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Promotion and PRF Information


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Honest question: shouldn't things like weapons dropped, lives saved, enemy killed show up in some sort of deployment medal citation (Air Medal, etc.)? If it does, it would make sense to document other AFAF type stuff on OPRs since it won't show up elsewhere if promotion is the concern.

Well, I'm just CERTAIN that the promotion board is reading every line of every citation for every AM/AAM medal I have. Of course...

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Well, I'm just CERTAIN that the promotion board is reading every line of every citation for every AM/AAM medal I have. Of course...

I did. And so did my fellow panel members. Some read faster, some slower, but we had a duty to each officer to fairly evaluate each record, in its entirety.

So that's what we did.

Edit: grammar

Edited by Learjetter
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I-dont-believe-you.gif

I'm going to go with Ram on this one.

However, all that shit should be documented on your AM/AAM citations. Which are source documents for your PRF. And I do believe that the board looks at the PRF for the 69 seconds or less they look at each record.

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Honest question: shouldn't things like weapons dropped, lives saved, enemy killed show up in some sort of deployment medal citation (Air Medal, etc.)? If it does, it would make sense to document other AFAF type stuff on OPRs since it won't show up elsewhere if promotion is the concern.

Well, ideally. However, since I don't have any single-sortie air medals, they all just say "employed the aircraft at extreme operational limits, blah blah blah"...no actual number of hours or weapons dropped in any of the citations.

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Well, ideally. However, since I don't have any single-sortie air medals, they all just say "employed the aircraft at extreme operational limits, blah blah blah"...no actual number of hours or weapons dropped in any of the citations.

Why not? You should be putting all that crap in your citations. If you're not, you're missing out.

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Well, I've certainly learned something today. I always thought the air medal citations for twenty combat missions were cookie-cutter (mine all are, and so are 95% of the ones for guys I deployed with). I thought it was standard, pre-approved verbiage, not individually broken out statistics.

I'll file that knowledge away for future deployments.

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Well, I've certainly learned something today. I always thought the air medal citations for twenty combat missions were cookie-cutter (mine all are, and so are 95% of the ones for guys I deployed with). I thought it was standard, pre-approved verbiage, not individually broken out statistics.

I'll file that knowledge away for future deployments.

Dude, I'm in the same boat, but really do you think #enemy killed, etc, really tells the board whether you are able to command at the next level? Lt-mid-level captain, those are good bullets. Above that, you need to demonstrate that you can coordinate the killing of a-holes. And believe me, as a dude with 10 AMs, I really wish they would carry me on the promotion board, but being a "leader" these days requires more than just putting bombs on target. I say that half-sarcastically, but at the same time, you know most of your bros have the same exact stats, so if you were in charge, how would you choose your promotion rates/leaders? Honest question...

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Dude, I'm in the same boat, but really do you think #enemy killed, etc, really tells the board whether you are able to command at the next level? Lt-mid-level captain, those are good bullets. Above that, you need to demonstrate that you can coordinate the killing of a-holes. And believe me, as a dude with 10 AMs, I really wish they would carry me on the promotion board, but being a "leader" these days requires more than just putting bombs on target. I say that half-sarcastically, but at the same time, you know most of your bros have the same exact stats, so if you were in charge, how would you choose your promotion rates/leaders? Honest question...

And AF Assistance Fund, AF Ball/Holiday Party Planning, SOS DG, Change of Command POC, fraud/waste/abuse online AAD, insert-whatever-additional-duty-bullshit-here bullets/box checking demonstrates that someone can coordinate the killing of a-holes?

How about the OPR, as a reflection of your primary duty, actually allow you to talk about your primary duty? You shouldn't have to "hide" that on some Air Medal in order to backdoor its way onto your PRF. Ugh.

How would I fix it? At a minimum, separate promotions by AFSC up to the O-4 level. Allow each individual AFSC to determine what's important for promotion. Perhaps bullshit and box checking and a valid AAD are important to, say, 17Ds. Then let their promotions reflect that. Perhaps deployments and combat missions/weapons employed/etc are important for a 12B. Let their promotions reflect that.

Retention in a particular AFSC sucks? Combine this with targeted incentives- most likely monetary since we all know that QOL isn't improving in this never-ending "do more with less" environment. You already see this a bit- missileers getting money thrown at them to make them less miserable, 11Fs getting expanded bonus options (though it's still just 18k/year after taxes, the same since the late 1990s...), etc. 11Ms bailing left and right as the airlines hire thousands a year? Adjust the career field accordingly, and/or throw more money at them.

