FourFans

But uh, back to the lecture at hand... At face value, no. In reality, it depends... It depends on your WG/CC and how he racks and stacks you. If you get a DP from the boss, you're golden, regardless what the push is. If you get a solid strat coupled to that push, you should be ok. If there's no strat, no DP, no "super P" a la "if I had one more DP to give", and the push is "Sq/CC next"...it's up to the board to decide where they want you. As I said before, a 10/20 strat sometimes isn't enough when it's balanced against a weak command push, or visa versa. Take 5 DPs out of the that pool of 20 and the 10/20 is really 5/15, which is a clean kill, right? But a weak command push can sink that ship. Likewise, a dude that's a functional alcoholic or has multiple Q-3s and gets no strat, but gets a strong "command now" push because he's personally liked for what he's done recently for leadership, and gets promoted. Unfortunately, it all depends on what the current flavor of the week. It could be that all the WG/CC's decided to go with "Ready for command now!" and one outlier went with "Sq/CC next" and the board decides to weigh at it different. It's opaque and impossible to read the middle of the pack unless you actually sit in the board. That's why they never tell anyone who was on the board or why the decided the way they did. (instead, a poor civilian gets to apologize to the runners up and take an educated stab at why they didn't make it) Perhaps that's just what integrity first looks like in an "I'm as good as you" society. ...Perfection is perfected, so I'ma let 'em understand...

“What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass.” - C.S. Lewis, Screwtape proposes a toast P.S. This is a thread about a silly uniform, but I’d say the moral shines through regardless.

More people need to realize this earlier in the career path. Chess, not checkers.

Army Sergeant Majors already do this at Hurbie

Disclaimer: Each promotion board gets new guidance, and that specific guidance, nor the actual decision making process in the board is never transparently communicated afterwards. In short, you’ll never know why you did or did not make it. The “if I had one more DP to give” is the best ‘super P’ For the P’s, in recent boards, if the verbal DP is tied with a strong command push like “should command now” or “ready for command immediately” that can put you in the high portion of the P’s. Conversely, if tied with a medium command push like “on track to command”, that verbal DP becomes less powerful. It’s a tough code to crack...especially when you involve strats. My IPZ PRF had a straight #10/20 senior rater strat, but an “on track for command” and no verbal DP, with a “P” checked. Sounds cut and dry: exactly middle of the total pack, should be high P area with an overall 75% promotion rate. Passed over. Even colonels who’ve sat on boards looked at it and said WTF. Even the civilian passed over counselor (I think she’s the only one, or one of a very few, so she has a good feel for the system) was a bit baffled. Our awesome opaque process at work. Honestly, after talking to a marine and some army guys I work with, I think the USAF promotion system is terrible and horridly riddled with unknowns. By comparison, the marines get a list of exactly who’s on the board beforehand. Ours sucks. Don’t put any value on it. Bottom line, once it’s sign, let it go and decide what kind of officer and man YOU want to be. The ink representing some “leader’s” opaque opinion of your career DOES NOT define the impact you make. Only you do that. Don’t let the output of a broken system limit your contribution. If you’ve got a lot of combat hours, chances are good that you have a lot to teach young kids, and a lot to pass on to your community. I know that doesn’t make the process any easier to endure, and you will likely still want to throat punch a “leader” or two if you get passed over. But know that regardless of rank and what the broken system decides, your inputs and experience are truly valuable to the LTs whose lives your experience and instruction can save.

Never fly the A-model

Make sure your out-of-the-box thinking fits inside the box.

Your chances look good. The command bullets you've got and the "super P" push are foundational for the current promotion climate. What kind of command push did you get? "Ready for command now" or something to that degree is good. If it's something along the lines of "on track to command", that communicates that you're not ready yet in the eyes of that rater. My frame of reference is once passed over (about to be twice based on my current PRF) ops guy. WIC, Det/CC, good strats, but never sat gp/wg exec, didn't get good PRF strats nor command pushes for various opaque "command decision" reasons. I've been through the counseling. The command push and command potential is what seems to be the current flavor of the week for the promotion boards. From what I've been told and what I've seen, your super P and your demonstrated command capability should land you with about a 75% chance or greater. Note: If you haven't don't the primary mission of the USAF recently, that will not hurt you at all.

2

That link belongs over in the Emirates thread somehow.

