Leaderboard

From John Q. Public... I've been measuring my shots at General Mark Welsh carefully over the last week or so, because I've been working instead on trying to help diagnose the organizational and systemic issues associated with the drawdown. More to say on that in a day or two. But first, I am going to take a shot at General Welsh. Please, for the love of God, STOP PREACHING INTEGRITY to airmen. Just stop. Don't remind them to have integrity. Don't do it. It has ZERO effect upon the rank and file. None. The vast majority don't need to hear it and get offended that you feel the need to remind them. The few who demonstrate they do need to hear it probably aren't going to respond meaningfully anyway, and should not have their shortcomings driving how you communicate with everyone. The only impact this has is NEGATIVE. It's bad. It hurts you because the current perception -- a fair one -- is that the leadership and staff level of the Air Force is where the real integrity problem lives. Airmen complain of a say/do gap, an endless game of "I've got a secret" . . . and one-way commitments that leave them with no bargaining power. I've written elsewhere that personnel and evaluation policies are being allowed to persist when we know they're telling us lies and leading us to wrong decisions. If there is an integrity problem, it's not among the audience the attached article seems to be addressing. So why not target more discriminately? Best commander I ever had (and now one of my professors says the same thing) used to say "show, don't tell." Great advice. Fire the next commander you catch lying or the next Chief you catch defying your intent. That'll go a long way toward reinforcing the value of integrity.

I don't think Big Blue is going to let pilots VSP and probably not a lot of TERAs. We are transferring a ton of planes to the Reserves and Guard. I think they are going to open up the ADSCs to allow/encourage pilots to take the Palace Chase option--not VSP/TERA. Pilots are too valuable. Regardless of the sunk costs of pilot training, we can train pilots in a short time span to be MSG officers. We can't train MSG officers to fill the Reserve/Guard pilot positions that are opening up when we move planes to the Reserves. Read the Force Structure articles and FY15 PB out there. MQ1/9s replacing U-2s and moving to the guard. F-16s moving to A-10 Reserve bases, tankers doing the same, C-130Js, etc. all moving to the Reserve/Guard. All the publicity about Total Force and increasing the role/responsibility of the Reserve/Guard. We can't let pilots go, we HAVE to let pilots go to the Reserve/Guard. I don't think the current PSDMs allow pilots to go Palace Chase if they have an ADSC, I could be wrong as I usually am. We have to let folks out by 1 Oct to afford all of the Force Structure movement and large acquisition programs in FY15 but our hands are tied. The leadership keeps saying it, without saying it. That's what Big Blue calls transparency. It would take a pair of nuts to explicitly say it and stand by what you say, and Billy Mitchell is long gone. If you hear the lawyers are holding up this program, it's because the FY14NDAA that came out only allows us to cut 2K people. That is a far cry from the supposedly 25K we plan to cut over the next 5 years. We have to ask for permission from Congress, OSD and CJSC to go below the FY14NDAA level. Plus, there is USC10 which says you can only get rid of a certain percent of officers based on what the FY14NDAA authorizes. Therefore, we wouldn't be able to get rid of as many people as we want to this year. We are better off waiting until next year to see what next year's FY15NDAA authorizes our end strength (hence the RIF delay). So, when you hear leadership say they are trying to designate who has authority, they are trying to clear these things up. In addition to that, there are a lot of people with ADSCs that are not waiverable based on the current PSDMs , therefore those people are eligible for the RIF but not VSP/TERA. That greatly reduces the amount of people that can apply and voids the statement that they will maximize voluntary applications before doing the involuntary measures. They have to open up the ADSCs, I just don't think many pilots will be allowed to go. I think they are trying to see how many people and which people they should let go this year because they are limited by the FY14NDAA. Hopefully, the approval they get allows them to process all of the voluntary applications but who really knows how many applications they received. I bet they slow roll this program. That's why some TERAs with 19 are approved and nothing else. They are going to chip away at the 2K-3K people that we are allowed to reduce. It is a complicated problem that has changed since the Force Management announcement with the FY14 NDAA coming out and it is tough to blame Welsch and Cox (who I have heard are Dudes) for not being able to predict what Congress would publish. Plus, once real lawyers (not JA) get involved nothing good can happen. That's a shot at JA, but I am sure they have been involved this whole time and never saw this coming. It is NOT tough to blame leadership for the lack of communication and lack of accountability. It's the 21st century. Tweet some sh**, make a Facebook page, make daily (not bi-monthly) posts on MyPers/vMPF. You might even get valuable feedback from the peasants you are trying to get rid of; however, you might be held accountable too and that is something we can't seem to get right in the AF. In the end, these dudes can't and won't get fired. Deadlines spur action and they control the deadline. There is little to no incentive for them to get it right the first time, any other belief is romantic. Hopefully these dudes grow a pair and let us know what's up. It's really not that hard to communicate. I have cancelled 2 interviews, my bosses hate me, and I haven't done anything productive at work in 6 weeks; unless you call checking MyPers, BO, and vMPF every 10-15 minutes productive. Go to church, hug your families, and tell them you're sorry for putting them through this emotional rollercoaster. Good luck.