No large civilian organization lumps all of their junior to mid-level employees together into one big pile, regardless of specialty, and then has them compete for promotion. An 11F's CGO experience could not be more different than a 17D, a finance guy, PA, Security Forces, MX, etc. Yet we treat them as equals. It doesn't make any fucking sense. So why does the AF do it this way?

Because leadership is hard and time consuming. It's easier to just come up with a ridiculous one-size-fits-all career path, and pretend that all career fields are equal- "officer first!!!!1". Shifting from macro LAF promotions to micro AFSC promotions would require the AF to acknowledge that some career fields are more equal than others. And the AF absolutely HATES that fact.

:beer:

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And AF Assistance Fund, AF Ball/Holiday Party Planning, SOS DG, Change of Command POC, fraud/waste/abuse online AAD, insert-whatever-additional-duty-bullshit-here bullets/box checking demonstrates that someone can coordinate the killing of a-holes?

How about the OPR, as a reflection of your primary duty, actually allow you to talk about your primary duty? You shouldn't have to "hide" that on some Air Medal in order to backdoor its way onto your PRF. Ugh.

How would I fix it? At a minimum, separate promotions by AFSC up to the O-4 level. Allow each individual AFSC to determine what's important for promotion. Perhaps bullshit and box checking and a valid AAD are important to, say, 17Ds. Then let their promotions reflect that. Perhaps deployments and combat missions/weapons employed/etc are important for a 12B. Let their promotions reflect that.

Retention in a particular AFSC sucks? Combine this with targeted incentives- most likely monetary since we all know that QOL isn't improving in this never-ending "do more with less" environment. You already see this a bit- missileers getting money thrown at them to make them less miserable, 11Fs getting expanded bonus options (though it's still just 18k/year after taxes, the same since the late 1990s...), etc. 11Ms bailing left and right as the airlines hire thousands a year? Adjust the career field accordingly, and/or throw more money at them.

No large civilian organization lumps all of their junior to mid-level employees together into one big pile, regardless of specialty, and then has them compete for promotion. An 11F's CGO experience could not be more different than a 17D, a finance guy, PA, Security Forces, MX, etc. Yet we treat them as equals. It doesn't make any ######ing sense. So why does the AF do it this way?

Because leadership is hard and time consuming. It's easier to just come up with a ridiculous one-size-fits-all career path, and pretend that all career fields are equal- "officer first!!!!1". Shifting from macro LAF promotions to micro AFSC promotions would require the AF to acknowledge that some career fields are more equal than others. And the AF absolutely HATES that fact.

:beer:

Dude, great answer.

And for the record, the party-planning, fundraising, SOS-DG stuff is complete horseshit and should not be considered.

I totally agree with AFSC-segregated promotions, even if stats prove that would be detrimental to rated dudes. I don't care about an advantage. Give me fair, and I will win through hard work and performance.

I wasn't trying to justify the system at all - my only point is that if we go "combat only" with our bullets, we won't really win the game since most of us rated guys have done nothing but fight the good fight for 10+ years. There has to be a way to establish your promotion rates and priorities. Your examples are great ideas and I can only hope our "leaders" (and that's in parentheses for a god damned reason) take notice.

I am just as frustrated as anyone on this board. But we need to offer concrete examples of improvement, just like you did, in order to effect any change.

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Dude that's a good post. Funny anecdotal story, my SIL is married to a skycop and we were casually BSing when she mentioned us being peers because we are in the same year group. I chuckled and said we weren't, to which she went on her insecure anti-pilot rant (she's AF too).

I replied with the same argument - if we worked at Apple as a designer and an accountant, would we be paid the same because we are the same age? Would we compete for the same jobs outside the AF? He couldn't fly an airliner any more than I could compete for a private security gig or donut taster. The look of bewilderment on her face was hilarious. It's like she never realized the options available to some of us on the outside are far greater than those available to others.

It amazes me how many people inside and outside the mil think we are all peers and equals even though we have vastly different specialties. This is the biggest problem with lumping us all together for promotions and trying to compare a fighter pilot to a pharmacist. It shouldn't be happening in the first place.

