What's wrong with the Air Force?

[JS]

180 out from the CAF. Are good dudes just never given the chance to be EPs? It's mind blowing that apparently 90% of MAF EPs are some of the biggest cocksuckers walking around with wings.

Nah, I wouldn't say that 90% of douches - there are plenty of good dude, big picture EPs. But I would say, maybe one out of every four is looking at things in the wrong way. As a potential next in line EP, I had a conversation a while back with our chief of stan-eval, who is a good friend. I told him that there was pretty much no way I was going to Q3 someone, or even downgrade them unless it was to begin the long process to get someone thrown out. Stupid mistakes can be debriefed without marring up the FEFs, and a checkride is meant to be a binary 1 or 0 that shows whether or not you can safely fly or not. There's a reason why checkrides are not graded on a 1-100 scale, but it seems like guys in my community like to nitpick stupid shit for downgrades and seem to go out of their way to find reasons to Q3 people. And that's different from the commander directed Q3s we were talking about. I think that was covered in another thread called "stan-eval shenanigans" here.

Needless to say, arguing with the chief of stan eval is like, well, arguing with your evaluator. So, for the time being, my name went to the bottom of the list of potential EPs, which is underneath the garbage can in the stan-eval office. Ha.

[hindsight2020]

http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20131120/NEWS05/311200022/USAF-nuke-troubles-run-deep-key-officers-burned-out-

This study needs to be expanded to the total AD force.

Vocational frustration as a result of a mission of admitted "perennial political posturing" burning people out? QOL detractors related to an intolerable location not only having marked historic retention problems but also a documented tendency to literally make you punch your wife more often than your peers in Florida? Um....Is senior AF leadership fucking new? The only thing that raises an eyebrow for me is that they needed to pay RAND to find this out. Whynot Minot...

You could poll the entire Buff community in the Spring of 2008 and find similar tone and sources of causation for the god damn Trail of tears the community was [and is]. True story: academic instructor stands up on day one of academics and the first thing he asks the room was : "raise your hand if you put this assignment as your first choice out of UPT...". I almost started a golf clap, I couldn't believe someone went there on the first fucking day of school. UFB....(and yes, no one raised their hand.)

They [leadership] want to keep dismissing the moronically obvious rational incentives that drive human behavior? Well, they'll keep getting what they pay for. Shit I ought to apply to RAND, that looks like an easy way to make six figures spouting what the base gate A1C could have told you for free....

[Rusty Pipes]

180 out from the CAF. Are good dudes just never given the chance to be EPs? It's mind blowing that apparently 90% of MAF EPs are some of the biggest cocksuckers walking around with wings.

I'd say the ratio on this is probably the opposite... at least in my community. The problem is that the 10% are typically over the top douches and the only guys who get stuck with them are either getting non-notice checks or aren't smart enough to learn how to "EP shop" when they know they have a checkride due. Hell, I have 6 Form 8s in a row in my FEF with the same EP's name on it! He was a gray beard passed over O-4 who was the best pilot I've ever flown with... he'd wear you out on a checkride, but I can honestly say every single one of them was actually fun and I learned something new every time I flew with the guy even on those check rides. I based my entire attitude as an EP on my experiences with him.

We had a bad run in the community also where all the commanders were automatically making every WIC grad an EP... and unfortunately at the time it seemed that they were exclusively accepting only complete pricks to WIC! When I managed to take over a Sq Stan Eval shop I was successful at convincing 2 commanders that patch wearers should not be EPs. Reason being that these guys were supposed to be our technical and tactical experts in the jet and I was getting lots of feedback over the years from our young guys that they would never approach the WIC guys with questions because they were worried about showing the WIC EP how "little they knew" about the jet in comparison... and they were right because these prick patch wearing EPs spent a good portion of their time filling out Q-3 paperwork on co-pilots and young ACs. Luckily there seemed to be a shift in who started going to WIC in our community and we got a couple really good guys as patches who wholeheartedly agreed that they would rather be just IPs who were approachable which was definitely noticeable in the tactical knowledge of our younger guys because of it. We went from guys going tactical DNIF when they saw they were flying with a patch on a local in my old Sq to guys fighting to get on the schedule to fly with them in the new one.

[SocialD]

When I managed to take over a Sq Stan Eval shop I was successful at convincing 2 commanders that patch wearers should not be EPs.

Did you not do MSN checks? I can't think of anyone better to do MSN checks, but our patches don't downgrade for BS shit. Then again, inst/mission checks are really just another flight for most.

[Champ Kind]

So much wrong there man. One of the best pilots you've flown with but would "wear you out" on a checkride? WTF? It's your checkride. Fly the profile and show you can accomplish your mission without blatant disregard for regs and without damaging equipment or killing anyone. Any EP adding to that is a DOUCHEBAG.

