Albief15

Everything old is new again. I remember when we lost an Aviano Viper driver back in the 90s...the 72 hour history showed a lot of time up doing queep, masters, etc. The pilot either GLOC'd or did CFIT into the water. That--along with the miserable retention of the late 90s, got the leaders looking at what was a realistic look at whether or not a masters for a combat coded fighter pilot was really such a good idea.

By the mid 2000s, I saw the ancillary training up to a point that was mind boggling, and I understand the Masters again got important.

I feel for your bros, I really do. Hopefully there will be some airline hiring in the next 5 years to again put pressure on the AF to keep a more sane expectation of what you should be doing during your non-flying hours.

Grumble

IMSAFE yourself out of enough flights due to fatigue and all the ancillary training per the APA approach until mother Blue gets the picture (like you wouldn't just get hammered on OPR/FITREPS). Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

hawgdriver

Fellas, this is exactly why I'm getting out of the AF. Too much BS. I love serving, but I joined to fly jets and be really damn good at it. It's amazing how the queep drags everyone down. In the last few months my squadron has not been flying on Friday but we do come in for multiple meetings about nothing at all. I'm constantly being fragged to do MX around the SQ. I had to laugh at myself when I was painting walls a few weeks ago. I thought "this is what I'm getting paid $100 K for"? I keep hearing we're doing "more with less". Wrong! were doing "less with more" because I'm still going home at 5 to spend time with my family. The AF is not paying me to paint walls. They pay me to be the best ATTACK pilot I can be. The Masters degree won't help me do that either.

I'm tired of the BS. Thats why I have been lining up the Reserve jobs and I'm dropping my papers in the spring. It's actually sad to see how many dudes feel exactly how I do. The AF will be caught with their pants down. Its going to be an interesting next few years.

GBU-24

A-word hiring or not, the wave is coming and the AF is not going to be ready.

Queep is back on high for the AD, I fully agree with Hawgdriver. I think that it's starting to creep into the AFR too...fighter TFI units are in the breach and AETC units to follow in a couple of years.

LivingInMEM

First, the USAFR is the AD, I hope you really don't think you're escaping anything by going there. The only benefit is that you only put up with the same stuff for a few days per month.

Second, I have no sympathy for any O-4's and above who "joined to fly only"; it's officer first for FGO's (your fly first days ended with the leaf). As a Sqdn CC who has had to coordinate real combat ops in a joint environment, it became obvious to me that our officers are wholly underprepared (and that was based both on my observations of others as well as the amount of OJT that I had to undertake to do my job). Sit in a planning conference, ops center, etc while planning or executing and you'll quickly see that USA and USMC O-4s are much more the complete package than their USAF counterparts; not only can they fight the war, they can train their folks for the war, get their people and equipment to the war, feed their people while in war, resupply while in war, defend themselves while at war, etc.

However; with that being said, I agree with the sentiment because I fail to see how hardly any of the queep that we have to deal with is related to the mission of the USAF. Even our PME is largely inadequate to the task at hand. A master's degree just for the sake of a master's degree??? As if they are all equally applicable (or applicable at all) to the task at hand! Who's to blame? Our leadership. We spend more time submitting for awards, doing IA training, writing evals, doing other CBTs, sitting through some mandatory in-person training, suffering through DTS, etc than focusing on our primary responsibilities.

I have been in more situations than I would like to count where the decision was deferred to SJA, A1, A2, A5, A8, etc when everytime it was the CC's (not mine, a higher level CC) decision to make. Everytime someone develops a new ridiculous ancillary training requirement at HAF, some commander at HAF said "OK". Everytime a new AFI restricts us even more, some commander signed off on that AFI. More often than not, those CC's and folks that signed off or said "OK" had wings on their chests. Whether it be the service received at MPF, the policies of local SF on what they ticket drivers for and when, the hours of the dining hall, the wearing of reflective belts, the prohibition of carrying loaded weapons at deployed locations, etc; it is under the influence of a commander (and usually a commander with wings).

I read with interest all of those comments when Gen Welsh's Academy speech was posted, about how great of a leader he is as if he was any different than any other. I read the new comments with the same interest. He may be a great person, but it'll take time to see how effective a CSAF he is. I tend to think that he's got more pressing concerns than this with the looming sequestration, etc. But, if we agree to measure his effectiveness by looking at how much he can change the culture, I'm not going to expect much.

The problem with the USAF is that it's no longer the military, it's the post office and decisions are made as much to benefit the decision-maker as they are the mission (sometimes more). Unless officers are held to officer standards throughout their careers, how can we sudenly expect them to act like officers when they get in the critical positions. Heck, the reason they got there in the first place was because they didn't step on toes previously. The F-22 debacles, the failures of our acquisition systems (KC-X, LFW), etc are all examples of that. People knew things were wrong in all of those situations, but they were covered up at the worst or people looked the other way at the least.

