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The Air Force Needs Fewer Leaders and More Wrench-Turners… Here’s How to Get Them

Talyn

SAINT
Founding Member
There is a mega-corporation here in the U.S. where the CEO tells every employee that they must move up within the company and eventually achieve top executive status. Every entry-level role is expected to advance within a specified timeframe, and if you aren’t able to meet the advancement schedule you are summarily terminated.


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Being a former wrench turner and Crew Chief the story is spot on. Good maintainers are hard to come by! The boot licker that wants to impress people are useless on the flight line but seem to be the ones getting prompted! A maintainer does not need a college education and that it should not be applied to getting promoted. I can honestly say when I made Master Sergeant E-7 it sucked! I was made a flight chief and had to become an administrative person. Really pissed of my peers when I not only was flight chief but crewed a jet on a regular basis. I was good at my maintainer job, just ask the 3 star general assigned to MY aircraft in the old Alaskan Air Command! When you take experience away the mission suffers. This was one of the many reasons I decided to retire from active service. I was told I was making a big mistake. The big mistake was taking me away from a position I enjoyed. When the thrill was gone---so was I. Until Air Force leaders get the big picture they will continue to have recruitment issues. Instead of being WOKE, they need to wake up!
 
I just saw a screen shot of the Air Force guidance on Email Signatures..........
I couldn't bring myself to save it to post.......
 
My cousin was a major in the Air Force and 15yrs ago. He was retired out because he couldn't move up, too many of the next two ranks up and no where for him to go in rank. The Air Force made him retire.
I thought he was full of horsehockey, he said in 20 yrs they will be hurting because all the good ones will be gone and all the folks that should be replaced will still be there.
Looks like he called it
 
When I retired from the USAF in 1994 it was at a point where you owed an explanation for every task you assigned. When I retired from civil service with the USAF in 2022 they were so woke that you spent most of your days doing woke training.

When I enlisted you had to have a high school diploma or complete your GED by the end of your first enlistment. Then it changed to requiring an associates by the end of your first hitch. Then it changed to a bachelors. Now you won't advance without a masters. What's next, a PhD?

I understand the value of an education. But there is no value in a degree you will never use. The USAF budget would be better spent on producing QUALITY leaders as opposed to the oxygen thieves currently occupying leadership positions.

Just my 2¢
 
The mission of the Air Force is to kill the enemy, destroy his materiel, and kill his will to fight. You can't accomplish that without the logistics and maintenance tail that support the flying mission.. When you loose sight of your mission, sense of mission and morale disintegrate rapidly. When I hear of all this woke indoctrination nonsense my first question is, "How does this improve our ability to accomplish the mission?"

There are some superb leaders and technicians in the Air Force who still are there for the mission. Then there are those ladder climbers who expend all their energy trying to look good to the detriment of many of those trying to do good.
Everyone knows which is which right away.

Foreign officers have told me the thing that impresses them the most about the USAF is the quality of our NCO's. We give responsibilities to NCO's that foreign militaries would only give to field grade officers, and they get things done. That is the core of the flying support operation. Degrade that and capability suffers greatly.

I have always thought the Air Force made a big mistake decades ago when they eliminated the Warrant Officer rank, which creates a career path for your best technicians.

Unfortunately senior leadership under this administration have created such a mission fog that many are questioning why they are there. Post 9/11 morale in the USAF was the highest I have seen it. 4 short years ago senior leadership under Trump seemed to be focusing, then the idiots got power. Hillary Clinton once referred to the military as a "necessary evil", which seems to be doctrine of that party. I watched morale decline under Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Brandon. Unfortunately when that happens you hemorrhage talent. I pray that the political landscape will change and turn things around for my Air Force.
 
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