As far as your comments on patch wearers in your community... wow man. Doesn't seem very "humble approachable or credible" if your young guys try to avoid them because they are such pricks. That's a total shame and contrary to what that school should be producing.

[Spartacus]

As far as your comments on patch wearers in your community... wow man. Doesn't seem very "humble approachable or credible" if your young guys try to avoid them because they are such pricks. That's a total shame and contrary to what that school should be producing.

I've seen this same thing in multiple places. Of course YMMV, but a lot of patches these days are not "humble or approachable."

[Champ Kind]

Doesn't make it right.

[pawnman]

I'd say the ratio on this is probably the opposite... at least in my community. The problem is that the 10% are typically over the top douches and the only guys who get stuck with them are either getting non-notice checks or aren't smart enough to learn how to "EP shop" when they know they have a checkride due. Hell, I have 6 Form 8s in a row in my FEF with the same EP's name on it! He was a gray beard passed over O-4 who was the best pilot I've ever flown with... he'd wear you out on a checkride, but I can honestly say every single one of them was actually fun and I learned something new every time I flew with the guy even on those check rides. I based my entire attitude as an EP on my experiences with him.

We had a bad run in the community also where all the commanders were automatically making every WIC grad an EP... and unfortunately at the time it seemed that they were exclusively accepting only complete pricks to WIC! When I managed to take over a Sq Stan Eval shop I was successful at convincing 2 commanders that patch wearers should not be EPs. Reason being that these guys were supposed to be our technical and tactical experts in the jet and I was getting lots of feedback over the years from our young guys that they would never approach the WIC guys with questions because they were worried about showing the WIC EP how "little they knew" about the jet in comparison... and they were right because these prick patch wearing EPs spent a good portion of their time filling out Q-3 paperwork on co-pilots and young ACs. Luckily there seemed to be a shift in who started going to WIC in our community and we got a couple really good guys as patches who wholeheartedly agreed that they would rather be just IPs who were approachable which was definitely noticeable in the tactical knowledge of our younger guys because of it. We went from guys going tactical DNIF when they saw they were flying with a patch on a local in my old Sq to guys fighting to get on the schedule to fly with them in the new one.

In my community, it is very rare for patches to be evaluators until they have a leadership position (DO, CC, OGV, etc). For the same reason...patches are there to instruct. Evaluators are there to judge. If you have your primary tactical instructors constantly evaluating, it makes them far less approachable, especially by the young guys who have only ever done a checkride during the B-course.

[osulax05]

.patches are there to instruct. Evaluators are there to judge. If you have your primary tactical instructors constantly evaluating, it makes them far less approachable.

2

Though I will say that the patch that I most respect is currently an EP in my sq and he is 100% able to balance the two hats. He makes it very clear that his primary job as an IP, EP, and WIC grad is to make people better aviators.

[Champ Kind]

I think the best SEFEs are those that look at themselves primarily still as instructors but can complete Form 8s, too.

[Ram]

I think the best SEFEs are those that look at themselves primarily still as instructors but can complete Form 8s, too.

This. Fucking this.

[Rusty Pipes]

So much wrong there man. One of the best pilots you've flown with but would "wear you out" on a checkride? WTF? It's your checkride. Fly the profile and show you can accomplish your mission without blatant disregard for regs and without damaging equipment or killing anyone. Any EP adding to that is a DOUCHEBAG.

As far as your comments on patch wearers in your community... wow man. Doesn't seem very "humble approachable or credible" if your young guys try to avoid them because they are such pricks. That's a total shame and contrary to what that school should be producing.

Nothing wrong there at all... and maybe I didn't completely explain it. He would start the checkride brief saying that there were certain minimum requirements that needed to be met and if I wanted to do just those minimums and hop out of the seat then that was up to me, but he thought that was a complete waste. I had already flown with the guy a bunch of times and he said he knew I could fly the jet, so he said the check ride was basically a formality... what he considered "more of a validation of our training program". He didn't want to waste valuable training time and I didn't want to waste a second flying with him where I wasn't learning something. He said he could just sit there and shut up while holding me to the standard tolerances of altitude, airspeed, etc... or instead of +10/-5 on the airspeed or +/-100 feet in the VFR pattern he'd give me +5/-0 or airspeed and +/-25 feet in the VFR pattern (but only grading me against the actual standard) and give me shit if I couldn't meet the stricter window and bet beers on if I could meet them or not. I'd finish my AR mins in the anchor and then he'd say, "Hey Dude... let’s ask them to do a 360 with auto-pilot off for each of us and whoever stays with straight Capt's bars the longest is owed a beer!" He was never a dick even when beating you up and I never even really felt like I was on a checkride with him. Everyone wanted to be this guy and only hoped someday to be even close to as good as he was in the jet. If someone were struggling that day or weren't the type who could handle what he could dish out he knew to back off and changed the tone accordingly... he was the epitome of the Crew Dawg!

