Originally Posted by
F4E Mx
Didn't the Navy just finish crapping over a lot of 0-3s in the promotion cycle, guys who had done multiple combat cruises and filled in all the squares?
Yes but it's complicated. That was not directly a community management issue, since Navy promotion boards are staffed by officers from all warfare backgrounds. For whatever reason (might even have been personality driven) that board selected more officers from other specialties.
The community management aspect comes in where the aviation community has to prepare it's people to compete at a promotion board against other designators, so that largely depends on the bar the rest of the navy is setting with schools, degrees, joint quals, etc.
If the Navy got in big trouble with pilot staffing they could direct the boards to screen more aviators, but the boards don't to that proactively... they use the screening criteria specifically handed down by big Navy (mandatory by law).
If this sort of thing happened consistently over multiple years, then somebody should have done something about it.
Worth noting... the Navy is notoriously not appreciative towards "quitters", so they are not worried about taking care of outward bound personnel or those who have not selected for promotion. But that doesn't really impact the folks in the front half of the pack, culture-wise.