Who's had to give a brief to a MAJCOM CC? I'll tell you that it is no exaggeration that more attention goes to the format of the PowerPoint brief than to the substance within the brief. When we get to that level, what else can we expect than the results we're seeing now? Personally, I gave up hope when I realized that even two simultaneous wars couldn't cure us of our "peacetime leadership" dilemma.

Grumble

In the words of Dos Gringos, you just haven't been to that school yet to know how one applies to the other.

Hacker15e

Unfortunately, a fantastic quote.

ExAF

Amen! and Amen!

LowSlowT2

Well, I'll rebut this with it's our system's fault. There will always be folks who want to move up and there will always be folks who want to fly. How to capitalize on this? I was fortunate enough to do an exchange with the RAF and I really liked their track system. I'm gong to over-simplify it, but in short, if you're not promoted to Sqd Ldr (Maj) by the age of 38, you're offered to continue in service as 'specialist aircrew' and are paid extra for your experience. After 38, you may be put back on the command track, but it becomes far less likely. If you are selected, you will pin on when you get to your new job. After your three year tour, if there are no O4 jobs available for you, you can go back to the line and fly. You will remove the rank and become a Capt again (usually), but you will still be paid as an O4 (roughly). There are also spec-aircrew merit promotions to O4, but nothing beyond. There are faults with this system as well, but it beats our "up or out" system that rewards, queep, OPR inflation, and careerism. When it works right, it links the right people to the right jobs, and ties rank to jobs and responsibility, not an arbitrary time limit.

I will agree with this, to a point. I did lots of conferences in a joint environment. You ask any Ranger O4, what he needs to put his Co/Btn/Bde anywhere and he can tell you exactly how much space on the ground, lift by air or sea, and supplies he needs based on duration. One of my Army friends actually used to tease me about it: "Why can't you ever give me a straight answer when I ask what you need to do X?" My reply was the standard aviation answer: "It depends." It depends not just on what BOS there is, or where the nearest support is, it depends on how long we'll be there, it depends on a lot of things because it's not just people and bullets, it's machines that have complex maintenance requirements on gov't-specified schedules that are beyond my control. It's because to go for a longer time vs a shorter time, changes the risk to mission because of maintenance reliability (or lack thereof). It is absolutely not because I don't know what I need, it's because what I need changes based on many variables beyond my control. The only variables the change for any of the ground combat units' solution is duration and terrain...and they have pre-packaged solutions to most of those as well.


Agreed. And if you're in a leadership position, fix it. My SQ/CC & DO used to sign us off on mobility queep during CC call or Ops calls - brief a subject and tell your UDM to sign it off for your guys en masse . Don't make them sit through the 3hr CBT just because. But more importantly, send your "cast iron majors" to the re-write conferences with a very clear agenda to remove and address your leadership to fix it for you.

Fix it.

But you won't. You won't fall on your sword over queep even though it's actually important because it's sucking time from your warriors, it's decreasing combat capability, and it's sucking morale dry. Stand up for your people.

I know, easy to say from the cheap stands, but it's down to our core value - integrity. I'll tell you, we've got that one wrong. Ask 10 Airmen what integrity means and you'll likely hear (or even believe) it's something along the lines of, "Doing the right thing even when nobody is looking." But that's not integrity, that's honesty, and while it's awfully hard to have integrity w/o honesty, integrity is better defined as "Doing the right thing, even when it's unpopular", but that means you have to have principles and principles get in the way of careers. Principles cause waves. Principles will get you fired. But that's really what integrity is.

I agree with this 100%. Sequestration is the biggest issue - how will we address it? I'll bet queep increases and ops decrease.

I agree again, but I will refer you above - we have no integrity, we have honesty (and not much of that).

I have. I've briefed MAJCOM/CC and COCOM/CC. You're right, my slide formats were scrutinized more than my content. My solution? I briefed what I thought he needed to hear - the PPT was just a backdrop. If underlings want to waste time changing slides, I just changed them or told them to change them - it rarely changed my briefing at all. I didn't care about the queep.

Agreed 1000% - my favorite was a quote I saw on a MIRC chat during the opening weeks of OIF, "Never before in the history of warfare have so few been led by so many." Says it all, really.

LivingInMEM

I'll keep this format going for the sake of discussion vs a debate or argument.