As far as the patches go, like I said, it got a lot better in the last few years before I headed off to staff. I'm a MAF guy and I think (actually I know) that originally the program attracted a lot of the Fighter Pilot wannabes... the guys who on the long trip across the pond would always talk about how they "should have got a T-38, but the dickhead flight commander didn't like me" or some shit like that. You know, the ones who said they were #8 in Tweets and there were only 7 T-38s in the drop. They would come back and start pointing with their elbows, 69 everything, so to speak after everything they said... nothing wrong with that in the CAF world, but that just doesn't fly in the MAF. Don't get me wrong, they were good pilots and it was definitely a tough program, but there was a definite "I'm better than you" attitude from a lot of them. I'm not sure what caused the shift, but I know the few non-douche patches started their own recruiting for the program and we started getting more of the guys who were credible... the guy who actually was #1 or 2 in his UPT class, but just didn't like pulling Gs or wearing a mask. It was a pretty rapid change... I'd say only 3-4 WIC classes of the "right" guys going through and their continued recruitment. I'm sure some douches still get through, but I've seen lots of my former co-pilots in the past year or two post a graduation day patch on FB and the vast majority definitely fall into the "humble, approachable, credible" category. I think they are getting it right for the most part these days.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Rusty Pipes

[Champ Kind]

That's good to hear about the latest gen of patches in your community.

I guess with regard to the other part of your post about the checkride, I'm glad you guys were able to get training out of it. In my community, there were/are so many required items in a checkride profile that there really is never time for that...even more so now with reduced sortie durations.

[ThreeHoler]

Sounds like the AF isn't the only place where we laud creativity (Mitchell et al) yet we crucify those who are creative.

This is the thing about creativity that is rarely acknowledged: Most people don’t actually like it. Studies confirm what many creative people have suspected all along: People are biased against creative thinking, despite all of their insistence otherwise.

...

Staw says most people are risk-averse. He refers to them as satisfiers. “As much as we celebrate independence in Western cultures, there is an awful lot of pressure to conform,” he says. Satisfiers avoid stirring things up, even if it means forsaking the truth or rejecting a good idea.

...

A close friend of mine works for a tech startup. She is an intensely creative and intelligent person who falls on the risk-taker side of the spectrum. Though her company initially hired her for her problem-solving skills, she is regularly unable to fix actual problems because nobody will listen to her ideas. “I even say, ‘I’ll do the work. Just give me the go ahead and I’ll do it myself,’ ” she says. “But they won’t, and so the system stays less efficient.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/creativity_is_rejected_teachers_and_bosses_don_t_value_out_of_the_box_thinking.html

[SuperWSO]

Just got this today from my dad, passed along from friends of his. They flew during the Vietnam era. I put it in this thread because I think it captures what many of us were hoping to be a part of. What's wrong with the Air Force? People are less and less likely to say the following or even be able to relate after a career.

---------------

Don't know who wrote this, but the sentiments are real and apply to more than just fighter pilots. A lot of the WSO's I know were more "fighter pilot" than anything else, because after all, being a Fighter Pilot is a state of mind.

Mugs


As we get older and we experience the loss of old friends, we begin to realize that maybe we bullet proof Fighter Pilots won't live forever, not so bullet proof anymore. We ponder -- if I was gone tomorrow did I say what I wanted to my Brothers. The answer was no! Hence, the following few random thoughts.

When people ask me if I miss flying, I always say something like -- "Yes! I miss the flying because when you are flying, you are totally focused on the task at hand. It's like nothing else you will ever do (almost). But then I always say "However, I miss the Squadron and the guys even more than I miss the flying." Why you might ask?" They were a bunch of aggressive, wise ass, cocky, insulting, sarcastic bastards in smelly flight suits who thought a funny thing to do was to fart and see if they could clear a room. They drank too much, they chased women, they flew when they shouldn't, they laughed too loud and thought they owned the sky, the Bar, and generally thought they could do everything better then the next guy. Nothing was funnier than trying to screw with a buddy and see how pissed off they would get. They flew planes and helos that leaked, that smoked, that broke, that couldn't turn, that burned fuel too fast, that never had auto pilots or radars, and with systems that were archaic next to today's new generation aircraft. All true!

But a little closer look might show that every guy in the room was sneaky smart and damn competent and brutally handsome! They hated to lose or fail to accomplish the mission and seldom did. They were the laziest guys on the planet until challenged and then they would do anything to win. They would fly with wing tips overlapped at night through the worst weather with only a little red light to hold on to, knowing that their Flight Lead would get them on the ground safely. They would fight in the air knowing the greatest risk and fear was that another fighter would arrive at the same six o'clock at the same time they did. They would fly in harm's way and act nonchalant as if to challenge the grim reaper.

