Learjetter

I last sat an O4 board two years ago. Duck, you and I discussed some of this a few months ago. I still wish your leadership would've looked at your situation and designed a different path forward. When bosses attitudes and lack of creative thinking "force" good, quality, motivated officers to actively try to derail their careers instead of coming up with win-win ideas just pisses me off. I don't know if you'll be promoted or not. Neither do the individual board members as they score your record. You may get a panel that honors your request and scores your record low enough to be passed over again. Maybe you don't get continued. Maybe you get continued--thus forcing you to quit (w/o invol Sep bennies). You may get a panel that doesn't rate your request as high, and you end up on the list. You don't have to accept it and can bail w/o invol Sep bennies. There is a school of thought that says "quitters" (letter writers) shouldn't benefit from privately quitting via letter to the board with involuntary Sep benefits...so letter writers should not be considered involuntary separatees...and to ensure that, put them in the stack where they belong and make them "publicly" reject their promotion and separate voluntarily. Kinda individually shitty, but I've heard people say that and understand (institutionally) where that comes from. Only you can decide what's best for you in your situation. Just understand all the rules and how they can be applied to your situation. I hope you get the result you want.

Fellas, I said systemically, we as a service, should weigh the desires of the officer lower than the performance/potential of the officer and the needs of the service. Good or not, this is what we do in all things... Further, it is an incorrect assumption that the board can choose to promote or not promote any individual officer. We don't know the cutoff, the number to be promoted, or any of that data. We simply score the record as it sits. We do not know that all 7.5's get promoted and 7.0's do not. So we cannot just give every letter writer a 6.5 to ensure we honor the wishes of that officer above all other criteria. We also ensure every record gets a fair shake with the split system to resolve such differences in scores. It would be a shame if a board member saw the letter as the first thing in the pile and scored 6.5 and didn't even look at the rest of the record. Same with please promote me--should member just score 10.0 without looking at the rest of the record? Of course not. So..the officer's DESIRES as written in a letter to the board are of LESS concern than the rest of the record. I never said the service should promote someone who doesn't want promotion. I said that person's desires were weighed as equal to someone who DID want promotion but had a lousy record. I also said I don't remember ever hearing that a letter writer was forced to accept promotion. I'm also saying that if you permit someone to DQ himself before consideration that's a bad thing. Look at the bigger picture for a second. The up or out system has a few drawbacks. But it also makes long term career paths possible, ensures a quality force, and attracts the determined, adventerous, hungry kind of person we want to attract into Service. Do you want to serve in an organization that doesn't care about career paths and individual growth? That's the postal service or DMV, or any other civil bureaucracy. Up or out makes room for younguns. It sustains the all-volunteer aspect (you can still refuse promotion). By ensuring EVERY record gets looked at at specific intervals we try to ensure the best performers who demonstrate the potential to serve in the higher grade get a fair shake. Im sure some of these concepts are also codified in the officer promotion reg. Does SOS not cover the promotion process anymore? Don't you get to score actual records and discuss all these theories in class? It used to be so. Probably have some federally-mandated social justice training instead. PM me if you want to tell me I'm a f.u.c.k.in' idiot. Definitely PM me with your thoughts after you sit a board or two.

Hmmm. Ok then! Any officer, the instant that officer becomes "bitter" and doesn't want to be in the service anymore, gets a pass and released immediately? Or at the next promotion board? Should we wait two boards? How about promotion from 2LT to 1LT...refuse that and out you go?

I saw it more as an equality issue...if I wasn't going to lend much credence to "please promote me" letters, then I wanted to give equal weight to ""DNP" me letters...in other words--give all letters to the board equal weight. Comparing it to an SIE from UPT is like apples to Tuesday, though. A promotion board is not charged to find the best records "of the willing"...but is charged to put the records in order, best to last. IMHBAO, a member's opinion/desire for promotion isn't very relevant to how well the RECORD stacks up against other RECORDS--even for the purposes of promotion. For DNP me letter writers, if it were possible, I suppose it would be OK to specifically request your record NOT compete for promotion at all. But that's not how our system works. Maybe it should--that WOULD ensure we're only looking at the willing. To me the officer's performance, as recorded in OPRS/DECS/PRF (in that order) are much more relevant to determining the "quality" of the record. Also, specific SECAF instructions to the board play into how the letters are treated....and how individual officer traits are treated. There are never very many letters to the board. This isn't a widespread issue, nor a big deal for 99+% of officers meeting a board. It's a HUGE deal to each letter-writer, though...and every letter was read (some several times, because they were tragic, or long, or just interesting examples of the varied human condition)...and I gave every letter I read equal weight in calculating the score of the record. So they weren't disregarded. Just not highly regarded. I don't recall being surprised that someone with a "DNP me" letter made the promotion list. If it happened, then that officer still has options: take it or not. Circumstances change. People change their minds...some who are promoted won't accept, or will wait until pin-on day to reject it. Some who thought they WOULD be promoted won't be, and will make choices based on that. Some 5APZ dude with a P who thought promotion was never gonna happen gets the nod and has to make new choices based on that info. Some "DNP me" letter writers may change their minds in the months between letter and list release and pin-on. What we should NOT do (institutionally, as a SERVICE) is accept a "lesser" officer for promotion in lieu of a "better" one just because the "better" one doesn't want promotion, or because the "lesser" one made a really good argument for promotion in a letter. We should promote neither. And I'm pretty sure that's what happens in the vast majority of the incredibly small number of letter-writer cases.