We've talked about a track system for a long time, since before I was a Lt, but it has never happened. Besides, it isn't quite the panacea people tend to think it is; the biggest drawback is that the number of slots available is limited. We can't have all that many people getting paid as O-4's doing the work of O-2's, in the end it's an A1 world in the AF. I agree with your responses such as "but they are experienced" and "we need continuity in the CAF", etc; but we also need room for up and coming O-1's and O-2's and we need room for return to fly O-4's and O-5's. It's not my system, but it is THE system and I'm not (nor will I ever be) wearing the 4-stars it will take to change that. It's not the military's job to keep any individual flying as long as he/she wants to, it's their job to train, fight, and win wars. There's room for a few career flyers, but not many; we only need so many career line flyers and the end result will be more involuntary separations.


I'm not talking about a tactical situation, I am talking about the breadth of officership and knowledge; AF pilots are VERY VERY good at the tactical level. We do not do a good job of transitioning our officers from the tactical to the operational and above levels. Our officers are not good stewards of taxpayer dollars (the cost of a solution is RARELY considered by the mid-grade officers I interact with), they are not good at project management (I'm talking cradle to grave type stuff with the determination and validation of requirements, identification of solutions, etc - most don't even know what A1, A2, A3, A5, A8, etc stand for or what a validated requirement, etc is - Army and USMC FGOs do), they are not well-versed in the administration of military leadership (enlisted career requirements, the ins/outs of good feedback and mentoring, etc), and so on. USMC 2Lts coming out of TBS know more about the way the USMC goes to war and what makes their service tick than most AF FGOs do. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't good at all of that stuff as a major either - that's partly a systemic problem. I say partly because most USAF officers don't want to and even actively avoid learning that stuff and the system lets us get away with that. As a Sqdn CC, I saw that ALL of that stuff is actually very important though. See below to find out why.


I do, one day in a private setting we can do the whole yours vs mine thing. For the time being, know that I've had significant support from my sqdn members.


That one is the only statement of yours not worth addressing because you know not of what you say - but I will address it anyway. I've gotten medical waivers for those that had been previously told there was no hope by fighting two MAJCOMS and HAF (think on the order of years to get that done), I've gotten members promoted on supplemental boards AFTER they had been given a separation date from the previous non-selection, I've given my aircraft commanders the ability to be aircraft commanders despite the exponential increase in C2 (to the displeasure of several O-6s and above), I directly told a 2-star "no" to a request that was not legitimate without clearing it with my OG/CC or WG/CC (I did back brief them), etc. By the way, don't kid yourself, none of that happens on it's own. You also can't do any of that by John Wayne'ing it or without having a complete understanding of the system. For example, you don't get HAF to do anything unless you can show them that they HAVE to do that. A1 and/or A8 won't ask you or even care what you think your UMD should look like. This system is only changed from within when you hold their feet to the fire, and that doesn't happen unless you know their job almost as well as they do. Most USAF FGOs do not.

Integrity is the character trait that allows one to act as the authority they represent rather than Bob, or Bill, or Taco. No one gives an LOR or Article 15 because they like it, they do it because it's their job and only when they are man enough to do their job. Not all will do that, there is a reason why nearly every defense attorney will select the officer jury option for an enlisted member court martial, it's because they know the officer jury will be more likely to be swayed. No, it's not that they are more sympathetic and open-minded, it's because they are weak. There are plenty of O-5's, O-6's and above who are simply collecting a paycheck. I've come across plenty of leaders who know what the right thing is, they have the authority to do the right thing, but they don't because it will cause waves, etc. I've had a NAF/CC not sign off on legitimate waiver requests because he thought that the MAJCOM/CC wouldn't sign off on it (ALL prereq's were met and justified). He didn't say it was the wrong thing to do, he just said "he probably won't sign it" so he didn't send it up. If it's right, sign it; if it's wrong, say so.


How should sequestration be handled - targeted cuts. How will it be handled - across the board cuts. Enough said.


As far as the MAJCOM/CC brief is concerned, your verbal brief is the last and least effective coercion tool in the bag. Before he hears the brief, he's heard from the staff AO who has read the slides, from the COS who has read the slides, and maybe he has pre-read the slides himself - his mind is made up by the time he hears the brief. Last, the staffs use the slides after the fact to execute. The brief is a mere formality. They say it better here than I can: Essay: Dumb-dumb bullets - July 2009 - Armed Forces Journal - Military Strategy, Global Defense Strategy

It's a big world out there, and it does need changing. Unfortunately, and hopefully I've given some reasons why I think this, our officer corps is not well prepared to make those changes. If all we know is that the airplane is fueled and armed when we go to the flightline, we aren't prepared to identify or fix the errors when it isn't (again systemic, not pick up the phone and call command post or the Mx Super to fix your airplane). I have hope, though, that those Army and USMC CGOs that have gone into battle with their enlisted and NCOs and lived and operated within their logistics and C2 systems and seen those shortcomings will not forget their lessons learned as they become FGOs and flag officers and can eventually fix their systems. Perhaps if they can do it better, we will learn their lessons and do it better ourselves.