When we went to another base we were the best Squadron on the base as soon as we landed. Often we were not welcomed back. When we went into an O club we owned the Bar. We were lucky to have the Best of the Best in the military. We knew it and so did others. We found jobs, lost jobs, got married, got divorced, moved, went broke, got rich, broke something and the only thing you could really count on was if you really needed help, a fellow Pilot would have your back.

I miss the call signs, nick names, and the stories behind them. I miss the getting lit up in an Oclub full of my buddies and watching the incredible, unbelievable things that were happening. I miss the Crew Chiefs saluting as you taxied out the flight line. I miss the lighting of the Afterburners, if you had them, especially at night. I miss the going straight up and straight down. I miss the cross countries. I miss the dice games at the bar for drinks. I miss listening to bull shit stories while drinking and laughing till my eyes watered.

I miss three man lifts. I miss naps in the Squadron with a room full of pilots working up new tricks to torment the sleeper. I miss flying upside down in the Grand Canyon and hearing about flying so low boats were blown over. I miss coming into the break Hot and looking over and seeing three wingmen tucked in tight ready to make the troops on the ground proud. I miss belches that could be heard in neighboring states. I miss putting on ad hoc Air Shows that might be over someone's home or farm in faraway towns.

Finally I miss hearing DEAD BUG being called out at the bar and seeing and hearing a room of men hit the deck with drinks spilling and chairs being knocked over as they rolled in the beer and kicked their legs in the air, followed closely by a Not Politically Correct Tap Dancing and Singing spectacle that couldn't help but make you grin and order another round!

I am a lucky guy and have lived a great life! One thing I know is that I was part of a special, really talented bunch of guys doing something dangerous and doing it better than most. Flying the most beautiful, ugly, noisy, solid aircraft ever built. Supported by ground troops committed to making sure we came home again! Being prepared to fly and fight and die for America. Having a clear mission. Having fun.

We box out the bad memories from various operations most of the time but never the hallowed memories of our fallen comrades. We are often amazed at how good war stories never let the truth interfere and they get better with age. We are lucky bastards to be able to walk into a Squadron or a Bar and have men we respect and love shout out our names, our call signs, and know that this is truly where we belong. We are Fighter Pilots. We are Few and we are Proud.

Anonymous

Edited December 22, 2013 by SuperWSO

[Seriously]

words

I think a lot of these types of personalities still exist in the Air Force today. I see it a lot with Lts coming in, but they are quickly stifled at the squadron and group level.

The problem is the constant oversight all the way from the top rungs of leadership. Even if the top guys don't want to micromanage, all of the commanders below them are afraid they'll get the hammer brought down on them for the smallest of infractions or misconduct. I heard a story the other day about a squadron commander relieved for something he wrote in an e-mail. Whether or not that story is true, the perception is there (that story came from another sq/cc). And let's not forget the ubiquity of the camera. It doesn't matter where you're flying these days, there's probably someone with a camera on the ground below you. And even if there isn't, there's recording equipment on the aircraft and in the radar control facilities. There is almost nothing you can do today that isn't trackable in some way.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Good in that it stops bad judgment and buffoonery, but too many people today (and rightly so) are overly concerned about how something looks regardless of the training benefits or lack of actual danger. If it looks fun or like you're shining your ass, then you are (on the ground or in the air).

Edited December 22, 2013 by Seriously

[Danny Noonin]

Leave it to you guys to take a great post and ruin it with your Debbie downer the AF sucks routine.

[FallingOsh]

What was the title of this thread again?

[Danny Noonin]

What was the title of this thread again?

Don't bother me with relevant details

[M2]

A pretty good perspective...

Care. You can’t fake good leadership

Chris Vadnais in Leadership Journal

I spent 20 years in the Air Force. I served in some key leadership positions and watched the performance of many, many others.

One thing I noticed is that many people aren’t very good at leading. In fact, they don’t lead. They cover their own asses. They want to avoid culpability. They seek blind obedience. They seem to believe it’s appropriate to treat others in the worst ways they remember being treated.

What people fail to understand is that real power comes not from getting people to fear and obey, but from getting people to cherish your opinion so much that they come to you for advice and seek your input on their own.

The old adage, “If you have to go around telling everyone you’re in charge, you aren’t,” is something we all need to be reminded of once in a while.

Many weak or inexperienced people who find themselves with some measure of positional power try to lead with force. Maybe that’s how they were led. Maybe that’s how they perceive they were led. Some people will be influenced by this type of leadership, but only to the extent that they fear the consequences. In other words, they will do just enough not to get yelled at or otherwise abused.

