14N Guy

Anybody heard if the COVID-19 travel restrictions will impact the upcoming promotion boards? Could they end up doing them virtually or postponing them?

My apologies for passing along bad gouge. My math in public skills are obviously terrible and I appreciate the corrections. A few comments regarding this. All of the SIO's/DO's/Det CC's are boarded positions (you get 5 opportunities), so all of these folks already go through a selection process where they are racked/stacked against their peers two times. The first time is to get on the candidate list, then the second time to get selected for a position. The intel community already limits who it considers for promotion once you are an O-4 select (yes, there are some other avenues to get promoted and some folks not selected for leadership positions get promoted...But, the majority of 14N O-5's have either held a boarded leadership position or done in-res IDE). At least for the LAF-I board, I am skeptical that this will do anything for the APZ guys, mainly because 14N leadership already has its tiers set up well before folks hit their first look at O-5. Maybe I am wrong and the process will work like it is being pitched. There are folks I know who deserve to be promoted and I hope this process helps them out. Source: me. I was a boarded DO that has been passed over a few times

So a 40% chance of promotion for folks that don't have a DP. I still don't see how this improves the chances of folks that were passed in the old system, but I do see how this could get a lot of folks promoted on their 1st/2nd look.

Concur. All this seems to do is create new push-line language that tells the board who should/shouldn't be promoted. I don't see how these changes would have any impact on any current APZ folks due to the fact that our records have been so disregarded over the last few years that they look terrible (no strats, etc.) Raters are going to push for the folks they know will get promoted on their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd look. All this does is change the timeline for the shiny pennies. Will there be some type of requirement to promote a specific percentage from each "look group"? if not, how will this system allow raters to highlight the folks on their 4th or 5th look that are performing at a higher level? Those folks still won't be able to compete against the folks with better records that are on their 1st or 2nd look. In fact, I think it would be more of a negative that you have been non-selected for promotion the first 3-4 times. On top of that, if you aren't promoted on your 1st/2nd/3rd look, won't that make you less likely to be selected for a Command position or be considered for future promotion? These changes seem to solidify who the chosen ones are much more than the old system did and I think it will turn into a, "not promoted on your first 3 looks? Well, you might want to consider a different career because this isn't going to happen for you". Finally, fully support removing CGO OPR's from O-5 promotion packages. If a person performed well as an FGO, and was given leadership opportunities, then what they did as a 2LT is, for the most part, irrelevant. Looking at the last 4-5 years of a candidates professional record would a.) give the board more time to spend on reviewing packages, and, b.) Even the playing field for folks that have been riding the gravy train because they were an exec as an O-3 (or folks that had a rater crap on them as a CGO). My only other question is, what happens if you don't get promoted after your 5th look? Does the AF boot you? If my math is right, wouldn't a 5th look non-select put a lot of folks at 18-19 years active duty time if your IPZ/1st look is at 13/14 years?

I spoke with the HIANG about moving over from AD to a Guard position earlier this year and as soon as I told them I was 2x passed over they told me, Not interested/not worth doing the waiver for me as there were other folks that weren't passed over that were also interested in joining the HIANG. Two caveats to my experience; its Hawaii, and I'm not rated, so YMMV

Well, at least I know for sure that as a 2APZ, I didn't get selected. I got a super sweet "definitely promote..." in the push line preceded by no strats. Sorry you didn't get picked up, but as a 1BPZ with a DP you are pretty much a lock next year.

I used to put myself in for awards every quarter. Mainly because those are what gives you record fodder and they also allow you to stand out against your peers when you are all doing similar jobs. FGO awards at my Wing are given to the people the Wing wants to push for big opportunities, especially the FGOY award. I could actually call out who was going to win the FGOY in our Wing based on where they stood in relation to a school and promo push.

I’m not talking about SIGINT. Having worked at the same agency twice in the past 7 years I feel confident talking about the positive effects cyber brings to bear for the interests of the US. Although, I do think your definition of cyber success is limited. Cyber can be used as both a hard and soft power (as I’m sure you are aware) and is used best when nobody even knows it is being used. But, the lines between ISR PED/analysis and cyber are blurring more and more everyday. As far as over-inflated PRFs, I agree that it is absurd (I roll my eyes every time I see some 2Lt MOC claim 600 EKIA on their annual awards package). However, those are the ground rules that AF leaders set. I can’t fault somebody for playing the game within the rules that have been prescribed.

17s will be put with 14N’s and other non-rated ops and be an “information dominance” grouping. One question I posed to a senior leader was how DP allocation would be impacted by this change. For example, there are boarded O-4 14N’s assigned to fighter wings. They are now at a larger disadvantage to their peers in ISR organizations because a FW/CC is more likely to give a DP to a record they understand. One option that my Senior Leader said could occur is MLR’s at the functional level.

OIF ended almost a decade ago. Cyber played a role in OIR and is where most of the fight against near-peer adversaries will take place. There have been some big wins in the COIN/CT fight because of cyber. Not much of it can be talked about here though.

A boarded 14N position in an ISS (a specialized comm Squadron that supports DGS core sites). I’m the only 14N in a sea of 17Ds/3Ds. 14N senior leaders state that all 14N O-4 boarded leadership positions are created equal. If that is the case, mine is at the end of the bench. I have heard the same thing about IDE. The 14Ns I know that have gone to ACSC have their next few assignments planned out by 14N senior leaders. I don’t know if everybody sent to IDE in-res is being groomed for O-6, but it certainly acts as a gate for 14Ns, if they want to progress to the higher levels of the 14N world. It’s kind of like in-res attendees are new to Scientology and ACSC is their audit to get them to a higher operating Thetan level. Hopefully Tom Cruise doesn’t kick my ass now.

