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Upt select! Good luck boys

A Patch gets you in the door and credibility until you open your mouth. After that, it’s up to you.

^so true. There is so much about the the AF that is so out of date it’s just sad. The way we promote, pay, incentivize, move, etc. Like several of us told a two star traveling around a year or so ago trying to find a way to solve pilots jumping ship - it just comes down to the way you treat people. Admittedly that’s a broad statement and encompasses many things. But when people are made to feel like simple undervalued cogs in the machine...well that just isn’t how you should handle some of the most highly trained and educated folks out there. I’m afraid there’s a great many things the entire military does that have fallen behind society and the way talented people expect to be treated and valued. Saying “people are our most valuable assets” in one moment and then treating them like cogs the next, all in the name of “needs of the AF”, well it simply doesn’t justify that kind of treatment to many people and I believe that pool of folks is only going to grow as time goes on with younger generations. People (especially talented) simply don’t want to be treated that way, in addition to having so little control of their lives in the mil, as Genghis John points out.

Congrats everyone! After a painful wait, my CC just called me asked why I left early (I'm on nights); he said that must just be my UPT select swagger kicking in! I'm in!

Just got the call from my CC, URT!

I second this. If y'all want to DM each other for that info by all means, but it might be too much to post that on a public forum.

Who will I be seeing at URT! WHOOOO

It’s antiqated to think people are going to surrender 10 plus years of where their families live and continuly have no say in there career to just accept the “the needs of the Air Force,” an organization that isn’t even aware of their own needs.

GS-15 notified me from my senior rater, UPT select! Best of luck to those who haven’t found out yet!

And the very worst people I’ve worked for have been crossflow dudes. The point? As was said, Heuristics are bullshit; judge the individual. *break break* ... and curtail the Phoenix Reach program. You want to fix shit in AMC then stop the fixation on guys who know little about a lot, and start building expertise. While there’s value in having SOME breadth, save the generalism for the generals. AMCs obsession with breadth baffles me (and pretty much everyone outside AMC). I’ve watched guys my entire career pursue “broadening” over expertise - and actually tout how little they know about how many things as some kinda strength... THAT is bullshit (and there are more than a few nauseating general officers out there spewing the same nonsense). Truly oblivious and out of their depth... When the balloon goes up you don’t call in the generalists. Chuck

Is the patch itself humble, credible, and approachable?

Its an entry level understanding to some top level human motivations.

1) Take a look at Freakonomics, perhaps the economics of drug dealers/crack cocaine... (and no, there is not a 1-1 comparison between drug dealers and fighter pilots). When you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up, a few typical answers include - fire fighter, cop, fighter pilot... the first 2 typically or traditionally don't pay well. Why? Read Freakonomics. 2) Now thankfully you'll never be able to demonstrate this, but if you could - go down to the local fire house and find the first non-fire fighter (NFF) there and tell them (and the rest of the fire fighters) that the NFFs are just as important as the Fire Fighters... that their high school diploma and 2 weeks of OJT is as important as the years of training, studying, testing, learning, working out, and fighting to be luck enough to get an interview and to do well on the exam and to make it through probation, etc... that the fire fighter went through... then give the NFF a patch, even call them a "fighter", give them awards/medals/promote them for doing stuff that seems important in the station while the real work/sacrifice is being done on location, put them in charge of the fire house because you have to be "Fair" to everyone. Tell them that they can take 2 hours for lunch, 8 hours every other Tuesday to get better at their job because they don't have time to get better at it while they're doing it, tell them 9-3 is pretty decent work hours... then tell the fire fighters that, sorry we don't have enough of you so it will be 36 on/12 off, sorry if we put you away wet and put you back in before you can go home and see the family (you know they love their job, that they live for it, so why make life better for them?). Make up tremendous amounts of accolades for crap that means nothing and give it to the NFFs with great pomp and circumstance because we're all equal. Oh and their jobs? those jobs that NFFs do that are meant to support the fire fighters? Yeah, let them write instructions/rules that pretty much puts the responsibility on the fire fighters. When the fire fighters come back after a 36 hour blaze, delirious from the excitement and exhaustion, wanting to celebrate with their fellow fire fighters - force them to let the NFFs be a part of it. When they push it up too much - criticize them and kick them out for frivolous reason. Don't allow them back into the station until their uniform meets regulations,. When they save 3 kids but step on a cat - make sure you publicly flog them for it... when the NFF fails to show up on time for weeks on end and never gets the job done, be sure to do nothing about it. Obviously a bit black and white/extreme example... there are plenty of non-fighter pilots (myself included) in the AF that do amazing and incredible things for the fight and deserve the accolades and spoils (not myself) and this is not a bashing of support roles... this is an attempt to show you were the rot started. You/they/we can try to fix the symptoms (is it $, is it additional duties, etc.) but until you address the rot - the dis-mantling of (for lack of a better term) the glory, prestige, and respect that goes with a professional doing a professional job, that takes probably a decade to get good at (including a degree or 2, USAFA, ROTC, UPT, IFF, etc...) WE WILL NEVER FIX IT. Do they want medals and be on the front page news? No - they want the respect/honor for doing what they do, something the AF stopped doing a long time ago. There are important roles everywhere, I have no doubt that we need 99% of the people in the AF to do the job... but I can not think of another organization in the world that would try so hard to put everyone in the same lime light, all the time. What if Taylor Swift had all the roadies, ushers, back up singers come up and be on stage for every performance and give them a microphone? Do we diminish their jobs if we don't? To some extent everyone is replaceable, but I'm guessing there are not too many fire fighters serving excessively long commitments to be fire fighters. I have a few in my family, some of the most humble/honest/best people I know... I have never once heard them complain about being a fire fighter... why is that? 3) Fighter pilots are just the first and most prolific demographic... the rest of the pilots, the rest of the pointy-end-of-the-spear isn't far behind, add to them the maintainers, engineers, doctors, nurses, and any other professional that would be treated as a professional outside of the AF... appreciated for their knowledge, years of education, years of sacrifice to get where they are, etc... they'll be gone too, unless/until there is another recession.