To truly lead someone I think you have to take a genuine interest in them. Ask questions. Find out what a person’s goals and dreams are. What is their background? What are their ambitions? What are their fears? Chances are they are much different than yours were, when you were in their position, because they’ve probably had dramatically different experiences than you.

A couple of things happen when you dig into who your people are. First, you begin to understand people and how different and unique each of us truly is. You get an idea of what makes each member of your team tick. Does he or she value time off? Recognition? Autonomy? Group work? A quiet setting? A loud, party atmosphere? Once you find these things out, you can exert your influence as a leader to help each person achieve more. That’s actually your responsibility.

As an example, you may find someone like me. I grew up alone, so as a kid I pretty much always had the TV on whether I was watching it or not. As an adult, I find that some kind of background noise seems to maintain the momentum of my productivity, so it’s common for me to have music or the television on while I’m working. It doesn’t distract me; I feel more comfortable with some kind of noise. Conversely, my wife grew up with four siblings in a home-business environment where people came and went all day nearly every day. She finds comfort in silence. If she is working on a project alone, she will most likely choose to eliminate all background noise. A good leader will know these things about us and do whatever he or she can to put us each in the environment in which we feel most comfortable and will be most productive.

The second thing that happens when you get to know your people more personally is that they begin to see you as someone who cares about them. You’re still the boss, and there is still a line between you that should always be respected (the leader is the line judge, and exactly where that line is drawn will differ from situation to situation). However, when you take a sincere interest in people, you quickly begin to transform from just some person who manages them as a resource into someone who values them and can be trusted. You become someone whom they get satisfaction from pleasing.

Read that again.

You become someone whom they get satisfaction from pleasing.

When you’re just someone people obey, they will do just enough to avoid negative consequences. When you’re someone they actually want to please, you’re much more powerful.

So how do you get there? I believe this is the biggest part of the problem. You can’t fake it.

You can fake mean. You can put on a show about how upset you can get, yell and curse and fire people and do mean things to those who cross you, and all that can be a charade you put on without even feeling anything. However, you can’t fake really caring about people enough to listen to them, ask them good questions, process and remember what they’ve told you, and make decisions based on the information you learn from them. You have to really care.

The good news is you don’t have to like everyone. You just have to care about them as an employee, as a professional, and as a human being. If you’re really self-centered (you should probably work on that) or if you find someone particularly unlikable (this happens), you could try thinking of them as an extension of yourself. They’re under your management, so their success or failure is a reflection of you as a leader. Maybe it helps to think of them as an investment. That’s fine, as long as you view each of them as a unique, interesting and complex human being.

One thing I’ve found in more than 15 years of managing many diverse types of people is you should never assume to know where someone is coming from. There was once a young lady under my supervision who was about the same age as my son. She had similar interests, viewpoints, and said many of the same things he often says. In many ways she was similar to my son. However, once I got to know her, I found out her family life was radically different from anything I had ever known — certainly different from the experience my son had growing up. Her experiences shaped the way she felt about many issues, and it was easy to understand that once I learned more about her.

We cannot assume anyone is seeing things the way we are. We’re all just too different.

So if you want to be feared, put on a show. People will tolerate it because they probably need the job, but they won’t like you and won’t give you nearly all they have.

If you’d rather get the most out of your team, cultivate respect by showing some. Find out who your people are. Care about them. Find out what you can do to help them succeed.

Lead them.

[Cornholio5]

"They cover their own asses"

Yep pretty much sums up the majority of leadership!

[rancormac]

Unsure if right thread, but similarities exist in the police officer field

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/16/SHOT-Show-Police-Officers-Explain-Why-Millennials-Make-Terrible-Cops

He added, “But I think the worse thing we did was that we focused so much on law enforcement getting college degrees to move up that the type-A personalities out there in the streets kicking people’s asses and locking people up – well, they had to go to court. They didn’t have a lot of time to work on their master's.”

[Longhorn15]

The attitude of the author in that article is about half of what is wrong with cops in America.

[nsplayr]

Great article by Tony Carr that was being discussed in the Force Management thread somewhat. Figured I'd post the entire thing here:

Also just read an email from my SQ/CC to all personnel. It talked about how he had read the article, agreed with it's sentiment, and emphasized how all of us have a vote in our own morale and our important role in improving our unit. I think that's a good point to drive home and I was actually really pleased that my CC was reading JQ Public and felt strongly enough about the article to bring it to our attention. Definitely lucky right now in terms of leadership at the squadron level.

Late yesterday, the Air Force announced it had uncovered widespread instances of nuclear missile launch officers cheating on certification exams. This is deeply concerning. Not only for what it says about the readiness of the officers involved and perhaps the broader community to which they belong, but for the noticeable fraying of integrity it demonstrates. Integrity is the bedrock value of the Air Force, and without it, the service cannot function.

