Maybe the getting caught indicates in improvement since the recent epic fails.

 

No...They got caught because OSI squeezed a few in relation to a drug investigation...When the cheating was exposed "leadership" had to get involved...I'd be interested to know just how much cheating is a part of the military culture...

 

Political correctness, social experimentation, lack of leadership, decreased force structure, ill defined missions, rapidly aging equipment, poor funding, minimum proficiency flying, diminishing sense of honor and tradition, - it's no longer the AF that I remember.

When I was a SAC B-52 EWO (before UPT) our new wing commander had a standup commanders call in the hanger (not the theater) . He reminded us of the SAC motto "Peace is Our Profession" and then said that's BS. Your job is to go out and bomb the living crap of the enemy and you better be ready when you are called.

The focus is no longer on "fighting."

 

Agree.

I will tell you now, out of the 1000+ military aviation officers I know, I do not know one who "made it thru" without using gouge, dirty purples, etc.
Heck, there was a website at one point where a guy was profiting off of gouge (ALLPME.com). In addition, I'd be inclined to know just how many of today's "leaders" didn't use some sort of gouge at one point or another.

I'm not advocating "cheating" by any measure -- but, what I think in actuality was these guys were doing a historically "turn my back" gouge sharing and it came to light when a cell phone was confiscated.

 

I went to UPT in the 80s, and my perception was this:

In the academic phase, in the academic building--you better do things the right way, integrity first, etc etc. Do your own work, learn this stuff, and compete for top academic honors.

Once on the flightline, with weekly EPE tests, it was a "cooperate and graduate" exercise. We were actually ADMONISHED when one or two weak sisters were struggling on these tests while the rest of us made 100s. We were put on formal release, chastised for not taking care of our classmates, etc. Copy--lesson learned and applied ASAP! (The fact the USEM would leave the EPE test in the Flt CC office, in the open, on top of a desk, etc should NOT be construed as encouraging--right?). Class starts to make 100s. IPs happy. Students happy. Lesson learned--take care of the team and work together!

Funny thing is I never had a problem with this set of mixed messages. The academic environment was just that--a place where we were expected to learn, study, and apply the lessons to our training.

The flight line was the start of the "this is what is means to be a warrior" mindset. Warriors work together, take care of each other, and are only as strong as the weakest link. The wink wink/nudge nudge wasn't hard to understand from the IPs, but I never was confused that the cooperate/graduate model was to be applied there, and not in other areas. Like flying, there was judgement involved.

My understanding is later in the late 90s or early 2000s the **** hit the fan for the same type deal in UPT. Zero tolerance equals zero tolerance. Again--I we worked together at survival training, we worked together in combat, and I never saw the issue as the whole EPE gig was just to keep you in the books, not to stratify you from your peer group.

Anyone else from that era have similar memories or am I just AFU?

 

Entirely legit in certain operational environments. But in my (navy) experience this never applied to anything nuclear...that was always 100% by-the-book, zero tolerance for deviation (both in job performance and training/testing). The cases I know of where cheating occurred resulted in courts martial or NJP, I certainly didn't see it day-to-day.

 

It was reported that LeMay had a sign on his office wall:

"To err is human; to forgive, divine.
Neither of these is SAC policy."

 

So what do you think will happen or should happen to these officers?

 

Cooperate and graduate were the mantra throughout my military career EXCEPT when it came to nukes.

I did Nukes at Hahn AB in the F-16 and it was extremely demanding. There was no cheating or help allowed on Nuke missions/testing/certification.

 

Same experience here in the Navy. Zero tolerance only applied to nukes.