Promotion and PRF Information

[GearMonkey]

My number one Capt and #1 DP did not have it done and was a select on the board.

Can you provide a little context here? What made this person stand out from his/her peers? In what mission oriented criteria did he/she excel?

My initial thought was WG/CCE mostly because that is the only case I know of where a non-AAD & non-PME individual made the cut. The "proximity equals quality" theory is popular at my current base and was strong at the previous one as well.

Do you and your peers get together and talk about the ways each of you rack-and-stack people in order to identify best practices and weed out some of the lazy methods detailed in this thread?

Edited July 9, 2013 by GearMonkey

[Rusty Pipes]

Final shot, there are a whole lot of people here who claim to be against box checking careerism, but are intimately familiar with the promotion system, like careerists are. I didn't know or care what a school select was when they told me I was one at my Maj board.

Ummm... maybe this comes from the fact that Wing CC's are giving official AFPC briefings telling the entire Officer Corps that particular boxes need to be checked and that how quickly you check these boxes has a direct correlation to your career progress? Maybe because this box checking mentality is ingrained in our Officers from day one by every one of their supervisors and commanders? I hate to break this to you Liquid, but the AF you went through as an Lt and Capt is nothing like the AF these kids are going through.

A few years ago our Squadron was getting ready to deploy and more than half of the Sq had never deployed before (lots of new Lts). My Sq CC had asked me to have a Q&A with all the first timers after a morning Roll Call because I had been deployed to this location several times. I'm not exaggerating... the first 7 questions were about the testing center, how many days a week could you take SOS tests, was there Wifi in the rooms or did you need to go to the BX area to work on their Masters stuff, etc! Not a single question asking about flying combat missions, typical sorties, standard locations we flew to there, average mission duration or typical duty days. I finally stopped them at the 7th question and said, "You guys know you're going to go fly combat missions in a combat zone, right?!?" I was pissed, but you know what... it wasn't their fault. Do you know who's fault it was, Liquid? It was you and your fellow Commander's fault! They weren't just making this shit up about SOS and AADs... you and your fellow Commanders are the ones who made this their number one priority and you (Big Blue leadership) continue to do so. I wish your typical co-pilot knew more about the hydraulic system than they do about the promotion system... maybe you can do something to change that, I really hope you can!

[Herk Driver]

I mistakenly called out who I thought were toxic whiners on this forum, when they are actually bitchers with good ideas.

You stuck around long enough to figure out the difference here...for that, thank you.

Toxic whiner = cancer in your squadron...everyone should want to get rid of it and make the place better

[Liquid]

Ummm... maybe this comes from the fact that Wing CC's are giving official AFPC briefings telling the entire Officer Corps that particular boxes need to be checked and that how quickly you check these boxes has a direct correlation to your career progress? Maybe because this box checking mentality is ingrained in our Officers from day one by every one of their supervisors and commanders? I hate to break this to you Liquid, but the AF you went through as an Lt and Capt is nothing like the AF these kids are going through.

A few years ago our Squadron was getting ready to deploy and more than half of the Sq had never deployed before (lots of new Lts). My Sq CC had asked me to have a Q&A with all the first timers after a morning Roll Call because I had been deployed to this location several times. I'm not exaggerating... the first 7 questions were about the testing center, how many days a week could you take SOS tests, was there Wifi in the rooms or did you need to go to the BX area to work on their Masters stuff, etc! Not a single question asking about flying combat missions, typical sorties, standard locations we flew to there, average mission duration or typical duty days. I finally stopped them at the 7th question and said, "You guys know you're going to go fly combat missions in a combat zone, right?!?" I was pissed, but you know what... it wasn't their fault. Do you know who's fault it was, Liquid? It was you and your fellow Commander's fault! They weren't just making this shit up about SOS and AADs... you and your fellow Commanders are the ones who made this their number one priority and you (Big Blue leadership) continue to do so. I wish your typical co-pilot knew more about the hydraulic system than they do about the promotion system... maybe you can do something to change that, I really hope you can!

That is some scary shit. CSAF will hear that story. I hope you put a boot up their ass.