The words that follow are animated by worry. As an airman, I ‘m troubled by what seems to be a steady procession of moral breaches such as those alleged in this incident. If the bonds of trust that bind together airmen, their leaders, and the American people are worn too thin, they could sever completely. This could severely hamper or destroy the service’s vitality and darken its future. I know many who share this worry, and it feeds a second concern. A degraded Air Force means a less secure United States. That is unacceptable to me and others not as airmen, but as citizens. The service must be kept strong. To the extent problems or issues weaken it, they must be confronted swiftly, honestly, and boldly.

* * * * *

Gen. Moseley

General T. Michael Moseley was sacked from his position as Chief of Staff of the Air Force in 2008after an investigation detailing the inadvertent shipment of nuclear weapon components was made public. Moseley had already weathered a previous incident involving the accidental movement of nuclear warheads the previous year. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ostensibly felt that Moseley had already been given two strikes, and given the criticality of the nuclear mission, he wasn’t going to let him strike out. All things being equal, history would have been likely to smile on Gates for this decision.

Gen. Schwartz

His next move, however, probably annulled whatever credit he might have gotten. Rather than replace Moseley with someone grounded in the nuclear mission, he hired General Norton A. Schwartz, a mobility and special operations operator. While there was plenty to admire about Schwartz, it’s arguable he wasn’t an ideal fit. He’dspent most of the previous eight years in senior joint roles that had distanced him from the daily business of the operational Air Force, had no background in the nuclear mission, and was known more for steady bureaucratic competence than the dynamic problem-solving skills seemingly warranted by the circumstances. But Gates trusted him, and was probably also animated by the promise Schwartz seemed to show when it came to inter-service cooperation. Gates had been at odds with Moseley concerning what he perceived to be a lack of Air Force responsiveness in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Schwartz seemed less an airpower traditionalist and, therefore, more likely to respond energetically to emerging operational needs. Especially with the service now cowed in shame over its nuclear missteps.

Schwartz delivered. Or seemed to. He immediately whipped the service into a full sprint in supporting its ground force partners, drastically dialing up the numbers of remotely-piloted aircraft and support airmen supplied to ground force partners. He also set about fixing the confidence problem with the nuclear mission by declaring it the service’s number one priority. A new command was created to warehouse the mission (rather than having bomber and missile components split between two other commands), and Schwartz directed thecreation of new staff agencies at multiple levels to oversee, inspect, assess, and resource the mission. At every opportunity, the service fought to reinforce the public credibility of its “nuclear enterprise.” Unfortunately for the legacies of both Schwartz and Gates, these visible overtures did little to change the realities of operational life in the Air Force’s missile community.

* * * * *

Morale: less about comfort than discipline.

Morale. It’s a misunderstood idea. Some associate morale with attitude or general mood. Some think it’s about whether people are “happy.” These are perilous oversimplifications. Morale is about confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline. It is the mental and emotional capacity of a fighting force to engage in a fight. That’s an expansive concept. It includes not just things like job satisfaction and team cohesion, but fundamental things like quality of training, adherence to standards, and trust in teammates, leaders, and the validity of the mission itself.

Commanders — good ones, anyway — understand morale as both nuanced and determinative. The things that comprise it must be held in balance. Neglecting or overweighting any aspect of it can disturb the balance. A giddy band of weed addicts who can’t run a checklist may seem happy, but they have low morale. By the same token, a group of people who seem gruff or even mildly distressed but are able to kill or wound with precision measured in inches are said to have high morale. In other words, at execution level, morale is nearly indistinguishable from readiness. Good commanders understand morale is the key to mission success, because in any warfighting endeavor, people determine victory or defeat. The bad news, manifest for some time now, is that the Air Force missile community has morale problem.

A study commissioned by General Mark Welsh, who succeeded Schwartz as Chief of Staff in 2012, found in early 2013 concerning morale issues in a community particularly sensitive — for good reason — to the readiness of its practitioners. Officers interviewed for that study complained of poor leadership, low experience levels, the feeling of being undervalued, insufficient downtime, and leaders who weren’t listening to concerns. A few months later, 17 launch officers at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota were sidelined for falling short of standards. Internal emails written by a commander with an evident grasp of the problem indicated procedural lapses and systemic “rot” within the missile crew force. Confronted with the suggestion of a morale crisis, Major General Michael Carey, who was at the time responsible for all Air Force missile crews,downplayed the issue by pointing out that during a recent visit to Minot, he’d found crews “optimistic” and “upbeat.” He added that while he took the concerns to heart, he believed his crews were “not unhappy.“ The stark contrast between the picture painted in the internal emails and the official position of a senior commander left many wondering which view was more credible.

