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I’m pretty sure this was covered in a mid-80s documentary. Here’s the applicable part:

LOL, comments are turn off for the youtube video, but the comments on the article are great. One poster instantly jumps to the "she was pregnant because she was raped," card. You know, because the only way girls in the military get pregnant is through rape... Total hit job, and she's not wrong. She's right that it's just a small portion of people, but it's not just women. A Chief friend is deployed right now and, just in the last week, has had 7 people fall out of their deployments. One girl has already been extended almost 3 months as the 4th replacement just fell off for one reason or another. We had a NCO that has been in for nearly 20 years and has NEVER deployed. She finally gets told she has to deploy and turns into a total train wreck because, "she can't be away from her kids that long." Guess who didn't deploy due to a sudden onset of migraines about a month before deployment... I'm continually amazed at the number of unplanned pregnancies and new found ailments that miraculously pop up just prior to a deployment. Edit: Just chatted with my Chief buddy. He said one of his sections only has 19 people and in that section alone (just in the last week), 5 people fell out of their deployment.

Shack. Aircrew (not just pilots) are the war fighters of the AF. Could you immagine an Army staff with 0 infantry, armor or artillery expereince. A lot of people disdain staff but in all honesty some people really love and thrive in it. For the first time in your military career you get to think big picture/strategic and you can help shape some very large plans across an Enterprise. Definitely not for everyone but for the people that are beat to death from being line IPs year in and out, it offers a welcome change of pace with a new an enhanced skill set. Is it for everyone? Probably not. But when has reducing the number of oppurtunities in a career field ever helped that career field thrive. We need to keep doors open not close them. The pilot retention crisis isnt about people wanting staff, not wanting staff, not wanting RPAs, wanting more UPT jobs, whatever.... The key thread to all of this is that it's really about people wanting a wide array of oppurtunities and a slight a bit of control to vector themselves to where their own interest lie.

There's one of the big issues-how do you get FGOs to want go to the staffs? And unfortunately, we're so far behind the power curve on pilot retention that even if a pilot FGO wanted to go to a particular staff, they may not be released to go. The bonus used to solve that problem via an ADSC (they don't have to want to go, but are bound by contact to go where the AF needs), but the take rate has been low for years. I think the AF had it's eye on the joint realm, and hence the huge emphasis on pole year (whether that's right or wrong is a different discussion). We've had a pretty good proportion of AF GOs at the joint level.

Think big picture Joint level. It saddens me to see Force Support O5 working FMS cases or non-pilots reciting buzzwords about weapon systems to Joint planners and Foreign partners. Our international allies look to us for expert advice, do you really want non-pilots spew bullshit to these allies? We need experienced and knowledgeable rated guys at the Joint level!

There's probably some correlation between low staff numbers and retaining FGOs. My bet is not filling staffs initially probably bought some time to put in a longer term fix, but those fixes should've been done years ago. Instead, the can got kicked down the road. Outside factors also matter, and there's some RAND studies that show that pilot retention ebbs and flows with the availability of outside opportunities (aka airline hiring). People got tired of the AF, and started getting out. Staffs got shortfalled to keep the mission happening, but the trickle out kept going. Then the airline hiring wave started, and was followed very closely by the great RIF of '14 (I guess you can argue which actually started first). The severe cuts combined with great outside opportunities meant pilots had options, and if they didn't want to take an assignment (primarily to staff, as that's typically the next assignment once the UPT commitment expired), they could turn down an undesirable assignment. AFPC pressed to test initially (and did so with 365s as well), but we're losing experienced officers bailing late in their careers. Everything looks like it's running, and today's mission is getting done. But eventually, we'll have to pay the price. Staffs should be providing guidance to wings, and handling the longer view for planning for the enterprise, but a lot of stuff has been done poorly or just kicked down to the wings to figure it out on their own. Do you need rated on staffs? Maybe, maybe not. Having rated officers in key positions within the staff brings the experience and understanding of being out on the line to the staff, and should help temper any good idea fairies. Assuming that the rated person going to staff is a good dude/dudette and credible. It'd be difficult to build that level of experience without having that rated ops experience, though it looks like the AF is trying to do this via the multi domain operators (13O). The important thing is having an understanding of the challenges that face the wings/squadrons/line pilot face It's kinda like driving your car; you don't have to do any preventative MX, and your car will run fine, until one day it doesn't.