Fund raiser for the families. https://www.gofundme.com/munizspousesforrican68 Shirt fundraiser through 9-Line https://www.ninelineapparel.com/shop-apparel/mens-t-shirt-156th-air-wing/

When the stack is only 15 deep against 20 requirements...yes it can. Also, watched AFPC get rid of 9 rated guys (my friend was #9, which is how I found out) by giving them AFPAK HANDS as their next PCS a few years ago. All 9 separated or retired instead of taking it. Rumor has it they finally pinned the rose on a guy that had already volunteered. Rumor also holds that the AFPC functionals are sometimes directed to use bad assignments like that as "force management tool". I have strong doubts about the truth behind those rumors, but finding them true wouldn't shock me either. "Integrity First"

This

Brother, I'm glad we've got guys like you. Keep at it and thanks for keeping it real. Appreciate your insight. Hope you can keep posting here at your next assignment.

My perspective is clearly different. Having witnessed the un-brainwashing of a couple T-38 guys who got banished to the dreaded C-130J (where they loved it and did great things in combat while getting shot at), I can only assume that T-38 guys still scoff at things like KC-x to Kadena or Travis (sweet locations), U-28 and C-130J (where they'll get more real world missions than any other airframes around), or anything that's not an F-22 or F-35. Got it. I was bi-polar on my track and drop-nights too. Cannon certainly isn't appealing, as with the Offutt assignments...but wow, perspective boys. There's a preponderance of good locations for the heavies, on top of the fact that the pilot shortage makes a heavy-fighter crossflow much more likely right now. I recall seeing T-38 drops that had a total of 1 ops fighter and dudes being stoked to be FAIPing and not stuck in Minot or Barksdale. Open the aperture. If you call it good, it becomes good. Call it bad, it becomes bad. It's all perspective.

Anyone know where to we can donate to help?

Those are some fantastic drops!

Dude. That sounds like a command challenge of the highest order. My heart goes out to you. Hang tough. For posterity, my post was not intentionally focused on, or from, an ops perspective. I guess the perspective comes through simply because of my background. I'm left with the question: Is anyone inside the 17D career field trying to make a culture of excellence? No doubt working with a gene pool as broad and deep (and quite shallow in some parts from what you say) is an overwhelming obstacle. But is anyone telling these kids they're worth the time invested? It sounds like you are and a select few others are, but is there a culture shift in progress in your favor? Because there should be. If there is anywhere we need to be building that culture from the ground up, it's in cyber and comm. The idea that "no one does this as well as we do" seems like it would need to be foundational for one of those squadrons. Unfortunately, is sounds like a lot of mismanagement and poor senior leadership instead of empowered leaders and peers who are waking these young knuckleheads up at 6 AM to run, not because they're warriors, but because discipline is critical, and contagious. Thanks for the course correction, I didn't realize the scope of the quality control challenges you guys are facing. Weaponized autism. Copy. Perspective adjusted.

I'm sure they'll get to it right after replacing the C-17 fleet.

I was a 2015 taker (5-year option, thankfully). Yes, this level of buffoonery is completely normal. Opaque this new clear.

I disagree. Just because someone doesn't know how to adult yet doesn't mean we should lower the bar. We keep the bar high, and teach that kid how to meet it. One the backside (FGOs and SNCOs), this plan requires that the "adults" are squared away. If you lower the bar for one, you lower it for all...which is what's happening across our force right now. Keep the bar high and swhack old guys that don't meet it in order to show the way for the young ones. The kids need the visual lesson. The senior people should know better. Teach through example, instruct with credibility, mentor with wisdom, never coddle.

Excellent word choice. Exact words the Allied Powers used during WWI to talk about everything happening in that sun-scorched armpit of the world just over 100 years ago. We're still suffering from the fallout of those events. If we screw this up, it'll make another 100 years of pain. Keep an eye on Israel and Saudi. If they act bi-laterally, it could set a whole new pace in that region.

That, right there, is where you went wrong.

Ride an elephant that's doing left turns for about 10 hours. That should give you a feel. I've heard air refueling is cool though.

From the T-6 OBOGS thread, ramping up production isn't going to happen until the OBOGS is fixed (even though it sounds like they'll just ignore it for the time being)...and retention is clearly not a goal judging by the Bonus thread...all with Iran, Syria, Russia and the rest of the world continuing to catch on fire, making American airpower an increasingly hot commodity over the next decade... Is anyone at the staff correlating these events and their impacts? Is anyone up there seeing this structural fire?