Edited by ViperStud
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Dude, I'm in the same boat, but really do you think #enemy killed, etc, really tells the board whether you are able to command at the next level? Lt-mid-level captain, those are good bullets. Above that, you need to demonstrate that you can coordinate the killing of a-holes. And believe me, as a dude with 10 AMs, I really wish they would carry me on the promotion board, but being a "leader" these days requires more than just putting bombs on target. I say that half-sarcastically, but at the same time, you know most of your bros have the same exact stats, so if you were in charge, how would you choose your promotion rates/leaders? Honest question...

This was off the OPR, not the PRF. Although it does depress me that carrying out the primary mission of our branch is considered "lesser" than planning parties, getting DG at SOS, or watching over airmen botching travel vouchers.

Edited by pawnman
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This was off the OPR, not the PRF. Although it does depress me that carrying out the primary mission of our branch is considered "lesser" than planning parties, getting DG at SOS, or watching over airmen botching travel vouchers.

You're missing the point. # of bombs dropped, pounds of gas given, pallets of rubber dog shit delivered is great stuff....but it isn't generally unique in this day and age. It tells me more about what you did than it does about how well you did it. It is also all stuff that can and is done primarily by captains.

So what is it about people that shows how well they can do as a major or lt col? Those ranks should be increasingly about being in charge of teams, projects, issues, etc. not just as recognition that you were assigned and completed tactical missions as a captain. Plenty of clowns have the same statistics.

I don't know where all this party planning crap comes from with you guys, as I've never seen that shit on an OPR (except maybe a lieutenant) and never put it on a PRF. But success leading teams and projects is relevant to the question at hand--is this guy capable of leading at the next rank. If a guy has never done any of that, then how would we know? I think we've all seen dudes who were awesome pilots and bros grow up to be shitty bosses. Showing experience and success with smaller scale leadership tasks at least indicates something about potential for success with medium to larger scale leadership tasks. And I'm not talking about leading a crew or formation. That's a totally different ballgame and tough if not impossible to convey on paper anyway.

Air Medal-type data generally tells a board little about your true potential, other than that you have a foundation of combat experience that is very critical toward developing an officer, but again it's generally not unique and therefore doesn't set you apart. So ideally an OPR or PRF will highlight combat experience and achievements to make a point, but if that's all you got, then you probably haven't made a convincing case that you can successfully lead teams, think and act strategically, etc. Because either you haven't done it, or you chose not to include it because it was "lesser" or not important. If you just load up on combat stats, then you are essentially beating a dead horse. Deployed a lot. Was in combat a lot. Got it. Good stuff, but point made. What else?

That's why good OPR and PRF writers try to include the "lesser" stuff. It shows breadth and depth. It helps tell the story of why you'll be a good major, lt col, or col rather than just a glorified captain.

Edited by Danny Noonin
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Words

All good points. I'd argue that we try to identify our future leaders way too early, which results in the "leading teams and projects" arms race we see.

How many opportunities has Pawnman, as a 12B (I think), had to lead teams and projects as compared to a security forces 2Lt, a finance Capt, and a contracting 1Lt? Is that a bad thing? How long was his FTU? How long was theirs? How many deployments has he been on? How many have they?

I haven't heard a valid argument for why we don't separate career field management by AFSCs, other than the AF is lazy and we're all "officers first", or something.

Successful organizations provide the incentives (financial and QOL) necessary to retain talent to eventually assume leadership positions. Is active duty AF doing that? Based on how many "bright and shiny pennies" (read: IDE selects) I've seen who are turning down IDE and separating for greener pastures, I have my doubts.

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All good points. I'd argue that we try to identify our future leaders way too early, which results in the "leading teams and projects" arms race we see.

I agree for the most part. I think we put people on the express train to colonel too early (IDE list). But I still think it matters to develop leaders and the associated skills for the O-4 and O-5 level. You learn by doing. Otherwise, just keep being a captain for the rest of your life.
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How many opportunities has Pawnman, as a 12B (I think), had to lead teams and projects as compared to a security forces 2Lt, a finance Capt, and a contracting 1Lt? Is that a bad thing? How long was his FTU? How long was theirs? How many deployments has he been on? How many have they?

Are cops, finance and contracting dudes getting promoted at some ridiculously high rate? Nope. Is Pawnman qualified (or would he want) to go be a security forces, finance or contracting squadron commander? Probably not. So I guess I don't get your point.