i have about 10 names ranging from last names "L to N" DM me for more info

Make buffs great again and solve the dilemma

This! Another issue that may slowly creep up is the issue of the 5-year USERRA limit. Case and point...we have guys that are at or near the 5 year limit. Now anything orders they wish to do has to be in involuntary status (or less than 30 days), which thanks to the 12301d vs 12304b bullshit, might be less than ideal. Oh well, bring back the part time SQ/CC and OG, that's how it should be anyway!

ABM select...!

But I think it should be, sometimes. Most of us volunteer to serve and expect that our efforts and sacrifices for the common good of the people and ideas we value will be somewhat apparent. We've probably all had experiences where our service, our rush to the aid of others, was so deeply satisfying that we wish we could have sacrificed more and wished for nothing in return. When it's not so apparent, say when training or doing administrative/bureaucratic jobs, you may be able to convince them that the fruits of their service exist, but you need to compensate them and accommodate a reasonable amount of their desires. However, when a person too often sees that their efforts and sacrifices are either squandered or even detrimental to what they believe they are serving, they stop believing that what they're doing is actual "Service", and no amount of finger wagging while repeating "Service before Self" is going to make them stick around.

I'm not going to share the screen cap I have ... it doxes me. But, I have 12 names (not the whole page by the looks of it). If you were gunning for URT and didn't find out by end of day today and really want to know, you can PM me. Again, I don't have the whole list.

I don’t think posting results publicly yet is the move. Folks should have to opportunity to get the news, especially if it’s bad, from their commanders individually

The results have been loaded into MPF Secure, so your local FSS should be sending it out commanders today. If you have a solid MPF staff you should know the results by today! Good luck everyone! There were ~100 pilot slots I'm told. It doesn't say when or where you will be stationed just what slot you get. I wish everyone the best.

$100 says we don’t hear anything today. I dare you AFPC! I dare you.

I wager cigars for us all when we go to UFT together at Randolf.

I used to think that. Seems like it is working well for Air Force pilot retention. If you want people to stay, treat them like (valued) people and make it about them when practical. Practical as of late should mean all the damn time.

Public release date is updated to 14 January on the AF portal page. Let's hope notifications are coming down today for realsies!

Rumor has it the FY19 Aviation Bonus (AvB) will be released this week. Check out this link for some critical info: https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/118841-end-year-salary-survey-26.html

I thought I could keep my doctor too but turns out not everything they say is true - as long as he sticks to the core principles of that argument from his campaign - actually trying to secure the border, enforce our immigration laws, not allowing our country to taken advantage of from specious asylum claims and removing illegal aliens with a priority on violent ones I can live with footing that bill Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wait, I thought Mexico was paying. That was the campaign promise right? How’d we end up at a government shutdown over a wall that was promised to be paid for by funds that didn’t involve American tax dollars? I’m confused. Are we taking the president literally or figuratively this week?

I hope you mean that a patch doesn’t mean much with regards to how good someone will be as a commander. As while the patch may not mean much to you, it does however mean a lot of things to a lot of people.

^this A patch in and of itself doesn’t mean much. I’ve seen idiots get sent to WIC along with incredible folks. It still comes down to the person.

Part of the reason the MAF sucks in a lot of places is: Phoenix Eagle. Many of the MAF’s leaders are part of this self licking ice cream cone of careerism. On the other hand, most CCs I’ve met on the CAF side are Weapons Officers. Kind of shows the difference in priorities and why we rightfully often get shit on by the CAF. Fortunately, I’ve seen this trend start to change in the MAF. Quite a few weapons officers getting picked up for command. Many other “non-special programs” officers are also getting picked up and some of them didn’t even do in-residence IDE.

ah yes, the syndrome of discounting the messenger to discredit their ideas

That's not what he said at all. He said there are far fewer 365s and far fewer people at risk for them as a result. Not that everyone should do a 365.

Concur, Tex did a much better job of it!

@Padre can you post the screen shot of the URT results?