Only 10% get passed over to Major. 111 pilots on the last board. Looks like we went overboard talking about the inner workings of boards and emphasized the wrong things to the 90%. Strats cause some of that because people are more comfortable stratifying objective metrics than subjective qualities of hands, leadership, attitude, potential.

[ATIS]

A few years ago our Squadron was getting ready to deploy and more than half of the Sq had never deployed before (lots of new Lts). My Sq CC had asked me to have a Q&A with all the first timers after a morning Roll Call because I had been deployed to this location several times. I'm not exaggerating... the first 7 questions were about the testing center, how many days a week could you take SOS tests, was there Wifi in the rooms or did you need to go to the BX area to work on their Masters stuff, etc! Not a single question asking about flying combat missions, typical sorties, standard locations we flew to there, average mission duration or typical duty days. I finally stopped them at the 7th question and said, "You guys know you're going to go fly combat missions in a combat zone, right?!?" I was pissed, but you know what... it wasn't their fault.

I don't care what rank you are or service you fly for...this is UNSAT. I watched a lot of folks (0-3's mainly) in your service run around between hops getting SOS and stuff like that done. There were a lot of "old salts" in the new squadron that were good sticks and "forward leaners" (meaning they wanted results and to prove the platform like I did)... and they passed down their knowledge on the younger aviators very well. I don't think it's like that anymore.

ATIS

[Champ Kind]

100% truth that saved me a lot of typing

Like Rusty said, things have changed from when you were coming up. Young guys are hit hard and early with this stuff. I can say that I too have seen those same briefs and heard those same words from commanders, both on the squadron and group level.

You call it "careerism". I call it guys being told early on that it is "up or out" and that there are rules to this game.

[Herk Driver]

Many things caused this...I think many Commanders got a wake up call with the RIF results (among other things) and wanted to make sure their people knew the "rules" to the game.

[LookieRookie]

Final shot, there are a whole lot of people here who claim to be against box checking careerism, but are intimately familiar with the promotion system, like careerists are. I didn't know or care what a school select was when they told me I was one at my Maj board. I didn't want to give up flying for school and staff, but I went where my DT told me to go and did every job I was assigned to.

Just a little perspective from someone fresh out of UPT from earlier this year.

Before we graduated, our class had a mandatory brief with our CC about everything this thread was talking about it. We were told about PME/AAD, checking boxes, staff jobs, etc... The whole promotion system/career progression was quickly summarized for all of us. Now, I remember my buddies and I leaving that brief wondering why were told about major promotions and IDE. Our boss was just letting us know what future unsaid expectations were. About how as 1Lts/Capts we should be getting our degrees done, doesn't matter where just get it done, and how we should do SOS correspondence at the first chance so we get selected residence. And how the mover and shakers look at WHEN and how EARLY those things to separate each other. And how some people might have been passed over for Major for not having those boxes checked and how they were in disbelief.

Before anyone goes trying to crucify this guy, he told us that we should be focused on being the best wingman/co-pilots out in the AF. But be prepared that UPT will be the last time your job is solely to fly and there will be other performance indicators other than, "this dude has X hours and is a great stick."

Now, this might have been predicated on the fact that there were still Capt boards when I was graduating and we needed something besides pilot in our records to not fall through the cracks, especially if we have big BITs.

my .2

Edited July 9, 2013 by LookieRookie

[Rusty Pipes]

Many things caused this...I think many Commanders got a wake up call with the RIF results (among other things) and wanted to make sure their people knew the "rules" to the game.

Maybe that put things in overdrive, but my example of LTs asking about testing centers and wifi as well as the AFPC stoplight charts about the timeliness of box checking being briefed by Wing CCs were both before the RIF and VSP debacle. I think this box checking push from above really went hyper-insane back in 2006-2007 (?) when they unmasked the AAD for the O-4 Board. I know back in 2003 when I showed up at my Sq the first question my Sq CC asked me as part of my inprocessing "meet the commander" checklist was if my Masters was done and if I had SOS done in correspondence (he didn't have a copy of my surf in front of him)... so this isn't a recent thing, we have a whole generation of folks who don't know any different.

[Herk Driver]

Not trying to make excuses for anyone. I was out of AMC around the timeframe that you are referencing, so slightly unfamiliar.

