Crackity Jones

From a joint/coalition perspective when working with myopic cultures, whether it be most of CENTCOM or the US Army, the bag lets people know you are the Air Force and might actually know something about said Air Force. Other cultures don't understand ABUs are also Air Force or understand the slightly different wings or badges on OCPs (and that includes the US Army). #SorryNotSorry the US Army in particular is upset that we aren't treated the same.

Are there any current or former 81FS guys flying the A-29? A-29 or OA-X thoughts?

This isn't Milgram's Experiment. Everyone who doesn't speak up or is afraid of showing red on a slide guilty of collusion. We supposedly teach that the lowest Airman or Lt can call safety in the air, because that can get us killed. If we practiced what we preach in the air on the ground, and promoted accordingly, we'd fix most of our problems.

I stand corrected. Back to the original point, I don't personally know of any rated officers in AFPAK Hands who have subsequently held command. I know of a few non-rated who were removed by their communities half way through the program to take command, but they were likely going to regardless of AFPAK Hands. Suffice to say I don't know of anyone who volunteered that wanted a traditional career path.

I think it is the same for all services because it goes up to Congress. Some services and communities have more tolerance and can accept more assignments that are there to fill time.

@falcn87 and @17D_guy to add to @astan777's remarks, there is more leeway within non-rated than rated. Those milestones for IDE, SDE, Staff, Joint, Command are mandated by Goldwater-Nicholas to make O-7. Every service has a version and each community adds to it (IQT, Gates, Upgrades, WIC and every check the box you've ever heard of). For a rated officer, starting two years behind because of IQT, it is impossible to meet the timeline required to pin on O-7 at 24 years without people managing your career so you waste as little time as possible upgrading, going to school and taking command (also part of the reason why rated officers don't take command at Major). Anecdotally non-rated officers up for command can be removed midway through the program to take command (favoritism) because four years is still a long time to be out of your community, unless you just happen to be in acquisition, contracting, finance or security forces and are still doing your job but in Afghanistan, and even then you are still off track for O-7. Not that O-7 or command should be your ambition but it dictates the milestones most of us have to meet and it is the metric which we are judged.

I know the reason, it is just an example that those weapons officers could still be TAA the AAF but aren't. Unfortunately the way personnel system "works" you can't exactly limit the AF's quota to non-rated just because the Afghans don't really have an air force. Those four C-130s don't buy much either.

@astan777 and @Warrior. And it's not like there are Afghan C-130s or anything.

Current AFPAK Hand and while I don't regret volunteering, I cannot recommend this program. It is a great but backwards idea. Instead of taking experts, teaching language and culture and placing them in like billets in the field, the program teaches experts language and culture to fill whatever billet, irrespective of previous experience or validity as most organizations viewed Hands as a free body to fill a slot. This is especially true post 2014 but talking to several cohorts, it has always been applicable and if you look at other programs out here, they all say the same thing. The "real" advising billets are filled by contractors or other programs. For example there is a 11H pilot who instead of flying with the Mi-17s or MD-530s is in targeting. Mi-17s are advised by 6th SOS and MD-530s are advised by contractors. In fact contractors have better personnel management (to fulfill the contract), more continuity (typically stay longer than military tours) and no career penalty (no unchecked the boxes). Or several months ago there was a 12M weapons officer who instead of flying with the C-130s was in policing. C-130s of course are advised by multiple ARC squadrons. I can only think of a few people (voul and non-voul) who actually like their assignment, we do so little advising that it is more than a joke that the most useful language we use is English and I have yet to meet a Hand who honestly thinks this country is going to become better. In exchange all of the carrots mentioned are at best half truths. Many volunteer to have an advantage for FAO (RAS in the Air Force) or FSO (State). However the AF unlike every other service treats RAS as broadening, not a career field change, so you'll still be off track from your normal progression. FSO is obviously not guaranteed and means separating from the AF. Others volunteer for NDU/NIU (IDE in res) but you still need to be "picked up" off your boards for it to count, otherwise it is just another masters. Promotion rates depend on the service, community and board. The other services, especially the Army, use AFPAK Hands to get rid of their worst officers so that affects promotion rates. Within communities, specifically fliers, I can't imagine not flying for four years is an advantage although by the time most have met thier first or second gate they may have already topped out anyway. Boards are all different and you can't compare a O-6 board one year with an O-5 board from another. To be fair the program's performance is average and most of these problems are endemic to everything in Afghanistan. No mission. No personnel management. Even if we were doing out performing the rest of the country, Gen Petraeus himself said (or echoed) that reconstruction and advisement only works when there is a modicum of stability and good governance. I want the program to be better. It was a great idea, I enjoyed learning two languages and don't mind deploying for two years, but there are reasons there is a reported 50% 7-Day Op and 80% separation at the end of the program. SIGAR is finalizing a report on AFPAK Hands, likely recommending to at least change if not end the program, not that we ever concur with those recommendations. Rumor also has it that the Army, Navy and Marines each recommended ending it as well, with only the Air Force (which has the highest volunteer rates) dissenting, not that that will happen either. I'll leave you with excerpt from Foreign Policy https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/18/our-generals-failed-in-afghanistan/: "The premier example of this mismatch between what military leadership said we were doing, and what the bureaucracy was actually prioritizing, can be found in the story of the AfPak hands program. The program was launched by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, and lauded as the key to shaping Afghanistan by creating a cohort of expert officers from across the services that would have the language skills and experience to build the kind of long-term relationships needed to build an effective Afghan security apparatus. While a priority for the Chairman, the effort was never embraced by the services. Despite the fanfare and stated importance of the program, mismanagement and mis-utilization were rampant as this specialized cadre encountered personnel systems unable to support non-traditional career paths. Caught between career managers that saw the program as a deviation from what officers “should” be doing – leading tactical units – and a deployment system that often led to random staff assignments instead of partnered roles with Afghan leaders, the program quickly became known as an assignment to be “survived” if not avoided altogether. A leaked briefing from the Army G-1, the service’s head personnel officer, to the Chief of Staff of the Army in 2014 confirmed that the AfPak Hands program had become a dead end for military careers. Officers who had participated in the program were being promoted at a fraction of the rate of those who had not. There are only two explanations for this outcome: Either the Army was sending sub-par officers to serve in the program, or officers were being punished for deviating from the traditional career track. Whichever it was, both explanations reveal that the effort to train and advise the Afghans was simply not a priority for the Army. Similar challenges faced those who served on Security Force Advise and Assist Teams. These teams, like the AfPak Hands program, were always ad hoc and widely considered assignments to avoid, as they did not align with traditional career paths. And in the end, the rigidity of the military’s 1950’s-era personnel system simply overwhelmed any desires to prioritize the counterinsurgency mission. Centrally managed and organized around rigid career development templates, this personnel system does a magnificent job of sustaining a peacetime military that is prepared to fight and win tactical battles at the onset of a conventional war, but is not built to go beyond placing square pegs in square holes."