Gen. Carey

Carey may have helped answer that question a few months later, when he was relieved of command after an investigation found he’d been serially drunk and behaved inappropriately during an official trip to Russia in connection with his command role. The Air Force had lost confidence in his leadership. Based on what has transpired since then, it’s fair to wonder if that confidence was ever warranted in the first place. In addition to the deficiencies noted at Minot, new problems have emerged. Last week, three missile launch officers were implicated in a narcotics investigation. Yesterday, the Air Force revealed that in the process of that investigation, agents unearthed a cheating scandal implicating as many as 34 officers in efforts to falsely pass exams required to sustain their nuclear certification. It’s difficult to decide which aspect of the situation is more startling: the cheating revelations themselves, or the notion that they may signal deep-seated problems understood and illuminated by squadron-level leaders who are being ignored by an out-of-touch chain-of-command.

The cheating allegations are cause for serious concern, something the initial Air Force response seems to acknowledge. Certification exams in any technical career field are core to the qualification and training regime that ensures practitioners are ready to do their jobs. We can imagine that in a field like this one, the certification regime — and the testing to support it — would be exacting, unforgiving, and uncompromising, as it absolutely must be for reasons as obvious as they are disturbing to think about.

But this situation isn’t concerning merely because it involves critical certification procedures. What is perhaps more distressing is what these allegations have to say about the Air Force’s value system, which is much more fundamental than any technical matter. The Air Force’s most cherished shared value is integrity. Such a brazen and broad violation of it — not among trainees or cadets still earning their way through the door, but by commissioned officers responsible for nuclear readiness — is a gravely startling thing indeed.

Clearly, the Schwartz strategy, inherited and carried forward by Welsh, has failed. But why? How could it be that new bureaucracies, more brass, beefed up headquarters inspections, leader visits, more staff oversight, and added scrutiny could produce the same result as before? Well, because those things don’t have anything to do with individual integrity.

As it turns out, this is a people problem, and people don’t respond to all that stuff. Viewed most favorably, the things Schwartz did could be seen as necessary but insufficient. Less charitably, they could be seen as solutions to something other than the actual problem. Schwartz opted for more oversight, implying he viewed the problem as one of supervision and surveillance. But the real problem was much more stubborn, involving both supervision of the mission and the fundamentals of daily life performing it. By placing more senior-level surveillance against the challenge of nuclear surety, Schwartz may have actually further obscured the true nature of the issues bedeviling the community.

By default, employees will show and tell their bosses what they believe those bosses want to see and hear. This is especially true in an authoritarian hierarchy. More staffs and direct executive involvement only helps if communications are stripped of pretense and employees show and tell their bosses the honest state of things; otherwise, these things simply induce more message alignment and mental conformity. Understanding these intricacies, the late luminary Colonel John Boyd admonished that in addressing problems, leaders must focus on people before organizations. Unless people are well-trained, capably led, empowered to hold one another accountable, and encouraged to provide honest, unguarded truths about the state of their readiness, organizational remedies can have no positive effect and may even backfire.

The seriousness of a strategy to understand and strike at the root of people issues can be understood by how key leaders are selected and empowered. Here, the Air Force has work to do. In the Air Force, the process by which officers are selected for command — in the missile community and elsewhere — is a bureaucratic one founded upon back-office record reviews and a disjointed bidding process. Officers are considered only at narrowly-defined points on a calibrated career timeline. Commanders typically get one shot at commanding for around two years before they are ushered along to the next career waypoint. Even if unit and individual circumstances argue for putting someone in command twice consecutively or leaving them in the job for an extended time, to even suggest such measures would be taboo. There are no special clauses or caveats allowing for early selection, and early termination is seldom exercised for anything short of criminality.

This selection process is, however, subject to a certain degree of informal influence by highly placed generals looking to advance the careers of their proteges. This occasionally results in a weak candidate being given command when a hiring authority would have preferred otherwise. When this happens, local superiors typically respond by “stacking the deck” to help the weak commander succeed, which makes sense given that a failing squadron means a failing group or wing, and this is an unacceptable result (especially in the nuclear community where failure is literally not an option). The problem with rescuing weak commanders is that it leaves them sealed in a bubble of self-deception, believing they succeeded on the merits when in fact, they might well have struggled or failed without the unseen help they received. And since they don’t fail, these officers continue advancing in rank just as their benefactors intended, their records and confidence levels reflecting successful command. They eventually become hiring authorities who hire more officers like themselves, blocking out the expert practitioner-leaders whose abilities are most cherished in squadron leadership roles. Allowed to persist, this pattern eventually places too many of the wrong people in command, eroding morale until the mission is jeopardized. Any time the less competent or incompetent squeeze out the best and brightest, pathological outcomes are inevitable. Whether or not commander selection has a direct connection to the morale problems confronting the Air Force missile community is an open question, but there is evidence suggesting it to be worthy of a closer look.

