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Methinks getting rid of "up or out" would be easier if someone bothered to tell decision makers why it was originally instituted. It's not Friday, but here's the history lesson: - WW II created a huge number of officers from a very small number of year groups (basically six: mid-1939 to mid-1945), much like WW I did before it - The situation was especially bad in the Air Force, because the interwar Army had so screwed over the Air Service/Air Corps for manning before '39. The AAF had to grow way faster than the ground Army did during the war, which led to even bigger year-group imbalances within the air arm -- At its wartime peak of 2.4M in March 1944, all but maybe 1% of the AAF had less than 5 years of mil service. This created a huge "pig in a python" personnel-wise, since it would be decades before those folks were forced to retire due to age restrictions. -- The net result was that the Air Force would essentially have been filled by same five or six year groups' worth of folks, which would have left no room for new blood--with the fresh ideas and energy that young officers bring to the fight - Up or out policies sought to address this concern by forcing attrition at the senior ranks and those with higher time in service, in order to make more room for younger year groups that were the future of the Air Force In short, the Up or Out system was built because too many people wanted to stay in, which led to imbalance within the service. What we have now is the exact opposite problem--too few want to stay in, especially those in high-demand career fields. The overall problem is no longer getting rid of dead weight and making room for new talent as it is retaining quality so there can be some level of experience and stability. The problem set today is 180 degrees out from the circumstances that drove up-or-out. The solutions should be significantly different, as well. The problem is that fixing military personnel policies won't fix our civilian leaders' cluelessness wrt appropriate use of military force, inability to comprehend military culture, or incapacity to get along and overcome budget impasses in congress. Civilian-driven missteps are a major factor in discouraging quality individuals from remaining on active duty. I am an optimist at heart, and I take this discussion as a positive sign that our senior civ & mil leaders are least acknowledging there is a problem. I have little hope that we will fix our hemorrhaging of talent, though, until we quit with the social engineering efforts and attacks on military culture which discourage voluntary service. TT

I get the gist of your point, but disagree flying doesn't at minimum enhance and grow one's leadership capability. There's a lot of leadership skills required in aviation - maybe some communities/areas more than others, but overall there is leadership required and increasing ability to lead is generally required as one's experience and position in their community increases.

I can't explain why it makes sense but I can shed a little light on the process of why the AF selects people so early in their career for grooming to O-7. The entire AF officer promotion system is based on a Pole Year to general officer at 24 years. In order for an individual to be realistically competitive for O-7 at 24 years, he or she needs to be a BTZ guy at least once, if not more. If someone isn't BTZ, their chances of O-7 are practically non-existent (I'm sure its theoretically possible but extremely unlikely). The system is biased in such a way to select officers fairly early (in today's environment IDE select off your O-4 board is a big one due to how difficult it is to get a school slot as a candidate) and build on their forward momentum, especially once someone makes BTZ once. A lot of good SQ/CCs and SRs may realize that many (if not most) officers have little or no interest in O-7 but the promotion system currently in place is fairly rigid in what it rewards and recognizes as promotionable/BTZ material (I've seen 2-3 guys that were marginal or poor SQ/CCs that continued to advance within the current system because of already being BTZ/fast track guys). While I don't know Rat personally (thankfully) if he was the SECAF speech writer then there was a good chance he was working for a general officer who had DPs to give and a very small pool of officers to dole them out to; jobs like that are very promotable even though they pretty much are devoid of actual leadership experience. Guys like him are also usually hyper aware of their Pole Year and what they need to progress, generally at the expense of their colleagues and anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck under their command. Cleared Hot or Liquid may be able to explain this more clearly or correct anything I typed above that's incorrect, a lot of guys don't know much about this stuff cause the AF as a whole doesn't explain the promotion system very well or at all to new officers. Hope this helps.

Touche. Wg/CC stratted me top 5 percent. MLR deemed me bottom 40 percent. Makes sense. Good system.

I think he's saying military disinformation is ok...