobs well. In today's Air Force, they can do a mediocre job, but with a little wordsmithing on an OPR they sound like rockstars! Add in PME and AAD, and they are golden! I'm not at all saying AAD and PME isn't important. It is important that we know how DoD operates and, in some rare cases, an AAD can help facilitate new ideas on how we conduct business. We stay so busy that what we actually get for the money invested in AADs is operators who are not operating at their full tactical potential who spent the first 3-5 years of their career focused on getting a (in many cases) worthless online degree so they can help the AF stats in looking like the most educated force. I can't tell you how many times people disappear from work for a week at a time because they have a masters paper due. Some are even taking leave to do it. Really? Taking leave to finish PME? That is a direct failure of leadership. Just casually ask any CGO in your flying squadron what their priorities are in the squadron and they'll tell you 1) Finish Masters/PME 2) Do my additional duty (scheduling, tactics, training) 3) Fly. Of course I grew up during the Jumper years, so our commanders back then stressed 1) Know your aircraft! 2) Do PME in correspondence if you want to go in residence (although we still sent people without it done via correspondence) 3) Get a Masters. Of course things weren't as accelerated back then. Pin-on rates for Major didn't happen until 12 years or so. Now, eight years into your career you are considered for promotion to Major. After a year of UPT (probably after sitting casual for 6 months) and another 6 months of FTU, probably 2-3 months of MQT before you're really ready you are two years into your career and now only have 6 years to finish masters, SOS, and get a job where you can get face time with a commander who can ensure your promotion....and we haven't even talked about flying and deploying yet. Air Force, that is your problem...and until you fix the culture, all of your talented pilots who joined to fly will punch out and use their talents elsewhere, and you'll be left with self-serving, square-filling officers who really aren't as good as they could be at anything tactical. I say this in general...I think MOST of our rated force is very talented, but I also did my time in white jets, and I saw what we let through when we lowered the standards in order to increase pilot production in the mid 2000s. Great idea, but we've already seen that the AF doesn't honor contracts. They guarantee nothing other than the needs of the AF. Air Force: "10-year ADSC: You can't quit, but we can RIF you. Good luck!"

missing the point again. Of course you want the best commander. The question is, how do you get to be a good one? In a flying squadron, it begins by being credible in the jet. Maybe not the best pilot in the world, but definitely credible or folks simply won't follow you. After that, the traits of a great unit commander are mostly intangible....good with people, fair, involved, etc. Exactly zero traits of a good unit commander require a masters degree to obtain.

https://youtu.be/Ezk0e1VL80o Well done, Dodge. Happy Independence day!

dude here is where YOU miss the point. No one is denying that eventually officers need a broader focus. Key word...eventually. The problem is that the AF is demanding that broad focus out of O-2s and O-3s now. If guys that young all have a broad look then who exactly is supposed to be minding the narrowly focused tactical store? Broad focus is great for O-5+. When our operators are officers we cannot have a service that demands it's young officers be broadly focused or effective operations suffer.

Tac, I don't want to be rude, however, your post fills me with an overwhelming urge rip off my shirt, grow a huge beard, crush some heavy deadlift, or punch a Nazi in the face. Yes x 1 million. I know several dudes who are fangs-out mish hackers who have continuously stiff-armed the queep and are seeing their careers suffer for it. Likely to be "not continued" in the future. There is a fine line between principled stand and failing to take necessary self-preservation measures and perhaps they could have given a little more in terms of doing what's needed to stick around, but the sheer amount of BS has crushed the souls of many fine warriors who just want to kill people for a living and don't give a sh*t about a MA in Basket Weaving so they can make O-5. In the CAF and SOF especially, I want dudes who fly because it's the fastest way known to man to go from sitting peacefully in the TOC to finding and violently killing the enemy. That quality is not prized or even considered when it comes to career progression/advancement/awards/etc. The last time I checked the "paying your dues" part of our job was college/OTS/Zoo/ROTC/UPT/MWS qual/Q1 mission checkride/AC or flight lead upgrade/IP/EP. Once those are accomplished you have made it to the NFL-level of warfare and the focus should be on the mission rather than the career. In the end, no matter what you fly, none of us in the service are hoping the red-eye from Charlotte to Denver or chasing ambulances.

joe1234, nicely stated. A lot of the current angst feels like "I deserve something" or "The USAF owes me." The USAF doesn't owe any of us shit. Is it unethical to give people unreasonable career demands? Debatable. Look at the industry of law: new hires bust their asses for years at 80+ billable hours a week just to make partner and have a normal work week. The airlines: fly shitty routes for years to build the seniority to bid for good routes and aircraft. And so on. Every group has barriers to entry and a bunch of shit you have to put up with to "earn" your promotions and higher pay scales. Ours just happens to be PME and other things we've labeled queep. Does that make it right? No. I guess to put it another way: we'll define the minimum as PME complete and a Master's. I'm sure we've all heard the phrase "if the minimum wasn't good enough, why is it the minimum?" I've said it myself. However, the more I think about it, I come to the conclusion...do you really want people who just do the minimum? All that said, those of us who don't have our ATP yet...should really consider doing it, even if you're not sure you want to ever go to the airlines. Never close a door you don't have to.

And that is where you both miss the point. Did I ever say "doing queep above the minimum?" No. A dude who is in the vault, who knows his shit, can employ his weapon system, and has done the stated "minimum" of PME and Master's is not doing the minimum. Here is a thought...at some point your tactical focus has to shift to a broader focus...or we will fail the big picture miserably. The NFL level of war is not in the trenches. If we do not have dudes concerned enough to get to a point where they can make changes, nothing will change. And even then, some one will likely change it back. We need to make a cultural shift, and that will not happen with the lot of us stiff arming our way to getting kicked out.