In an opinion piece for Air Force Times that pre-dated the most recent troubles,a former missile squadron commander painted a rosy picture of life in the nuclear community. Her words describe a “Pleasantville” community where the main concerns have to do with what’s for dinner and when troops can once again be treated to a happy visit from another senior management cheerleader. Perhaps tellingly, this commander also writes about mismanaging the downtime allocated to her crew force, and the anecdotes upon which she draws to support her assessment of “high morale” leave a critical thinking audience with sufficient grounds to doubt her appreciation of the realities faced by her people.

It’s worth noting that her opinion is essentially a retransmission of the same basic assessment previously rendered by the fired General Carey, erroneously conflating happiness and morale. This may be an illustration of the mental and message alignment manufactured by undue senior leader influence on squadron assessments. It’s also a stark contrast with the realist tone of the internal Minot emails. Given that these conflicting accounts concerning the state of the missile community can’t both be true, the Air Force stands to gain by determining which is accurate, then asking itself some tough questions about both commanders. One of them has a serious grip. He should probably be promoted a couple more times and placed in charge of analyzing and fixing whatever is determined to be wrong. The other is out of touch and should receive considerable development before commanding again, if at all. What the Air Force cannot tolerate going forward is for a morally courageous voice of caution to seem so isolated that it doesn’t garner deserved credibility, instead cast aside as idiosyncratic. This is a risk when too many commanders are hired on the basis of the ability to nod and repeat the word “yes” . . . and it is a concern across the entire institution, not merely in one troubled community.

* * * * *

How should General Welsh and newly sworn-in Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James fix all this? In a word, boldly. Schwartz devised a conservative solution clothed in the illusion of newness. What is needed is just the opposite, a new approach implemented with calm determination.

It’s not just about focusing on people generally or coming up with a new way to pick commanders. It’s about radically changing the business model. Dismantle staffs and send their manpower back to wing level. There, rebuild squadrons in the image of old, with their own support staffs dedicated to keeping them focused on the mission. Liquidate additional duties. Clear calendar space and give people downtime; not so much for the sake of the “happiness” component of morale, but as corporate acknowledgment that the Air Force wins its part of the war cognitively, and the mind needs rest to recharge and be ready.

Sit down, personally, with the officers who execute this mission. Not the ones hand-picked by wing commanders who are trying to impress you by putting their best foot forward, but the ones you pick after using your staffs to do some homework. Strive to get the straight talk you need to get in touch with the true nature of the problem. Maybe, as argued here, it has to do with morale. Maybe there is even more to it. But for every layer of management review it must endure between street level and executive level, the truth is filtered, cosmetically enhanced, and its rough edges removed until it no longer carries its substance. This is why the fixer must cut out those intermediate gatekeepers and get the truth straight from the horse’s mouth.

Finally, hire the best commanders you can find to work the problem. Since you’re going to hire the best, you can (and you must) trust them and listen to them. Forget the modern tendency to treat majors and lieutenant colonels like overgrown children; these are solid, capable, experienced, educated leaders in their own right, and their performance will define the Air Force, for better or worse. It’s important that junior executives guard against being told what it’s perceived they want to hear, and even more important they guard against manufacturing falsely rosy assessments. Disconnection from reality can topple organizations. Delayed truth can injure institutions. Denial in the nuclear business can compromise national security, and that’s not something the Air Force or the nation can ever countenance.

The Air Force will undoubtedly ensure any cheaters are held accountable should an investigation prove the charges. The restoration of integrity and confidence in the nuclear mission requires this. But if the service is to avoid a recurrence or worsening of these issues, it must go further than punishing the offenders and treating the incident as isolated. It must ask questions about the pressures that drove these officers to disown their honor. Additional duties, distractions, demands for compulsory community service, self-support, and rampant career uncertainty probably connect to this. These excuses cannot and must not vindicate cheaters, but they can tell the service something about the unsustainable, unfocused nature of squadron life these days.

In the press conference initially responding to the cheating revelations, Secretary James was anxious to disclaim the incident as an example of moral failure by some officers rather than a failure of the mission. Perhaps as a footnote to her comment, it would be worth digging deep enough to understand what put these officers on the path to moral compromise. A few years ago, they graduated from a commissioning source with noticeable honor and a commitment to integrity. Whatever we’ve done to them since they became operational convinced them to abandon their honor and commitment. No staff directorate is going to fix that. Only leadership can.

By Tony Carr
January 16th, 2015

[Rusty Pipes]

Tony is a brilliant guy… "What's wrong with the Air Force" is that we lose actual Leaders like him that we can't afford to lose because of a system that is so broken that actual Leaders are not allowed to lead. He was assured multiple Stars if he had stayed, but I think he will actually be able to more for the military and Vets on his chosen path.