That’s the big downfall of not having the conduit of current info and an advocate at staff, definitely. Especially at SAC, the dinosaurs don’t want to fund anything that bombers didn’t have in ‘Nam, because they don’t need that shit to gravity bomb. Some people want staff tours, some don’t. The AF is still very bad at listening to its people to figure out who is who.

The problem with not having pilots on staff is that the positions either go unfilled and the staff makes bad decisions because lack of perspective or they are filled with GS civilians that turn into folks more interested in maintaining the status quo than fixing problems of the units. Worse yet they play good idea fairy on how to solve problems that aren’t problems. I was in Stan/Eval at HQ AFSOC.

The staffs have been gutted for several years now, which hid the outward pain of the pilot shortage initially. My bet is the overage on FGOs makes up for the bathtub of senior Captains/instructors exacerbated by sequestration cuts and the great RIF of '14. Pair that with a low bonus take rate among the FGOs, and now you've got majors that can punch if they get an assignment they don't want, which in theory should help them stay flying the line. So the AF keeps an FGO instructor which helps the experience problem at the line/operational units, but the staffs get short falled again, maybe with even deeper cuts. Also with that, we've pretty much divested Navs on AD, which means the pilot force had to pick up the rated staff positions that used to be filled with Navs. I think the AF is finally realizing it's in a graveyard spiral regarding pilot retention, but the operational pressure to keep pulling back on the stick (ie not let up on operational tempo and taskings) keeps tightening that spiral.

Leftist media hit job.

26 currently so no. Just made sure to be polite to everyone within my unit and responded to anything and everything they sent me as fast as possible. Had a ton of luck obviously but cannot emphasize enough how much being polite can help.

Had a guy from New Jersey in my class who would show up like the IP was his personal trainer in the gym. He'd report in and then ask, "So what are we looking at doing today?" He didn't last long in UPT, but he's made a great career in the Air Force and it was funny to watch.

What is GUT time?

Valid DP...likely to be picked up even APZ.

No shit, as a 38 guy who went through during the dark ages, I can only roll my eyes at AFPC’s incompetence at long range planning. If the Air Force were a business it would be bankrupt.

Why do you think you’ll get passed over with a DP? Seems like you should be set.

As a 1 APZ guy, I'm also interested in this split. But I'm not counting on this change undoing decades of mindset in the board members.

I am interested in the IZ/AZ split. I want to see what the board actually did, compared to the pre-board leadership statements that said the selection categories would make more AZ folks competitive.

Vindman retiring So that means Tammy Duckworth can stop stonewalling those promotion boards?

I’ll just leave this here.

It's basically what happens when you find yourself becoming the crusty one-strike divorced Major while babysitting FAIPS during "fat and backs". It's amazing the millennial stuff you can pick up on a double turn. These cats got the dragon slayin' apps on point. The only thing I ever carried with me on a computer when I was their age was a nerd ass -38 PMP TOLD Calculator. Of course that's back when text was charged by the message, yahoo messenger was a bona fide ass-scouting venue (being decommissioned this month btw..sad that I know that), and I had to tell the slam mat to call me after 1900 so I can tap the nights and weekends minutes. These cats today have the slam mat apps pre-selected on their phone so when they chock they're already swiping right. Lining up ass has become so much easier. I will say, closing still requires ol school game. Brave new world nonetheless. I regret having married my college girlfriend after UPT, especially after she got fat and lazy in the sack. I don't regret divorcing her though. So DFP Inst Fix: 1)Stay single for the first 10 years of AF tenure...fuck it make it 15. 2)Load smartphone with "Target or higher" quality ass-scouting apps prior to off-station sortie or TDY. 3) Smash. 4) Ghost app on the RTB. 5) Profit.