Originally Posted by
BDGERJMN
What else gets taken down a notch when you decide to leave active duty from a career perspective? I'm not sure I'm following your line of thinking here. I was simply attempting to articulate (based on my experience) how/why a 'out the door' FITREP that may be declining or not an EP isn't a show stopper for promotion in the reserves or even command down the road.
The O-4 selection board issues are separate and distinct from dudes getting out in droves IMHO. I don't think you can put cause/effect with those two tied together. QOL is the #1 driver for folks getting out, at least the ones I speak to daily. That really has nothing to do with the folks that didn't make O-4 because the board process was jacked up. Sure it might leave a bad taste in folks' mouths(and it should) but I don't think its the driver.
I'm a SelRes CO at an FRS, I get what you're saying about talented folks leaving, I see it all the time and even have to turn great talent away from my organization because we're full, I get it. Those folks will find gainful employment in the reserves if they choose to, but the competition for those spots(flying) is pretty stiff right now. That will ebb and flow, as will this retention issue as it cycles back around; it always has and it will again.
What I meant was that it's not just your last fitrep that can get taken down a notch for expressing a desire to leave the military... you can suffer for multiple fitrep cycles before that depending on how early you express that desire.
Also, those O4 results did do quite a number to the JO community which you may not recognize, being much senior to those JOs and whatnot. While I agree that QOL issues are a big driver of the looming pilot retention problem in the Navy, I know a lot of guys who pretty much gave up on the Navy when the results of those boards came out. Why take the hard job, when you're probably going to get fired anyway.
And that brings me to the point of my first post. There are a lot of JOs taking themselves out of the running for promotion to O4 either because they made it known they were getting out, thereby bringing their fitreps down... or by taking the easier jobs or the jobs that set them up for the civilian world. If you don't think that that brings down the overall quality of the group that does get promoted, then I don't know what to tell you.