Originally Posted by
BDGERJMN
Riddler,
I wouldn't say there is a huge philosophical difference with respect to promotion/assignment selection between the AF and the Navy. I think, regardless of the service branch, the cream rises to the top and in the end hard work and good airmanship is rewarded accordingly.
Both services look at the Officer before the pilot and that is how it should be IMHO. If Flag/General officers were all aviators then I would say the flying part of it should weigh in to a greater extent, however that is not the case. Could it be tweaked? Sure.
The Navy, I think has an easier time of this when writing FITREPS since our ground jobs are generally different than our AF counterparts. I don't say that to slight any AF brethren out there as we all work our a$$es off. Unlike the AF we have OPS/Maint/Admin/Safety all under one command. That lends itself to more "Officer" duties or leadership opportunities in addition to flying/tactics, nearly to a fault. I would never in my wildest dreams volunteer to organize a Change of Command, or a Flag visit nor would it ever appear on my Fitrep if I was tasked with doing it. It's just expected. That said, I think the Navy does itself a disservice by overtasking JO's, especially in the single seat world. With today's advanced tactics, I don't think we have nearly enough time to devote to those tactics because of the ground jobs/collateral duties. When all I needed to know, was 1 timeline, and how to drop an LGB or JDAM, life was good. It's not that way anymore and it negatively impacts QOL when not deployed.
The similarity for us is that if you show your cards too early, you will be shunned in some cases, in other/most cases, CO's will still appreciate the hard work and take care of you regardless of your intentions. In my case I waited til the very last minute to show my cards, but was completely honest with my chain of command as to my reasons. It is complete dependant on the person/command in all cases. I have not seen any negativity towards me becuase of my decision. My CO completely respects my decision to leave.
I feel for the AF guys caught in this mess right now, it can't be easy. It's the same in the Navy. Dudes are literally staying in or getting out these days based on whether they think they will do an IA in IRAQ or Afghanistan. For me, 6-12 months in Iraq would have been totally worth the increased QOL post Navy and my decision to exit would have been the same.
Bdger
Badger,
You brought up the key difference: in the Navy, Ops, Maintenance, etc. are under the same command. I'm sure it creates a lot of work, but at least you're all on the same sheet of music. In the AF, the Wing Commander is theoretically in charge of 4 equal groups: Ops, Maintenance, Mission Support, and Medical. All of those groups have to answer to HHQ regulations and metrics, and in my opinion, the Wing Commander has little authority to actually direct any policy change. All of those groups are forced with shrinking manpower and budgets, and they do their best to cope with the changes. Unfortunately, they make a LOT of unilateral decisions. For example, Maintenance refuses to load comm, navigation, or terrain databases in our jets, because they never got any increase in money, people, or training to do it. As a result, crews show up at the jet and things are out of date. Their only option is to take the 40 minutes to load it all themselves, but unfortunately, no one affords them an extra 40 minutes of preflight time to do it. Same thing with every other base support activity. For a while at another base I flew out of, the maintenance group dictated that crews are responsible for fueling their jets. It eventually got turned around, but still... WTF? Talk to anyone in the AF about mission support and they'll laugh.
No one's performance report actually talks about how that person supports the AF or base's missioin. Instead, if you suck at flying and you decide to volunteer for 180 days in Iraq, you're now a warrior who deserves promotion. If you're a squadron commander who ignores his people in time of need but deploys for 120 days, you've just shown your boss that you're ready to make O-6.
OK, sorry for all the complaining, but I've had 10+ years of this crap and I can't stand the idea of another 10.
Riddler