I know that the AMC unit at Dyess had 17 officers RIF'd and that was quite a catalyst for some of what you are talking about.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Herk Driver

[Champ Kind]

we have a whole generation of folks who don't know any different.

This.

I honestly don't know how that can be fixed, because it the time it will take to reverse course, those officers will have progressed through the system and will have either caught the wave or got sucked underneath.

[AnimalMother]

Like Rusty said, things have changed from when you were coming up. Young guys are hit hard and early with this stuff. I can say that I too have seen those same briefs and heard those same words from commanders, both on the squadron and group level.

You call it "careerism". I call it guys being told early on that it is "up or out" and that there are rules to this game.

It's not just that guys are being told that its "up or out." The young guys are being inundated with this stuff from the get go. This is what they are being told are the keys to Air Force success. Many sq and wing level leadership highly value this stuff, and it makes sense that this is what the young guys learn. I have run into many lieutenants who have started their masters degrees before they even showed up for FTU. My old cc kicked me in the balls as an lt when I asked him if I should be worried about advanced education. Nowadays, I think it's quite the opposite.

Many things caused this...I think many Commanders got a wake up call with the RIF results (among other things) and wanted to make sure their people knew the "rules" to the game.

This is why policy pushers come up short so often, they are unable to accurately predict the second and third order effects of their decisions. In many cases, it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to accurately determine how far the ripples will reach, which often leads to more reactionary policies and more unanticipated effects and so on and so forth.

[Jughead]

That is some scary shit. CSAF will hear that story.

I truly hope so. I absolutely saw the same in my last community (insofar as flying heavies out of the 'Deid qualifies as "combat," beyond 781 purposes).

More telling, IMHO: My last job was at the FTU. I had a significant number of students (AC or IP upgrades, primarily, but even a few init-qual copilots fresh from UPT)--maybe as high as 20%--who were taking one or two (three, in one case I know of) master's classes while going through the schoolhouse. Their GK generally sucked, which was identified as a trend issue and became a special-interest item. Guys were doing everything they could to skip out of mission planning and/or debriefs ASAFP to go to class, write papers, whatever--and they sure as shit weren't studying flying the rest of the time. Guys were showing up for 0530 showtime exhausted--come to find out they were in class until 9:30 PM (go ahead and get the barracks lawyers fired up on how that plays wrt crew rest rules).

Several were sent back to their squadrons, or Q-3'd, or squeaked through by the narrowest of margins. I was present for one debrief w/ an IPUP who was being removed from training (technically, "recalled by his squadron," thus avoiding FEB unpleasantness--and, more to the point, enabling the squadron to send them back for a future slot)--those debriefs are held with the instructors involved, the schoolhouse CC or DO, and the owning squadron's leadership (typically the DO). This guy flat out said, "Look, finishing this program or Q-3'ing my checkride won't mean much on my upcoming promotion board, but I may as well not even show up without my master's done."

And, as fucked up as all of us in that room (and hopefully those reading it here) thought that was... he was 100% correct. Hard to fault his logic--that is what he has been told, and has seen in action, since Day 1 of active duty. Like Rusty said: not his fault....

we have a whole generation of folks who don't know any different.

Indeed.

[Herk Driver]

Has anyone seen SR's reviewing FEFs (942's) during the PRF writing/review?

[magnetfreezer]

And, as fucked up as all of us in that room (and hopefully those reading it here) thought that was... he was 100% correct. Hard to fault his logic--that is what he has been told, and has seen in action, since Day 1 of active duty. Like Rusty said: not his fault....

Shack. My early instructors/supervisors were worried about their masters for their O-5 boards, my YG is trying to get their TUI degrees done as mid level captains, and I have a shop full of lieutenants to pull towards the 3-1 from their Embry-Riddle discussion boards. For all the straight number thinking in the ACP thread, leadership should realize it gets what it rewards. If 2/3 of your 1206s and promotion strat calculators are self improvement, community involvement, and PT scores, you'll end up with a lot of highly educated guys that can run to the Q2 soup kitchen in 9 minutes.

[Champ Kind]

Has anyone seen SR's reviewing FEFs (942's) during the PRF writing/review?

Not that I have heard of.

