pawnman

No one cares about your career more than you. You can care about other's careers as well, but at the end of the day, the person with the most invested in your career is yourself. You don't have to stab people in the back to do the things the Air Force values as an institution.

We won't let Turkey leave NATO as long as we have nuclear assets there.

Just passing on what I know. And in my shop up at the wing staff, the only other FGO is my boss, currently in a holding pattern for SQ/CC this summer... So it isn't like he needs the awards. So call me selfish, but I absolutely submitted a 1206 every quarter for the past two years, which let me put a "X FGO Qtr awards" on the PRF and top OPR. I also submit someone from my shop in every category we can compete in every quarter. Bitch all you want about the process, awards make a difference. At the very least, I'm getting my accomplishments on paper, in front of the boss, every quarter instead of waiting until OPR time.

Last time Big Blue got aggressive about divesting old aircraft, the A-10 debacle happened.

A guy I know passed over with a DP said that in his feedback session with AFPC, one of the factors they highlighted was a lack of FGO awards. After that, I wrote a 1206 every quarter.

As far as I know, past use is no longer disqualifying, but you will have to pass a drug test at MEPS before they'll send you to training.

You need the three years to retire as a LtCol, but the retirement pay is based on the highest three years. So he could always retire a little early and get an extra $2-3k a year instead of $5k.

If he's got 23+ years, does he have any ADSC that prevents a 7-day opt for a 365? Plus, (and I know, needs of the Air Force, never trust AFPC, blah blah blah), the intent is to not deploy people while they are in these ROTC, UPT/UCT, and (with more wiggle room to deploy folks) FTU positions.

So, about those promotions and instructor positions...

So...killed someone?

They said they don't intend to non-vol people. I'll take your ROTC job if you don't want it.

Well, in an effort to get us back to promotion boards... I sat through the Webinar on Officer Instructor and Recruiting Special Duty. Cliff notes: CSAF intends to give guidance to promotion boards to give special consideration to instructor and recruiting duty, starting next year. Specifically, formal instruction - being an instructor in a line squadron doesn't count, but being an FTU or UPT instructor will. They're doing boards to select people for recruiting, ROTC, USAFA, OTS, and Air University positions. Window opened back on April 9th and closes May 24th. If you don't want to compete, you can click a box that says "I don't intend to compete"...but your Senior Rater still has the ability to push you to the board. Senior Raters will be required to pony up 15% of eligible officers (1Lt to Lt Col with 12 months on station). However, they can subtract T-coded officers from their total before nominating. The example they gave was two SRs with 140 officers. SR A has no T-codes - he nominates 21 officers. SR B has 40 T-codes - 140-40 = 100. 15% of 100 is 15 officers. They intend to open these positions, on a limited basis, to rated officers. There are 500 total positions across the Air Force. 50 will go to rated officers, including ROTC instructor duty (not necessarily Det/CC). You MUST be through your first gate to be seriously considered (96 months). Finally, if you want to compete for Det/CC, you need to have at least a line number to Lt Col. You must be pinned on prior to taking over the Det, typically late July/early August. So, looks like my ROTC rant was just because I was a year ahead of my time.

Seems like a story calculated to impress, but it's actually full of shit. "My WG/CC gave me a P, but then he had to shake my hand because I won an award. Then the MAJCOM/CC said I was one of his best officers and said my WG/CC was a doofus. Then everyone clapped"

Same. I got a P because there were only two IPZ officers in my year group on the base.

Don't know yet. I think public release will be around June.

That's what my community was already doing. Then when my O-5 PRF was written, I got a P. WG/CC told me it was because I had a bunch of #1/x Instructor/shop chief/WSO/evaluator, but not a lot of X/XX CGO/FGO. He even told me a #10/40 CGOs would have been more useful for a DP than my made up #1 strats.

Well, shit.

Weren't they also supposed to be running an experiment where they separated aviators from the rest of LAF officers to see if that would improve aviator promotion rates?

One more reason to hope and pray for promotion. The ROTC commander I talked to said there were 25 total rated jobs across all ROTCs in the country.

I only have what the functional tells us during roadshows. That's the excuse given for why BUFF guys can get staff jobs and teach UPT while guys like me have been unable to PCS for six years.

No idea. What's driving ours specifically is a severe shortage in aircraft availability. A bunch of SQ/CCs (ops and MX) got together for a week to crunch the numbers and presented the whole thing to Gen Ray. Bottom line, we don't have the iron necessary to support our current commitments or squadron sizes. We're currently just sending folks to Growlers, Pensacola, UPT...places we were already sending folks, just at a trickle. Now we're sending more. They even had a short-notice tasker to send a WSO to the F-15E FTU...like, email sent out on a Monday for a class start that Thursday or Friday. We're also planning to send a bunch of people to the BUFF, even though the BUFF is already overmanned in the flying squadrons.

I'm currently in an IG job where I fly with the FTU. It's a pretty good gig - make your own hours, as many or as few TDYs as you want, I have an entire staff of SNCOs, and it's way better to be on the evaluator side of base-wide exercises. Plus, lots of face time with the WG/CC if you're looking for a DP or a strong promotion push.

I guess I'm more valuable not flying at Dyess than I am not flying at an ROTC detachment

So I'm sure a few of you saw the AFPC mail robot requesting more officers for recruiting, ROTC, OTS, and Academy jobs. I filled mine out hoping to go to an ROTC gig back in my home town. I called the det in my home town. They were super-excited to have a rated officer interested. They're undermanned and need instructors. My own community is shrinking. Leadership is running through COA after COA for where we can possibly place all these pilots and WSOs as squadrons draw down to almost half their size, and as we're being told attached flyers will do all their currency and training events in the sim (if you're in the OSS, you're probably not going to see the inside of a jet again for a while, if ever). So...after a couple phone calls and an email or two, I get my answer - rated officers are completely ineligible to teach ROTC due to the Rated Staff Allocation Plan (or whatever we're calling it now). So, instead of not flying but executing a CSAF-directed task of bringing new officers into the Air Force, I can not fly and sit in an office here at Dyess because the UMD is programmed for a flyer. Thanks, Air Force.

I'm just waiting for the Status of Boards to update.