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Shut down Air War College


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Threeholer,

All of your last questions are valid and you seem to share the same opinion on PME and DL masters degrees that the rest of us do. The system should evolve from one that promotes based on box checking to one that both incorporates legitimate educational opportunities that are applicable to strategic thinking (and strats based on those), but importantly, also includes more emphasis on primary job excellence. The more I've discussed this overall issue in various settings the more I'm starting to believe the core of the problem is simple: the AF assumes everyone is excellent at their job and thus has to move to "secondary" factors to rack and stack folks. We all know this is false in two ways, A) there is often a wide spread (STS) between the guys who are sh*t how and the dudes who can't fly (or finance or contract or turn a wrench) their way out of a wet paper bag, and B) even if a guy is obviously bad at his job, his OPRs/PRF will often be compiled in a way to minimize that so not to have one of the Commander's guys "left behind."

There's not an easy fix to either of these problems (realizing not everyone is a winner and writing honest assessments), but to me the problems are at least becoming increasingly clear in my eyes. As OverTQ alluded to, no, the CC doesn't need to continually be the best pilot in the squadron and I'd much rather have him be good at Commander business rather than crew dog business, but the idea that a person can rise to the position of Commander without ever having been even decent at crew dog business is a foul on the entire system. I'd argue it is exceedingly rare where a person is a sh*tty pilot but would make an excellent commander of a flying squadron based on other "officership" type qualities, and even then that person would have a credibility problem leading troops in wartime. Being good, even excellent, at your current assigned duties at any level of responsibility should be an absolute requirement to move on to the next higher level, bottom line.

In the ideal system, if you suck at your job you don't get promoted; there's no amount of boxes you should be able to check (PME/MA/volunteer/d*ck sucking/execing/etc.) that should allow you to escape the fact that you can't flourish where you're planted. As your level of responsibility becomes more and more strategic and less and less tactical, your job follows suit so at a certain point if you can't move beyond A+B=C of the tactical world then you will not command or make strategic positions. At that point perhaps relevant, useful PME and Masters-level strategic study are factors that should influence the decision of whether to promote or not.

In today's system it seems to me and to a lot of other that those "strategic thinker/well rounded/MA-educated/officership" considerations are coming up when a dude is a f*cking lieutenant trying to plan ahead for getting on the right "vector" as a young captain so he can get a school slot on his first-look major's board. That's exactly the wrong time for those things to be important; it's the time when that guy should be fully immersed in the tactical mission of his unit, because his primary duties lie at that level. This is amplified even more when you're at war and the Boss is putting pink bodies in iron to go out and kill the enemy, because guess who is likely to be sitting in the seat? What skills do you want that guy to possess at that point in time?

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Next question, do you (AF) often get commanders who are not creditable in the aircraft? If this is truly your issue that your SR LTC's and COL's cannot even fly their aircraft as descent pilot, I see your point. But your argument is more from the stand point of schools and masters degrees really do not expand you educational views. If what you are saying is you would be better off staying in the line you entire career, I think (my opinion) your service will end up with great LTC's. But you will suffer in the long run. The services are run by the O6's. I can tell you from the Army stand point on education, your service will lose out if you get rid of your higher educational opportunities. I do realize that the Army view on leadership is much different from the AF view. But you want to have O6's who can compete with the other service O6's. As the career manager for some of the Army types, I was able to talk to them about the SSC's. I never spoke to one who said it was a wasted experience. They all told me it was one of the best educational schools they ever attended. From the stand point of being able to read everyones evaluations (and even work for some of them), they became some of the best commanders we have had. Not saying all, but the knowledge they gained from the SSC's combined with a key DC position, gave them some skills beyond the average commander.

PS I was not alluding to anything, just asking to understand your thoughts.

