Not to move away from the commander logging flight hours. Just my perspective on what’s wrong with the Air Force. Two things the mindset and expectations(or lack thereof) they build in ROTC, and the discrepancy between mistakes in MX/OPs versus Support. I’ve got people commissioning from ROTC, awaiting their EAD and almost missing their EAD/RNLTD because the NCOs at their detachment failed to update them on the EAD moving up. Only reason they made it was another one from their class went into Force Support, recognized the name and contacted the LT. No idea they were moved up by over a month. Same NCOs messed up their entire commissioning class certificates, wrong year, not full name and other issues. The NCOs both left getting decs. Cadets and newly minted LTs are continuously told to take it on the chin and “be flexible”. We’re actively teaching the next generation of leaders that it’s ok to do subpar work, in fact you’ll get rewarded for it. I don’t know if it’s a lack of motivation, a lack of seeing the bigger picture, or what. But I’ve had multiple LTs from ROTC tell me they actively recommend people NOT go to AFROTC because of the BS they’ve been put through. I was prior E when I went through ROTC, so it’s hard for me to have an unbiased opinion on what’s BS when 17 year olds were telling me about “in the real Air Force”. In my own experience I tried to go reserve pilot through AFROTC, and didn’t get put up to the board because my NCOs tried arguing I couldn’t go because of my type of scholarship. After emailing HQ, sitting on that email for two weeks, they informed me, a week after the deadline, that I could apply. When I went to the commander and Education Officer it was basically “tough shit, sorry it happened”. They proceeded to just not send applications for the next guy trying to do it. I was MX before, if I lost a screwdriver I got in exponentially more trouble than the NCOs who potentially costs two people their dream careers. I’ll never understand the discrepancy between support mistakes and subsequent admin actions versus MX mistakes and admin actions. I get the life or death scenarios involved with mistakes in MX, I’m not arguing we should be more lenient. I don’t understand how jacking someone’s pay, not out-processing, not doing your job doesn’t result in the same leve of “punishment”. Rant over Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app
