SFG

whispers of a Mitt Romney / Will Hurd ticket.

Check yourself. If everyone around you lacks credibility, who might really? You’ve been $h1t-talking your community for years and it’s tiresome. Maybe you’re concerned that you’re not as cool as you think you are, but if you throw enough bros under the bus you might pad your ego enough to get there. Talk about toxic.

52-ship. With names on the side. Everything should be in 52s from here on out. Including, pre-announce that our pullout from Iran will be in 2052.

Happy New Year. Loss of confidence?

https://www.foxnews.com/world/rockets-baghdad-airport-injuries-reported

This hurts. A toast.

I hope he’s giving the ARC the benefit of the doubt, that they would be more open-minded and sensible then active duty. Some of the best pilots I’ve seen have been mechanical crossflow guys and some of the best commanders I’ve seen have been Phoenix guys. Hard to beat the experience of seeing the world from different perspectives, in aviation or elsewhere. I’ve also seen terrible crossflow guys from both avenues, so YMMV. Crossflows have the opportunity to be real value added... instead of just reading other aircrafts 3-1s/3s they’ve been there and done that... and they ought to be pretty good sticks. They can make the communities they touch better by sharing lessons-learned and teaching the young guys about the bigger picture. On the other hand there are always those who manage to stay inside the box and remain narrow in their thinking no matter how many opportunities they’ve been given. BL is that folks should not be pre-judged and maybe in the ARC they’d get the chance to be looked at as individuals and less as numbers. Or maybe not. The airlines seems to be the only good place to be just a number.

Not sure about U-2s, would seem to be a tight timeline, I’m just here to say that if it made sense to do it then it wouldn’t make sense that the AF would do it. For example, why such a short TIS requirement for TPS? If it’s about payback can they not get their jollies by simply setting the ADSC to match their payback requirement? More likely than not it’s about making Colonels and Generals. Because we should limit our pool of talent based on that... just another example of made up stuff and bureaucracy driving what we do day in and day out when we should only care about what makes us a more lethal force, as they say, and wins wars. Doesn’t matter to me how old my TPS pilots are, and yeah, a U-2 pilot would probably be a great fit.

Probably, but don’t give anyone any bright ideas, because I don’t think we can trust them to cut the right 25%.

“The Air Force is abandoning its “Gray Wolf” swarming cruise missile development program to instead funnel funding toward “Golden Horde,” an effort to get existing munitions to cooperate in combat.” https://www.airforcemag.com/afrls-new-goal-make-munitions-plan-attacks/ When they realized the name was the same they figured it would just be easier to burn the building down and walk away then staff the paperwork to change it.

Dumb. Talk about being overpaid... You can get paid to write stuff like this? If they want to be taken seriously they need to compare apples to apples. Pilots to pilots for example. Then on top of that factor in additional duties outside job descriptions, responsibilities and obligations that are military unique, time spent on the clock, and cost of constant moves and other variables. I actually saw this on Facebook first and a brand new Marine commented saying, “Yeah the military is a huge joke. We get way overpaid to do the same jobs as other people. It’s easy and good.” At first I thought it was a bit unbelievable, but then I realized that he probably is getting paid more to clean latrines than his counterpart on the outside. Sadly, I’ve met many folks that think that’s all we ALL do (that and kill babies) even with the rise in support for the military over the past decades. Then there’s the yokels who say, “I’d do this job for free!” Who are probably single without families (because I don’t know a spouse who would allow that, or hungry kid mouths for that matter), have clearly never taken a finance class, and have apparently not considered that retirement and medical bills will happen at some point, and come to some unexpectedly, and often earlier than desired. I actually heard this from an O-6 once when referencing the pilot bonus... so, at least we have people who can’t wrap their heads around basic life and financial planning in charge of planning our wars and future strategy.

That sounds remarkably like his “way forward.”

I just had an "amazing" experience in line with these comments... very discouraging. A 3-star briefing 2-stars down to O-4s, almost entirely an Army crowd (99%). Disparaged the other services throughout his time at the podium, was really proud of his PhD on 15th century Germanic tribes (or something like that), and his "way forward" was entirely Army-centric. Many laughs from the crowd in his favor, at our expense. He acted as if the Army owned MDO, space, and cyber. The way he railed against the Navy and the Air Force made me think he'd never deployed a day in his life... and yet he is a key decision-maker and strategic planner. I can't say more due to OPSEC, but if this is how you spell joint, then we're screwed.

Maybe not many, but I want to know who they are. That said I’ve worked with plenty of USAF LTs imbedded with joint forces. You may need to think outside of your community a bit. Like it or not your record tells a story. Maybe it’s that you are a box-checking douche or maybe it shows you’re not at the same level of boxes checked as your peers because you were a nonstop volunteer for opportunities to kill ISIS. Can’t get that story with 3 OPRs. Also, push lines, those are gone. At least in their absurd previous form. We need to be careful that we don’t apply old ways of thinking to these new tools, and move forward. The worst thing we can do is to think of all these changes in terms of the past. Some people will try to conform them to past practices. I hope they get fired.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you. And frankly I don’t give two shits if your last 3 OPRs show that you’ve done a great job as General whoever’s Aide and Chief Exec to the Wg/CC. I also want to see how you did in other positions, particularly in the Ops world.

I read this as you being concerned about strats. Either way, I think a person’s record of performance and life experiences are important and frankly think the bullets that talk about work with joint, interagency, and international partners and various operational achievements and deployments are relevant and don’t come close to being captured by SEIs or joint experience indicators that often have a high and somewhat superficial bar to meet to get those boxes checked.