[Rusty Pipes]

Has anyone seen SR's reviewing FEFs (942's) during the PRF writing/review?

Working in both the Wing and OG front office for several PRF periods I never once saw a Commander ask for or review an FEF. I'm assuming the Sq CC knew who was good/bad in the jet, but I don't know if it was taken into consideration in their rack and stack when pushed to the OG. I don't think it needs to necessarily be the number one factor, but do think your performance in your primary duty (no matter what your AFSC) should have significant influence on a Commander's evaluation.

On the other hand I did sit in a Training Review Board at the Squadron when deciding upgrades where 10 out of 10 IP/EP types in the room vehemently argued against an individual being sent to IP school (including the individual's own spouse) and after the meeting the Sq CC told the Chief of Training to put the individual in the IP slot because their PRF was coming up and they needed to be an IP for their Board. Unfortunately the individual went to IP school as an AC and returned as a co-pilot with 2 Q-3s in their FEF. I can't speak for other airframes, but this crew position/upgrade box check was/is quite common in my MWS. This was obviously an extreme case that didn't go well, but we seem to be getting extremely mixed messages where on one hand pilots are being told that their performance in the jet is not necessarily the highest priority, yet we associate crew position/status (IP/EP, 4 Ship Flight Lead, etc) with PRFs.

[Fuzz]

That is some scary shit. CSAF will hear that story. I hope you put a boot up their ass.

Only 10% get passed over to Major. 111 pilots on the last board. Looks like we went overboard talking about the inner workings of boards and emphasized the wrong things to the 90%. Strats cause some of that because people are more comfortable stratifying objective metrics than subjective qualities of hands, leadership, attitude, potential.

Liquid like LookieRookie and Rusty have said. I'm fresh out of UPT and PIQ, with less than 6 months at my ops squadron. I showed up to my squadron as a 2LT, you know what question I've heard talked about most by the other LTs? Masters and PME. If I had a dollar for everytime I've been asked if I have started my masters yet, I could probably retire (not really but close). I'm was a fricken 2Lt! I would laugh and say no and I'm not starting any time soon, because I'm going to fly and master my new MWS. Guess what the response was? Well it's to going to get any easier as time goes on, you're going to get a desk job blah blah blah.

This is the culture that exists now at the junior CGO levels, people caring more about how quickly they can knock out their masters or sign up for SOS in-cor. Once they made captain select than when they are going to upgrade. I have no shit had people tell me they wish they were as proficient as proficient in the jet for as many hours as they had but they've spent all their time on their masters than studying the Dash 1. I watch people polishing their papers during breaks on mission planning days. I had friends that enrolled in masters classes the week after pinning their wings, and were doing masters while at PIQ. You can say bad on them for not becoming better pilots but like someone else just mentioned and had been shown to me time and again your flying ability has nothing to do with your promotion. And then when you say no I'm going to actually wait on that stuff because Im still a butter bar (or brand new 1LT) you get told in a nice way you should do it now because it only gets harder. I'm currently deployed and I here more people talk about how behind they are on their masters papers or running to their rooms as soon as we land so they can knock out their homework, than anything about flying.

Add this to many experienced guys who you want sitting in the squadron bar on a Friday afternoon teaching new LTs like me, all talking about airline applications or dropping papers and walking over to the reserves. So now you have a lot of experienced guys looking to punch at the first chance and all the fresh blood more worried about box checking than flying. I hope I'm wrong but I don't see this ending up well. And also before you say anything about what my squadron commander is doing, he is doing exactly what he should IMHO, educating us on the career progression but emphasizes flying first. That is all great except the CC before him apparently had a hard on for masters degrees even among the brand new guys and everyone knows that's our current CC isn't going to be here much longer and so it's "better" to go ahead and plan for the worst (i.e. another CC with a hard on for masters) than get caught with their pants down.

Again just a lowly LT, I think you don't really understand just how far down this mentality your peers have created has gone.

[Herk Driver]

Working in both the Wing and OG front office for several PRF periods I never once saw a Commander ask for or review an FEF.

I have, which is why I am asking. I am wondering how pervasive it is, or if this was an anomaly.