Every board is different..every board member has personal opinions on the subject...but I'll say this: the board is charged with evaluating the records of a couple thousand officers. The personal opinions of the member aren't really relevant to the "quality" of the record. I didn't give much weight to letters that begged for promotion in the face of gross buffoonery in a record...and I didn't give much weight to letters begging for non-promotion either. IIRC there was something in the rules/regs/policy letters/AFPC message/Promotion Board announcement or message/SECAF board instructions/AFPC people processing guides (or somewhere) about officers who write DNP me letters NOT being eligible for invol sep pay and invol sep benefits...unknown if that's still the case. Use caution when employing tactics such as these...

Since when does "married = getting laid" ?

Quoted for awesomeness.

On the other hand...I got sage counsel from a trusted Wing CV when I was finishing UPT, then again as a young Major-select. Had I followed those mentors directions, I probably would've still made O6 and had high profile jobs and school along the way. As it was, I chose to follow my personal desires (no staff, no school, no Phoenix Eagle) keep flying and choose locations and jobs I liked and made a difference doing (in my mind, at least). Mentors should show you the normal glidepath, but they also owe you at least ATIS at the alternates. I tried to illustrate normal paths, then get the truth of my mentoree's desires, then advise on how to make each of those things happen...and let the choice be theirs, then I pushed in that direction.

Interestingly...a lot of BUFF-BASHING going on from people who've never flown them. Unleashed, that aircraft can deliver devestation the likes of which haven't been seen since 2002. She may not be pretty, but she sure as hell is sexy where it counts.

Or...what 24+ years in does to us...

I didn't go to screening at Hondo back in the T41 days ... the AF bought me a PPL instead. That said, if I had a ticket to UPT today, and could avoid IFS, I would. Because you CAN be eliminated from IFS and lose your ticket to the show. Why risk it?

I won't advocate for good folks to leave (but wont try to stop them either) because we need them to help regain control of the aircraft...but I had several personnel discussions much like this one. Perfect common sense and everyone as satisfied as possible...but a no-go by the "system" -- Sometimes elevated to 2 and star levels only to get similar results. That's something that needs fixing NOW

Search the thread, I've been pretty consistent with what I think. Vandy should be smarter than this, and it has a sheen of desperation. End the bonus entirely, increase fly pay to 2016 dollars at all levels, reduce initial ADSC to 6 years, let commanders at gp and sq work assignments by ending the RSAP and bringing back ACE at RPA wings and certain other bases. Not to mention the political stuff like letting State to State stuff and USMil do USMil stuff.

1H@temyJ0b*69. The new password of hundreds of USAF folks today...and Fingers too, if he's still got a sense of humor...

"2" I've used MARS dozens of times back in the day...You guys do rock, and thank you for what you do.

"2"

C-21 w/waiver

If you're selected for green door, you'll learn all you need to. You cannot apply, you get nominated without your knowledge, and if you're not selected to interview, you'll never know. No other info is appropriate for the forum. If your curiosity still needs quenching, go watch "Air America," read The Ravens, and look up Steve Canyon or Raynor Sarnac.

My comment was a funny. Because PYB and lawful orders and Oathkeepers and 2A ad naseum. Jk = just kidding Lighten up, Francis.

"PYB PYB PYB" jk

If you're at all interested in 0-2s (Cessna 337 mil version) FAC warbird, see Don Nieser at https://commodoreaerospacecorporation.com/ Oklahoma City location

Everything old is new again. We went thru this "list your additional duties so we can kill them" drill at least twice since the early 90s. I don't want to be a killjoy, and it's SECAF championing this, this time...BUT: 1) many addl duties are mandated by law (records custodian, voting officer, golden flow guy/gal, etc) 2) some we do because we operators need to do it because no one else understands our programs well enough, or because we want our young guys learning those things (pubs officer, selo, training flight, tactics squab, etc) 3) we did this before...shifted addl duties to the squadron civilians where we could...ISYN, I typed an appointment letter assigning 22 (22!) Addl duties to one civ. Good luck. I hope it takes this time...and Congress gives the AF relief from the mandatory non mission value added duties. LJ

Of course, there's always that other way to load em up and fly em out...if Chuck's too busy for PNAF...

I still believe we ARE lethal, agile, and incorruptible...at the squadron/unit level. But, you're right, the SYSTEMS aren't.

Yet another shoutout to Marty and the gang at Trident. Jennifer took my data, jumped a number of hurdles, slayed a few dragons, and ultimately got us closed yesterday on a no-cost, cash out, 3.25% VA Refi on a rural property. I hadn't done one of these in a while, so Jennifer took the time to educate and re-educate me as needed, and kept us on pace, I reached out to Marty on 20 June. Closed 21 July. This wasn't their first rodeo, and it showed. Marty and the gang have a good plan going here: provide excellent service and build trust. Over time, that means more good business, in the good business of helping people. If you're considering looking into a mortgage product, I recommend giving Trident a call. I know I will next time I'm buying. Good people, doing good things, for good people. LJ