Gumshoes aren't out stealing promotion opportunities away from rated guys, despite what many think. Just look at the promotion stats. We need some of them to get promoted too and we don't exactly have a glut of them at the O-5 level. And as for your deployment rate comment, If you haven't heard, cops are among the most deployed career fields out there, and they don't always go to an island or the west coast of the gulf when they do. But they are sometimes going out into Afghan villages and wearing body armor. So should they get promoted at higher rates because of that? You know what career field deploys at a 1:1 right now? Not bomber guys. FSS officers. Yeah, that surprised the shit out of me too, but there aren't that many of them and they do glamorous work like casualty affairs. So should they get extra credit for deploying at a higher rate than 12Bs in your mind? I would say no. Because deployment rate, in and of itself, is an irrelevant statistic to use and tells me absolutely nothing about your quality and potential. Be careful what you wish for if you think stuff like that should be the discriminator.

Edited by Danny Noonin
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Danny and Karl, I agree with nearly all of your points but I would point out a few areas where I disagree or have other thoughts. I'm short on time so this might be a little disjointed.

- B-1s are actually on a 1:1 right now (first sq just got back from theirs). This is temporary and partially due to some intra-community logistics, but the bottom line is a good portion of the B-1 ops crews either have done or will do a 1:1 within the next year or so. I do understand your basic point that other career fields have a higher tempo.

- This will sound very egotistical, but I do think that most rated dudes could transition easily to most non-rated fields and perform well. The same can't be said in reverse. After all, we don't send Finance B-Course washouts to UPT, but we do it the other way around. That right there says something about the difficulty level of the career fields. I'm not shitting on non-rated officers here - we all know some fantastic leaders outside of the ops world - but to say that a pilot/nav would not be "qualified" to go lead a SFS or FSS is, IMHO, not true.

- Why don't we have a career field for execs? Either make it an AFSC or hire a GS civ. The outside world has executive and personal assistants, so why not let people who WANT to do that job do it? A friend of mine finished her duty in the AF (4 year ROTC commitment, non-rated) as an OG exec. She loved it. She was good at it. Why not just offer people the opportunity to do it as a real job and stop taking dudes who would be better used flying and training others to fly?

- Although it might be difficult to explain or document flight/mission lead duties, we need to do a better job of capturing that performance. Being a mission commander at Red Flag, or especially in a real-world op, IS leadership. When done well it demonstrates exceptional decision-making abilities and highlights other characteristics we want to develop in our future leaders. That type of thing should absolutely be OPR/PRF material and should be right up there with leading a section, shop, or support squadron.

Gotta run but I'll write more later. This is a good discussion.

Edited due to double post.

Edited by daynightindicator
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Are cops, finance and contracting dudes getting promoted at some ridiculously high rate? Nope. Is Pawnman qualified (or would he want) to go be a security forces, finance or contracting squadron commander? Probably not. So I guess I don't get your point.

Gumshoes aren't out stealing promotion opportunities away from rated guys, despite what many think. We need some of them to get promoted too and we don't exactly have a glut of them at the O-5 level. And as for your deployment rate comment, If you haven't heard, cops are among the most deployed career fields out there, and they don't always go to Diego or Guam or the west coast of the gulf when they do. But they are sometimes going out into Afghan villages and wearing body armor. So should they get promoted at higher rates because of that? You know what career field deploys at a 1:1 right now? Not bomber guys. FSS officers. Yeah, that surprised the shit out of me too. So should they get extra credit for deploying at a higher rate than 12Bs in your mind? No. Because deployment rate, in and of itself, is an irrelevant statistic to use. Be careful what you wish for if you think stuff like that should be the discriminator.

I never said one AFSC was "stealing" promotion opportunities away from another. I never said that deployments should be used to determine promotion. I said that the fact that we treat all AFSCs as equal, and compare them to each other for promotion, is ridiculous, and we need to let each AFSC determine what matters on their own. Having to sanitize your OPRs because some O-6 from another career field might not understand them, or because they don't translate well when you compare yourself to a polar opposite career field, is dumb. It's dumb for the security forces guy who doesn't have bullets about dropping bombs when he's got a 1:1 dwell time to some shithole in Afghanistan. It's dumb for the PA chick who doesn't even have the chance to deploy, but has been interfacing with O-10s since she was a 2Lt. And it's dumb for the 11F who wasn't fully mission qualified until he was almost an O-3.

Again... if one particular community, such as security forces, values deployments, then let them use that as a discriminator for promotion... within their community. You're not promoting a security forces O-3 to take over a flying squadron as an O-4. Just like you're not promoting a 12B O-3 to take over a security forces squadron as an O-4... and if we are, we're already fucked.

If there aren't enough security forces O-5s, then change what matters for promotion within the security forces community- or throw more money at them. Everyone has a price.

