This thread is to generate a little thought among those considering becoming USAF officers. What I have seen lately concerns me.
My AFB (among many others) is hosting AFROTC and Academy cadets for the summer. The intent is to introduce them to thier future lifestyle/career I suppose, although I think it is mostly meant to encourage them to stay with the program - using us as part of the USAF sales pitch.
Anyway, our AFROTC cadets spent most of their days in our main briefing room watching movies - to the extent that the secretary had to go tell them to turn down the volume on their showing of "Star Wars" as there was actual work being accomplished in the building and the noise was distracting. Any time I saw the group, they were either walking down the hall as a single mass, or huddled in the main briefing room - no voluntary interaction with the squadron personnel at all.
At one point, they were all huddled in the bar (relax, they were only there because they were kicked out of the main briefing room since it was need for a flight debrief) and an IP walked in to announce that he had an open back seat and was looking to see who wanted to occupy it (sts). Notice that the cadets were not scrounging for the sortie, the IP went looking for the cadets. Well, it seems that no one wanted to partake. So the IP asked who the pilot candidates were, and they raised their hands. The IP then asked those cadets which one wanted to go fly. The general response was "no thanks, we're good." For some additional background, none of these cadets had flown more than once up until this point, none had flown previously in the day, and there were no time constraints that were keeping them from flying.
Here is my point with all of this rambling. First, I think those cadets with pilot slots should lose their pilot slots. If they are that ambivalent at this point in their career (i.e. before it has even started), then they definitely do not have the natural curiosity of all things military aviation that they need to thrive in UPT and beyond. Let's lose this current PC attitude and go back to the old days, where we knew that there were always 10 people in line waiting for you to lose your pilot slot for some reason or another. When I was a cadet, I most certainly would have expected no less. P.S., for you Academy grads, these were ROTC cadets, not Academy cadets that "had been under the gun non-stop for the last 2 years and just needed a 2-week vacation" These were ROTC cadets from civilian colleges, and they were finally living on an AF base among AD military personnel and going to work in a tactical jet squadron flying with officers who had all seen some sort of combat or another, and were rubbing shoulders with LT's just a couple of years their senior who had just gone through 1.5+ years of training and were just getting started on their career.
It isn't just the pilots, by the way. There is the LT who shot next to be during M9 training a couple of months ago and did not qualify - he hit my target as many times as he hit his - and, yes, he was aiming at his. After listening to him whine about having to retrain for a few minutes, I had to remind him that: 1. the M9 is his primary duty weapon and he sucked at its employment, so retraining was required as a professional concern, and 2. he was whining about being paid to skip a day of normal work to go shoot a 9mm pistol at the govt's expense.
I don't get the impression at all that these folks understand what they are getting into. It's called the military, and the mission is death and destruction. Our ROTC detachments need to cull the herd a little, especially with the RIF (or whatever it is being called) going on right now. We need fewer, but more motivated officers. Let's allow them to do push-ups as punishment, again.
So now I am looking to see what the general response is, especially among those who have been operational for a few tours and are now training the newest generation - and I am talking general impressions, not the 1 dude who was a superstar. The general officers saw a problem, but their answer was a 2-week mini-SOS called ABC or something like that. I saw more military training and screening on "Officer and a Gentleman" than I can at ROTC dets nowadays. And academy cadets aren't much better, ask the generic Academy grad to VID a USAF aircraft or explain how we employ and do our mission at the tactical level and you'll be surprised at the lack of knowledge - it isn't like it used to be. Am I the only one with this point of view?
My AFB (among many others) is hosting AFROTC and Academy cadets for the summer. The intent is to introduce them to thier future lifestyle/career I suppose, although I think it is mostly meant to encourage them to stay with the program - using us as part of the USAF sales pitch.
Anyway, our AFROTC cadets spent most of their days in our main briefing room watching movies - to the extent that the secretary had to go tell them to turn down the volume on their showing of "Star Wars" as there was actual work being accomplished in the building and the noise was distracting. Any time I saw the group, they were either walking down the hall as a single mass, or huddled in the main briefing room - no voluntary interaction with the squadron personnel at all.
At one point, they were all huddled in the bar (relax, they were only there because they were kicked out of the main briefing room since it was need for a flight debrief) and an IP walked in to announce that he had an open back seat and was looking to see who wanted to occupy it (sts). Notice that the cadets were not scrounging for the sortie, the IP went looking for the cadets. Well, it seems that no one wanted to partake. So the IP asked who the pilot candidates were, and they raised their hands. The IP then asked those cadets which one wanted to go fly. The general response was "no thanks, we're good." For some additional background, none of these cadets had flown more than once up until this point, none had flown previously in the day, and there were no time constraints that were keeping them from flying.
Here is my point with all of this rambling. First, I think those cadets with pilot slots should lose their pilot slots. If they are that ambivalent at this point in their career (i.e. before it has even started), then they definitely do not have the natural curiosity of all things military aviation that they need to thrive in UPT and beyond. Let's lose this current PC attitude and go back to the old days, where we knew that there were always 10 people in line waiting for you to lose your pilot slot for some reason or another. When I was a cadet, I most certainly would have expected no less. P.S., for you Academy grads, these were ROTC cadets, not Academy cadets that "had been under the gun non-stop for the last 2 years and just needed a 2-week vacation" These were ROTC cadets from civilian colleges, and they were finally living on an AF base among AD military personnel and going to work in a tactical jet squadron flying with officers who had all seen some sort of combat or another, and were rubbing shoulders with LT's just a couple of years their senior who had just gone through 1.5+ years of training and were just getting started on their career.
It isn't just the pilots, by the way. There is the LT who shot next to be during M9 training a couple of months ago and did not qualify - he hit my target as many times as he hit his - and, yes, he was aiming at his. After listening to him whine about having to retrain for a few minutes, I had to remind him that: 1. the M9 is his primary duty weapon and he sucked at its employment, so retraining was required as a professional concern, and 2. he was whining about being paid to skip a day of normal work to go shoot a 9mm pistol at the govt's expense.
I don't get the impression at all that these folks understand what they are getting into. It's called the military, and the mission is death and destruction. Our ROTC detachments need to cull the herd a little, especially with the RIF (or whatever it is being called) going on right now. We need fewer, but more motivated officers. Let's allow them to do push-ups as punishment, again.
So now I am looking to see what the general response is, especially among those who have been operational for a few tours and are now training the newest generation - and I am talking general impressions, not the 1 dude who was a superstar. The general officers saw a problem, but their answer was a 2-week mini-SOS called ABC or something like that. I saw more military training and screening on "Officer and a Gentleman" than I can at ROTC dets nowadays. And academy cadets aren't much better, ask the generic Academy grad to VID a USAF aircraft or explain how we employ and do our mission at the tactical level and you'll be surprised at the lack of knowledge - it isn't like it used to be. Am I the only one with this point of view?