[Trogdor]

I will throw one more log on the fire for what type of squadron leadership is out there. I had a commander that stated at a CC call, “its all well and good to be both a good aviator and a good officer, but if you had to pick one you should strive to be a good officer.”

Everyone knew his stance on “box checking.” So, for all the young Lt’s in the crowd…good officer = AAD, SOS, etc.

[WeatherManC130]

Has anyone seen SR's reviewing FEFs (942's) during the PRF writing/review?

I asked this question when I was at GRACC about 2 years ago and the answer was no. This blew my mind. I was told it wasn't if you Q3d but when. The sad thing is that new copilots in the squadron don't even know what an FEF is. At least UPT/U-2/89th still ask for a copy for your 942. I guess it is perfectly acceptable to be a crappy pilot but all your boxes checked and make rank.

WxMan

[Liquid]

I will throw one more log on the fire for what type of squadron leadership is out there. I had a commander that stated at a CC call, “its all well and good to be both a good aviator and a good officer, but if you had to pick one you should strive to be a good officer.”

Everyone knew his stance on “box checking.” So, for all the young Lt’s in the crowd…good officer = AAD, SOS, etc.

Why would you have to choose one? If you can't do both you probably aren't a very good aviator either. Good AF aviators are good officers. Not all good officers are aviators. It is rare to have a bad officer be a good aviator that you want in your force. And I'm not talking about careerist officers. I mean good leaders who understand the mission, the environment, the guidance, know about risk acceptance, know about warfighting and critical thinking and know how to take care of, mentor and lead their subordinates, and set and enforce high standards. And be very good in the aircraft. Sounds hard to do it all because it is. Good aviators that are bad officers don't belong in the military.

[brickhistory]

Good aviators that are bad officers don't belong in the military.

Wonderful, even motivational cheerleading. But it doesn't, and hasn't, fixed the problem. On this site alone, how many threads with how many anecdotes about p1ss-poor leadership and/or senior officers commanding who weren't good aviators? And that's just this site. Multiply it by how many p1ssed, non-led folks who have seen the beast and decided "fcuk that" while Col or even Gen Skippy goes about his or her merry, Kool-Aid chugging way? Billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money...(famous quote from Congress).

[Rusty Pipes]

Why would you have to choose one? If you can't do both you probably aren't a very good aviator either. Good AF aviators are good officers. Not all good officers are aviators. It is rare to have a bad officer be a good aviator that you want in your force. And I'm not talking about careerist officers. I mean good leaders who understand the mission, the environment, the guidance, know about risk acceptance, know about warfighting and critical thinking and know how to take care of, mentor and lead their subordinates, and set and enforce high standards. And be very good in the aircraft. Sounds hard to do it all because it is. Good aviators that are bad officers don't belong in the military.

I think you missed his point. His Commander (and the majority I have had share this stance) implied or straight out stated that the box checking that everyone keeps referring to is what makes you a good officer... or more along the lines that you cannot be a good officer unless you check these boxes (and now unless you check them as quickly as possible). I've heard the same speech from multiple Commanders about "if you had to choose one, you should be a good officer"... not sure if that came from the same speech by a speaker in Polifka or something, but to a crew force that has been inundated with this constant barrage (AAD, PME in Cor, etc) for the past 10+ years it directly translates to "box checking is more important than being good at your job". That may or may not be the message that is intended, but I can promise you that is the message that is being received loud and clear by your crew force from those in leadership positions in most cases.

[ATIS]

I know back in 2003 when I showed up at my Sq the first question my Sq CC asked me as part of my inprocessing "meet the commander" checklist was if my Masters was done and if I had SOS done in correspondence (he didn't have a copy of my surf in front of him)... so this isn't a recent thing, we have a whole generation of folks who don't know any different.

NAF ATSUGI 1996:

Check-in sheet shows a block to check off: Skipper and XO, I caught both of them late on my first afternoon. Skipper sits me down with the XO and .....

"Welcome to the squadron, you must have had good grades to get to Japan, so lets cut to the chase:

A) Learn your jet and learn the mission, fall behind or don't cut it we send you back to the states

B) Take care of your troopers

C) Don't get in "too much" trouble

D) Don't let your pilot fly you into the back of the boat

Questions...nope...OK, lets go to the club and meet everyone else"

Things have changed.