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Next question, do you (AF) often get commanders who are not creditable in the aircraft? If this is truly your issue that your SR LTC's and COL's cannot even fly their aircraft as descent pilot, I see your point. But your argument is more from the stand point of schools and masters degrees really do not expand you educational views. If what you are saying is you would be better off staying in the line you entire career, I think (my opinion) your service will end up with great LTC's. But you will suffer in the long run. The services are run by the O6's. I can tell you from the Army stand point on education, your service will lose out if you get rid of your higher educational opportunities. I do realize that the Army view on leadership is much different from the AF view. But you want to have O6's who can compete with the other service O6's. As the career manager for some of the Army types, I was able to talk to them about the SSC's. I never spoke to one who said it was a wasted experience. They all told me it was one of the best educational schools they ever attended. From the stand point of being able to read everyones evaluations (and even work for some of them), they became some of the best commanders we have had. Not saying all, but the knowledge they gained from the SSC's combined with a key DC position, gave them some skills beyond the average commander.

PS I was not alluding to anything, just asking to understand your thoughts.

For me at least, my commander is highly competent in the aircraft so it's not an issue. I'm also young and YMMV with different squadrons. I don't even think that's the biggest issue people are seeing, it's that dudes who prioritize CYA and box checking are promoted and dudes who are out there kicking ass and taking names are passed over to a certain degree or more likely punching out after looking at a long dark tunnel or further CYA and box checking. It's the slow vectoring over time where dudes who are most worried about their own careers and "play the game" most effectively get on the golden boy track and dudes who kill the enemy most effectively look like just another Captain Bag O'Donuts because out evaluation system doesn't seem to adequately value primary job excellence.

And I also don't think the problem is with SDE (or as you said senior service colleges). Those seem to be valuable and CH already spoke to his very positive experience. The problem is where doing SOS both in correspondence and in residence is a major discriminating factor for promotion. Other than the commissioning-source re-hash of ASBC, is the first real PME a person will go to and while I have not had the privilege of attending Shoe Flag yet, I've heard less than stellar reviews. Why are CGOs, the supposed tactical experts, doing practice bleeding for something that isn't even that valuable? Do CGOs need to get "strategic breadth" or do they need to be in the vault studying their weapons system? Assume "both" is not a viable option (that is the AF's current stance) because time and effort are finite factors and you can't make two different things your #1 priority. That's the rub. Why are masters degrees, no matter what they are in or how hard they were to obtain, valued above being good at your job? The current system assumes everyone is good at their job and thus discriminates based on who also has that AAD done. That's simply not true and it's part of the problem.

Edited by nsplayr
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The last time I checked the "paying your dues" part of our job was college/OTS/Zoo/ROTC/UPT/MWS qual/Q1 mission checkride/AC or flight lead upgrade/IP/EP. Once those are accomplished you have made it to the NFL-level of warfare and the focus should be on the mission rather than the career.

Shack

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Question. Would you rather have someone in charge who was the best commander you ever saw or the best pilot you ever saw?

150px-Olds_r.jpg

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So....your answer is a dead guy from the Vietnam era?

No you fucking ignoramus...he was saying "both".

If that "dead guy from the Vietnam era" was still alive he would most certainly punch you right in the snot locker.

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So....your answer is a dead guy from the Vietnam era?

Given some of the "leadership" I've watched move up the square filling ladder recently, I'd actually prefer a dead guy from the Vietnam era. For that matter, any carcass from any era would do. King Tut would be kind of cool. And less damaging to actual mission accomplishment.

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So....your answer is a dead guy from the Vietnam era?

The overwhelming sadness I feel from your lack of SA has left me powerless to respond.

Your new tactical is Kryptonite.

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Given some of the "leadership" I've watched move up the square filling ladder recently, I'd actually prefer a dead guy from the Vietnam era. For that matter, any carcass from any era would do. King Tut would be kind of cool. And less damaging to actual mission accomplishment.

And think of the OER fodder "responsible for directing construction of two Pyramids and one Ziggurat in undisclosed location" "brought Ziggurat in under budget" (oops....is that good?)

"Located..designed...constructed one Sphinx in Central Asian location" "fashionably overbudget and late"

...............The Sphinx may be artistically mis-placed...but I deserve to be a general........

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  • 1 year later...

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