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NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention
- Thread starter ChuckMK23
- Start date
Maybe not directly related but entirely relevant...
I had a CO (O-6) when I drilled at PERS in Millington that got a Legion of Merit for having zero credit card discrepancies in her previous command.. The WTF look on every body at Quarters was quite the sight.. But she also gave me a 2.0 in Military Bearing on my FITREP for quitting and going IRR.. So we have that... Maybe she was that much a Rock Star and me the Turd.. Dunno..
Everyday, I am shocked & amazed at the awards I see on very, junior folks running around the Pentagon these days. The latest? An AF E6 with a Defense, MSM. I have seen MSM's on Navy LT's and CPO's as well. Amazing . . . .
Meanwhile some commands stick to their guns on the award instruction, and can't seem to get sailors promoted.
Meanwhile some commands stick to their guns on the award instruction, and can't seem to get sailors promoted.
Not to derail this into a awards-bitchfest thread, but as a j.g. adminO, I was told by the ship's XO in the same conversation that 1) he was denying a NAM for a sailor for small-boat handling during a boarding because "we don't give out medals just for doing your job," and 2) to call DESRON and see how the routing for the outgoing captain's EOT was coming along.
Is this the same person who went on to make RDML with exactly ZERO sea service deployment ribbons?
I seriously doubt that any of those three measures are going to make any measurable impact on AF pilot retention.
Typical AF crap -- of all the problems that the pilots going out the door have quite explicitly defined as the reasons they're leaving, the AF chooses to fix the low-hanging, irrelevant fruit.
The saying has always been that the bonus only rewarded people who were planning on staying in anyway.
Plus ca change....
Typical AF crap -- of all the problems that the pilots going out the door have quite explicitly defined as the reasons they're leaving, the AF chooses to fix the low-hanging, irrelevant fruit.
The saying has always been that the bonus only rewarded people who were planning on staying in anyway.
Plus ca change....
To be fair that guy was going to get an MSM at the end of his tour provided he didn't purposefully burn the building down regardless of the work he actually did.
To be fair, it's not up to the command (at least at the O5 level) to award anything higher than a NAM. If your ISIC says NFW, then there's not much you can do. That doesn't mean you don't go to bat for someone that's worthy, but it's not something you can do for everyone.Meanwhile some commands stick to their guns on the award instruction, and can't seem to get sailors promoted.
True, but I do wonder if some of this is an aviation vs other community culture thing. When I see O-4s walking around with MSMs or DMSMs, and O-3s with JCMs and NCMs, it puzzles me. Because I know that would never fly in Naval Air absent unusual circumstances (not that we'd be giving out joint awards, but my point remains).
Or maybe I've just noticed that purple squirrel who got it for unusual circumstances; I don't know.
Perhaps.. I know she had that weird, made up pin that looks like a seashell with water around it for doing something like monitoring bouys or something underwater to track submarines.. I believe she was/is a high school guidance counselor in Seattle for real job...
Some of it depends on the commands they were at. Second tour SWO on a major combatant would probably rate an NCM. Same thing for a JO at a major shore command.
I think both posts are on point...for better or worse (including the RESFOR side). I know I had a CO go to bat for me to try and award me with an award commensurate with the position I fulfilled (vice what the paperwork said), but was told "not really a thing" because I was an O-5 select and not an actual O-5. Admittedly, the person saying this wasn't the most proactive individual, but it proves the point, especially since this was still within the Naval Air community, but he was also quoting TYCOM policy, so what are you (the CO) going to do at that point? The answer was a realistic "nothing."