I retired with the sore thought that the problem with the USAF is that it’s ran by pilots. No offense. But I’ve been impressed with the depth and breadth of experience of logistics and maintenance FGOs and GOs.
We do over-index on operational performance when deciding who gets promoted to the senior command roles, which are the gateways to senior general roles. The whole way we develop officers needs to be reconsidered. We continue to have senior GOs who get politically isolated and are therefore ineffective at advancing the service's interests. More than that, we continue to raise authoritarian senior officers who turn to coercion and direction constantly instead of actually *leading* teams, which involves a much broader skillset.
I think maintenance could have a bigger presence atop the USAF if it broadened officers more so they had more operational expertise. The community is notorious for keeping their experiences narrow. They command again and again, which makes them great leaders. But they then don't get the other aspects of senior generalship and struggle especially with being connected enough.
It's an interesting conundrum and one we've never cracked. I was just writing yesterday about how we didn't learn enough from Khobar Towers, which tried to expose something about how we develop senior officers.
I retired with the sore thought that the problem with the USAF is that it’s ran by pilots. No offense. But I’ve been impressed with the depth and breadth of experience of logistics and maintenance FGOs and GOs.
We do over-index on operational performance when deciding who gets promoted to the senior command roles, which are the gateways to senior general roles. The whole way we develop officers needs to be reconsidered. We continue to have senior GOs who get politically isolated and are therefore ineffective at advancing the service's interests. More than that, we continue to raise authoritarian senior officers who turn to coercion and direction constantly instead of actually *leading* teams, which involves a much broader skillset.
I think maintenance could have a bigger presence atop the USAF if it broadened officers more so they had more operational expertise. The community is notorious for keeping their experiences narrow. They command again and again, which makes them great leaders. But they then don't get the other aspects of senior generalship and struggle especially with being connected enough.
It's an interesting conundrum and one we've never cracked. I was just writing yesterday about how we didn't learn enough from Khobar Towers, which tried to expose something about how we develop senior officers.