As stated, black out strats if you want, but promotion creates the pool from which to hire and skills and experiences should matter for promotion. It does outside the AF and it should inside. 3 OPRs don’t provide the whole picture.

Understood, but I’m also trying no to think more real world lately and less AF world. In the real world I may want or need someone with a certain set of skills or experiences. Someone who deployed to one place or another. Someone with more of a background in A or B. Oh and while that person was doing that job, I also kind of want them to have done it well. It may not matter if it was 5 or 10 years ago, though I might weight that accordingly. There’s no perfect system and the jerks you mentioned might still make it through, but I think it’s less likely if all OPRs are hidden from commanders and SRs. For promotion boards and hiring authorities Duty Titles and AFSC pre-fixes (checked boxes) are not enough to shape the force and put the right people in the right jobs and don’t tell the whole story. Let’s black out all strats ever received if you want, but when I am considering hiring you or promoting you I want to read about how much crap you hauled, lives you saved, bad guys you killed, and your work with that joint, interagency, or international partner. Just doing your last job well does not tell me much. As we know, working at Popeyes is not the same as working at Chick-fil-a (shots fired!). Last three OPRs would be better, but I’m still not getting that whole-person picture. At some point we need to realize that there is no perfect system to select and promote the right people. In the end there must be a person evaluating on the other end and they should have the information they need to make the best decision based on America’s needs. I’m not an idiot and I trust others won’t be when looking at someone’s records and it’s quite easy to tell if someone was a one hit wonder or not. So go ahead and get rid of strats, but the people promoting the next wave of what we need in this rapidly changing world should have all of the information they need about the person they are considering promoting to make the best decisions for our national security.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/opinion/commentary/2019/12/10/the-end-of-early-promotions-and-the-way-ahead/ There’s no perfect system, but I think what “Ned” is proposing would do more good than bad. If the AF does not follow through with at least some of these changes (i.e. 5-year looks) asap, then the latest announcement will be all for naught... or worse. One point I don’t necessarily agree on is hiding all but recent OPRs. Sure, hide all OPRs from raters, but maybe not from promotion boards or hiring authorities. Even when gamed, OPRs are still sources of information about an officer’s background and experiences that can help put the right person in the right place at the right time. If hidden we’ll be back to promoting and hiring by checked boxes which is what we’re trying to get away from right?

Yes. The idea is that better APZ folks get picked up. Not that it’s perfect, but I agree with it and it actually makes sense for the AF. It does, however, suck for folks who might have been picked up IPZ in the old system, but may now have to wait five years if APZers continue to outperform (or out-record) them. The question right now is if this new IPZ window starts where BPZ or IPZ used to start.

It’s terrible that we have people waiting for months with no heads up whatsoever and then this. Equivalent to flying along in a full pattern with tower trying to call you, but wait, you can’t answer because you’re still planning out the fine print of your approach and landing. Unsat. At least give people an idea about what you’re doing (months ago) so they don’t start breaking out. But what’s done is done. Now don’t let our people hang while wondering if they’re even going to meet this board. These are people who may still be deciding whether to stay or go. Let’s not add another hundred to the shortage.

Most of the guys I know had no language, no prep, and were a bit surprised to get Overseas IDE. The majority did however put those schools somewhere on their list and had been GOs’ Execs and such. Maybe times are changing.

Maybe I'm still thinking in the box in that my initial thought was that if someone applies to school they are applying to school in general, and their preferences are just that... but maybe you're right... the system in general is just too rigid and we should send best-fit folks to the right schools to get them the skills we require as opposed to using "school" as a reward. With that line of thinking, maybe all Foreign DE schools should be filled with Air Advisors... folks apply directly to schools that benefit their specific development and career field. But if we're talking current system, when I applied to school I did so knowing I might not get the school I preferred, kind of like when I joined the AF, went to UPT, etc. Again, times have changed and I think we ought to look at the real world a bit more and see how future leaders out there are developed... surely it's not gambling, left up to chance, or throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks like we have been doing for years. Thanks.

Nice! That’s good to hear. Well... wrt to reflecting positively on the good fight that only works if the facts are positive, but yeah sticking to them is the best idea (along with noting alibis). We need 65% bonus take rate to maintain a healthy force. We have 44% retention in an unhealthy force. Some communities have less than 32% retention. Not good. If the civilians are there, why isn’t that helping? Since the fact is that the MAF is apparently full up on civilian help, how is AFSOC doing on the civilian front? If all the MAJCOMs are good to go why isn’t it having an effect on retention? Isn’t the idea that aviators get to aviate more supposed to keep people in? I would’ve killed for 4 civilians taking over admin queep.

“EFFECT OF FAILURE OF SELECTION.—In the administration of this subchapter pursuant to subsection (a)— ‘‘(1) an officer described in subsection (a) shall not be deemed to have failed twice of selection for promotion for pur- poses of section 629(e)(2) of this title until the officer has failed selection of promotion to the next higher grade the max- imum number of times specified for opportunities for promotion to such grade within the competitive category concerned pursu- ant to section 649d of this title; and ‘‘(2) any reference in section 631(a) or 632(a) of this title to an officer who has failed of selection for promotion to the next higher grade for the second time shall be deemed to refer instead to an officer described in subsection (a) who has failed of selection for promotion to the next higher grade for the maximum number of times specified for opportunities for promotion to such grade within the competitive category con- cerned pursuant to such section 649d.” i.e. everything that talked about twice passed over previously, is now amended to ~”fails to promote in their [5 year] zone” https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/hr5515/BILLS-115hr5515enr.pdf loophole closed. If you take the bonus and don’t get promoted you’re still committed through 4 more IPZ looks before continuation or getting out becomes an option.