Translation... "All of the complete shit bag leeches that we were hoping would apply haven't because they are perfectly happy sucking on the teet of Uncle Sugar; unfortunately we fire wall 5'd all of them since their first EPR and for some unknown reason we have been telling all of them all they were all "warriors" who were just as important to the fight sitting in their cubical as those actually fighting these wars... so if we try to kick them out for poor performance they will all have a great IG complaint. I mean seriously... we've been giving half of these clowns Bronze Stars for 179s to the Deid as finance troops; so we'll probably lose that fight. So as it stands, what we have for applicants for VSP and TERA right now is only 9,999 of the 10,000 pilots in the Air Force... from my understanding the only pilot who hasn't applied is some guy named Butters; apparently he doesn't believe these programs are real."

Nav logbook entry: "Rode in back again today..."

If any of this is based is fact, you win for best first post. I'm pretty sure mine was a cat poster.

big blue, specifically AFPC is doing a great job at integrity first and excellence in all we do.....

The one about banging your wife or the one about finding new ways to self affirm in the mirror? Recommendation: Bang your wife, brag about it to the ADO, then brag about it to your self in the mirror saying, "I did do that, I did it for her, and I did it well". Then I think you're covered either way. Bendy

I love lamp.

And they can train up an 18x guy to take my slot, he would only incur a 6 year commitment. We're getting double screwed because we signed a 10 year ADSC to FLY, and now the AF can keep us here as long as they want not flying. I love going to work everyday with guys who do the same exact job but have a 40% shorter commitment. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/high-marks-cooks-lifted-overall-rating-cheating-nuclear-missile-operators-minot/ More from PBS. Lt Col Tater Tots gets the last laugh.

Pissed me off too. How about they re-confirm their values. Most of us never lost it!

I get so tired of hearing how we can't let pilots go, tell that to any 11M farmed out to ACC/AFSOC.

Don't fuck with a grandpa and his hammer. Detroit man attacks intruder with a hammer

That record retention could be driven because everyone knows the AF throws around VSP every three years-why get out for free when you can get paid for it a couple years later?

I'd be cool with this for a month or so... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXBfs2iLHRE

They sell douchebags at Home Depot?

Agreed I can only inagine the screaming that would ensue the first time somebody handed an Alice pack for the 18th Airborne annual ruck requirement to one of these "grass is greener AF guys." Whatever job you have something will suck and we as humans will bitch about it. If there was an MOS whose job was to receive handys all day while shooting guns and drinking beer that guy would bitch he had to load his own magazines.

You realize that the AF, in their grand wisdom, only keeps the last 12 months or so of your detail flying history electronically. After that, it's a single printout in your harm office. If that joint burns down, or (gasp) some shoe goons it up that granular data is gone ... Forever. Electrons are expensive evidently.

Well that is just great....we all laid our cards out and now this.....I guess I can expect a remote to Afghan or Korea in the next 6-9 months.....I have never tried so hard to quit and not be allowed....this is not much better than prison.....

At least you can read your bible in prison, and you expect to get it in the ass.

What's a logbook?