pizzafrenchfries

New account, if it's inappropriate than mods please delete Looking for some advice, as I got notified I was passed over as well. Long story short: No negative information in OPRs Thin strats (kept my head down, did my job, and went home every day) 1500 total hours, 500 combat hours Still a right seater. This one takes a bit of context so here's my tale of woe. Way back in the day, I graduated top 1/3 from UPT and got a super sweet platform OCONUS. Got screwed by EFMP and lost the slot in the middle of the schoolhouse, getting diverted to a platform stateside. This platform takes a long time to upgrade but was also shutting down. Spent about 3 years there and was promised AC upgrade if I transferred to another MDS at an undesirable base as there were no more school slots for my platform (schoolhouse shut down). Got my orders and then the new unit commander called and said, "left seat upgrade en route? That was a verbal from old CC to your CC. We don't do that in my squadron." Old CC was like "sorry buddy, there's no turning off these orders". Basically was meat to the grinder. PCS'ed a bitter man, worked my ass off and got qualified and then nominated for upgrade in an extremely short time. COVID hit and severely disrupted ops but I was still able to start upgrade. 2 weeks prior to my checkride we get the news that our son has a lifelong medical condition and we need to PCS because there's no facilities at this base. Also we're pregnant and it's gonna be high risk. That really messed up my mojo. Flew a crap checkride and Q-3'd, first failed checkride ever. Totally own that, as it was bad flying. Really spiraled, had a bad time, did not finish remediation rides as I was in a pretty bad mental state and we were packing to move at the same time. My spouse was dealing with some severe medical issues stemming from the pregnancy. Basically made a shit sandwich that the air force wrapped in a turd. This was right before the PRF closeout, so no time to recover or fix my problem. Pretty much the worst timing ever. Went to therapy (not mental health!), learned to stop blaming myself for things completely outside my control, and got healthy again. PCS'ed again to a new base and was reassigned a different platform (#4 if you're counting). About 6 months of being stashed at a non flying job while they figured out what to do with me. Honestly a godsend, if we didn't have the time to make our lives right I don't know if my family would still be together or not today. Still a copilot. Did terrific in the schoolhouse as right seat (pretty good at it by now) and am now in a flying squadron that I love. We're expanding, not contracting, and the mission is amazing. So here we are now, basically starting over again. Did OPD with my new commander after the notification and the only thing he could see that was stood out was the copilot AFSC. He promised me that I would upgrade by the time the next board rolls around. All of which sounds good and I'm confident that he'll make it right. HOWEVER, my experience so far makes me pessimistic that we'll get this sorted out in the next 5 months before the board meets again. What should I do? I have three main fears... I am afraid that I don't have enough time between the Q3 and a possibly forced separation to look competitive to the airlines (or guard). I don't know what I can constructively do in my career in the next 5 months (aside from upgrading) that can increase my chances of getting picked up on the second look. I do good work, I am not a dirtbag, I work for my pay. My kiddo's medical treatments are EXTREMELY expensive. We will be in the poorhouse if we lose insurance.