Career captains? Perhaps that's a good thing. But you'll have to provide them an increased QOL or pay to keep them. Good luck.

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- Why don't we have a career field for execs? Either make it an AFSC or hire a GS civ. The outside world has executive and personal assistants, so why not let people who WANT to do that job do it? A friend of mine finished her duty in the AF (4 year ROTC commitment, non-rated) as an OG exec. She loved it. She was good at it. Why not just offer people the opportunity to do it as a real job and stop taking dudes who would be better used flying and training others to fly?

We used to do this. Squadrons and above had non-rated execs. Guess what? The CC still had a "flying exec" pool who worked right next to the non-rated exec.

Nothing new under the sun.

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You're missing the point. # of bombs dropped, pounds of gas given, pallets of rubber dog shit delivered is great stuff....but it isn't generally unique in this day and age. It tells me more about what you did than it does about how well you did it. It is also all stuff that can and is done primarily by captains.

.....

That's why good OPR and PRF writers try to include the "lesser" stuff. It shows breadth and depth. It helps tell the story of why you'll be a good major, lt col, or col rather than just a glorified captain.

It amazes me how much people just refuse to accept this basic truth regarding promotions in the AF. For years, I was pretty jaded with the Air Force, criticizing the way we glorify careerism and playing the game. But you know what? That's what the Air Force wants in its senior officers, and the reason why this organization is the way it is. If you like life on AD, then that's great -- you deserve the benefits that come with doing your time. However, some of us just want to be that glorified captain. The guy who is the badass in his airframe, has the experience, skills, and respect to back it up. The guy that new people look to when they have questions about how to be a better aviator. Not the guy who's not stuck in an office somewhere managing the commander's schedule, wishing he could be out there flying the line, killing it everyday, and living the life they envisioned when they decided to join in the first place.

Unfortunately, active duty isn't very kind to glorified captains, now is it? Active duty is what it is. You can't change it, you just learn to accept it. Some people thrive in that environment, other people languish in it because they are being mismanaged and under-utilized. Huggyu2 once sent me a message that's always stuck out....to paraphrase: you deserve to be in an organization that respects and appreciates your skills and experience. For a lot of us, that can't be found on active duty.

Back to the point, promotion boards reflect the priorities of the organization. Having different priorities than the Air Force is like being in a bad marriage. Don't stay in a bad marriage just because you're afraid of being alone.

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- Why don't we have a career field for execs? Either make it an AFSC or hire a GS civ. The outside world has executive and personal assistants, so why not let people who WANT to do that job do it? A friend of mine finished her duty in the AF (4 year ROTC commitment, non-rated) as an OG exec. She loved it. She was good at it. Why not just offer people the opportunity to do it as a real job and stop taking dudes who would be better used flying and training others to fly?

Probably going to get burned for this but...

All the senior officers that I've talked to about their exec time, usually me mockingly, have valued it highly in learning about the way things are at a higher level. It built perspective and a greater understanding for them when going forth. If you don't want to be an exec, I get it. I don't. But, and granted this depends on the O's you're exec'ing for, the time spent with a senior leader can be a very good teaching/learning opportunity. I got to spend some time with USAFE/CC and his exec and/or aide de camp on trips. He would often ask them for their opinions on topics and ways ahead. They talked a lot.

That's another way to think about it as well. Some senior O6 on up w/ a hopefully fresh from the line Capt filling him in on what life's like in the Sq's. If it's a good senior O then that's a two way street of information and experience and can be invaluable.

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Some good points being made here. I fully support separating promotions by career field. It really wouldn't be difficult for the Air Force to allocate school/promotion slots to AFSCs based on current and projected manning. Then, you could have MLR-type boards for each AFSC. Bring the senior O-6/O-7 types together for a few days and have them provide their selection list to HAF. As mentioned before, this would allow each community to promote based on what they value and OPRs could actually be written to capture career-field specific achievement. In the developmental engineer world, acquisitions classes and AADs would be discriminators; things that are (should be) irrelevant to flyers. Instructor/evaluator/upgrades don't even really exist outside of ops, but are very important in demonstrating ability and potential. I think it needs to be by AFSC, because even within ops, the Air Force operates in three distinct domains that really don't align at all. Space ops is as different from air ops as it is naval or land ops. Same with cyber, SOF, etc. The Navy construct wouldn't work because of how diverse our ops community is.

Edited by Gravedigger
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