So I did ACSC via correspondence. A few years later I decided to do the OLMP (already had a Masters, but it was free so why not?). Won an award with my research paper (my name is on a plaque at a school I have never set foot in) and was a sitting DO in a non-flying SQ and still got passed over. YMMV, but, I think it’s really about how much your leadership likes you and is willing to go to bat for you. I say do ACSC if it interests you. If it doesn't, then don’t. It won’t be the thing that tips your promotability one way or the other. Your records did that years ago.

All excellent points. I am glad I have been able to use my experience to mentor the CGO’s under me. I let them see all of my old records and PRF’s and walk them through what strats are what tier and what push lines actually mean. And hey, at the end of the day I’m a little under 4 years from getting paid for the rest of my life. That certainly helps with the “doing what you love” thing in the next chapter.

Good points. It wasn’t the promotion part that bothered me. I’ve accepted being an O-4 for the rest of my time in uniform. My records aren’t good enough to get promoted and I accept that. I just wasn’t expecting to get tossed to the side so quickly. Should have seen that coming.

I got mine back today. This is my 2APZ and my leadership has officially given up on me. Got a P with a “Def Promote”, SQ/CC and SDE push and no strats. My 1APZ had a Group strat as a header and 2 Wing strats in the push line. My 2APZ (written by the same organization and O-6 as last year) has no strats at all. This is my second year in a boarded position and I was told my performance hadn’t dropped at all and I was doing better than my first year. However, people with better records joined the Group in the last 7 months and they got strated above me, so I lost all of my strats. I asked if my leadership understood how this would make my OPR look and the message it would send to my next rater and they said yes, they understood and it is what it is. When I asked how I was supposed to improve my record if my current year work performance counted for so little all I git was a shrug. At the end of the day I know I will never get promoted and I have already accepted continuation. Unfortunately, I am struggling to GAS about the work I am currently doing and I know it is likely that the next job I go to will have even less of an operational impact. But, as a senior leader told me after a discussion about my PRF, at least I don’t have to worry about following a specific track to success, because I can do whatever I want!

From my experience (limited) if you have “ready for ###” it is not good. Also, found out that my 3APZ PRF that was sent up was a full one, not a 2-liner.

I’ve heard this as well. Also heard 2-line PRFs as early as the March 19 (I think?) O-5 board and AFSC promo boards starting CY20.

17D’s always causing trouble for 14N’s.

Solid post panch. Need to publish that to AFROTC dets and save a lot of folks a lot of time/anxiety.

When did I say that? I don’t know why I would say that; I’ve seen Lt’s get strats.

Thanks for the tip .

Yep. For me, there were no AGR positions open where I wanted to live. Valid points about leadership not understanding the boards language and lazy Wing staffs not doing their jobs There was a lot that happened in my situation where I know they wrote the push lines exactly how they meant them. They wanted to send a message because we had butted heads multiple times. However, they nevertheless told me why they wrote what they wrote; all i could do was go off my interpretation of the relationship. True. I’m agreeing with your point on feedback and I disagree with the AF on how it addresses feedback.

Lots of folks make O-5 without being an HPO. All I wanted to know was where I went wrong in my career to not even be in the top 70% of my year group. Personnaly, I don’t think that is an unreasonable ask. I finally got the feedback I needed 15 and a half years into my career and it was the first time a senior officer had been bluntly honest with me about why things shook out the way they did. Even the leaders that gave me the terrible push lines never told me why they gave me those push lines. They had an opportunity to explain what I had done wrong and what I could have done to not make the same mistakes in the future. Asking leaders to be accountable to their decisions is something that every organization should do and I hope the changes coming down the pipe force the AF to do that. Break-break Retiring as an O-4 isn’t bad at all. I thought about going guard/reserve but I want my retirement to begin the day I leave active duty, not when I am 58-60. It means moving more and possibly getting terrible jobs, but, it will only be as bad as I let it be especially since the rules of the game don’t apply to me anymore.

I think you have a valid point. One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that I was told that if I had only one OPR that had the negative comments on it, it most likely would have been overlooked. However, because there were two it sent a “clear message” to the board. Could I have done things differently? Absolutely. I wasn’t as mature as I should have been. I wasn’t as good of a leader as I should have been. But, if somebody had given me this feedback a year or two after I got those OPRs I feel confident I could have done things differently to get the results I wanted. It certainly would have changed my assignment preferences. Instead, AF feedback (at least in my experience) is all rainbows and unicorns.

For anybody still tracking this, had an interesting conversation with a senior leader about what happened to me. Basically I was told my records were fine, except for 2 OPRs. Those OPRs weren’t referrals and they didn’t have any overt negative indicators on them, but, they did have words that made them negative in the eyes of the board. Specifically, they both had push lines that said something like, “ready for next challenge “, and “IDE look” or, “prep for IDE”. Neither had a leadership push but one did have a staff push. So basically, 2 OPRs that were put in my record 8 years ago and 10 years ago have eliminated me from consideration for O-5. I did ask when records from 3-5 years ago would start counting more then records from 8-10 years ago and I was told there isn’t a good answer for that. I was told that if I had received those OPRs as an Lt they probably would have been ignored by the board. As it stands, outside of a General pushing my PRF there is nothing I can do to overcome those two OPRs. Bottom line, if you are a early/mid-level Captain make sure your push lines have all of the parts they need (strat/leadership/school). Nobody else will watch out for your records so you have to.