Standards in Free Fall

... according to DS, the USNA Commandant addresses the entire Brigade for slight shenanigans.
 
All3Services said:
The concern is that basic training is designed to accomplish several important goals to ready a person for military service which require stress and discomfort that, in this day and climate, could be considered by some as unnecessary. Combat is not pleasant and it's hard to prepare someone for the realities of service without a degree of actions that are not considered appropriate in a normal civilian environment. This could be construed by some new to the profession of arms as hazing because it's not something to which they have previously been exposed. The simple fact is that there are always some who take it too far but there are also those who are not prepared or suited for the military who will not be able to see the point and therefore will complain whenever they are not happy. Where does it end and at what point will the training of military personnel be useless in preparation for the ultimate requirement of being deployed to a combat environment where their feelings are no longer relevant? Just because an individual who is uncomfortable doesn't see the why behind an action doesn't mean there isn't one and we have to be very careful how we address training violations. Just my humble opinion of course from someone who has been there, done that and has the scars to prove it.
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THIS IS SPOT ON. What is the fastest way to learn a language? Immersion. Go to a foreign country, and the feeling of helplessness due to an inability to communicate forces you to learn a new language quickly. How do you undo 18 years of learning that killing (even fighting) is wrong, to follow orders rather than ask "why" in response to a directive, and to undue all the instinctive thoughts and behaviors that come with 18 years of cultivating your personal identity, particularly one that involves acting independently as a late teen? You do it by (temporarily) stripping someone of their identity and making them feel so helpless they will "internalize" whatever values, words, and actions are required to feel normal again. That is how Basic Training works...and it does so in virtually every country in the world. To reduce Basic to "lets just talk to them like adults...use our words to tell them what we want and why" does not get this sort of cultural and identity change. The main problem is most cadets and trainers do not even understand this so instead of applying "sufficient" stress to help basic cadets with their enculturation and development, they sometimes slip into "hazing" because that is what was done to them and they think they turned out ok.
 
flieger83 said:
When I see cadets having to read and sign off on every honor board, weekly, and that violators are being out processed, then I'll think things are getting back to normal.

I tossed SEVEN academy graduate lieutenants out of RTU (well, actually my boss the OG/CC did, but I reported them; I caught them!). Why? They cheated on a class test that had ZERO bearing on their training. If you busted an academic test you sat with an IP and went over it and ultimately you corrected it to 100%. DONE.

They stole the answer sheet, copied it, and when I caught them they were in a classroom passing it around.

Care to guess what happens to 2Lt's that receive a punitive Article 15 from an OG/CC and are removed from RTU?
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What happens?
 
Panda57 said:
What happens?
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They were removed from RTU, and from what I was told later, were administratively separated from the Air Force. I did not learn if they had been handed bills for their education but I would imagine they were.
 
Hello:

I am applying for USAFA Class of 2029. I have been told by graduates (of around 2000) that the Service Academies are really good for a tough formation.

Based on what I have seen in this thread, it seems that much of this has disappeared. This is discouraging.

Could someone please fill me in on this change, how drastic it is, and what aspects of life at the academy it affects?

Thank You.
 
USAFAApplicant’29 said:
Hello:

I am applying for USAFA Class of 2029. I have been told by graduates (of around 2000) that the Service Academies are really good for a tough formation.

Based on what I have seen in this thread, it seems that much of this has disappeared. This is discouraging.

Could someone please fill me in on this change, how drastic it is, and what aspects of life at the academy it affects?

Thank You.
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This thread is a few posters. Hard to make a fully accurate conclusion based upon a small sample. Additionally, what is the actual outcome being measured? IMO the best gauge of a SA’s preparation of its officers, is performance among peers once they hit post commissioning assignments.

Things ebb and flow. Are fluid. Pendulums swing. Always.
 
dododododododododododo said:
Current Cadet here, I'm curious from the older grads if things really are uniquely bad here now or if it's always been like this.

Not only among the doolies but among all classes, people don't really give a damn. Embarrassingly bad uniforms, disrespectfully talking to officers, blatant violations of the honor code and nothing happening, etc. And if anyone speaks up about it you're socially ostracized, being called a "narp." It results in a culture of apathy and fear against speaking up. It makes me wonder why most of these people decided to come here. Has this always been the culture here? I came here because I wanted to be held to a high standard, but the vast majority just don't care. It makes me really concerned that the people who graduate from here, who are now too afraid to correct anyone in anything, will be in charge of our nation's defense and nuclear weapons. Thoughts?
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In short dodo, yes. But what you'll find is that nearly ever government organization has its "bad apples" who spoil the rest of the bunch by negatively impacting the environment. There are plenty of "dirt bag" undesirables on active duty too. The key to fulfillment in government (i.e., military) work is finding your stride in spite of it all, but I digress.

There is something to be said about humans becoming byproducts of their environments...

Sadly, nearly all of the perspectives shared in here echo the same things I heard coming from grads, staff, and fellow cadets decades past, now. USAFA still hasn't addressed its most fundamental problems, nor can we move past our collective (now decades-old) disagreement on whether to make things tougher or easier. We've been debating this for 70 years now, folks, and commandants past have come and gone and pushed or eased the throttle to little impact on the overall climate. Occam's Razor can be a useful tool for quickly identifying problems, but in a society bent on instant gratification across generations, very few people don't realize when Occam's theory isn't appropriate. USAFA's long-standing issues are a strong indication that we're not having the right debate - that we're not even asking the right questions to begin with.

And we complain about USAFA being where it is today? So what else besides strapping down or easing off might we do?
 
In terms of training, this is a message I received from Group Training Staff (I am in my Squadron Training Staff):

"The reason the Comm is having every squad sign the form about hazing is because the Vice Comm heard rumor of a training session that included bed drills where the training staff was not also doing bed drills. Additionally this went until 0715, meaning the 4-degrees did not have time to eat. If that did happen, that is hazing; The punishment is disenrollment. If someone is suspected of hazing, their AOC will be in the Comm's office in service dress. The AOC will then walk through the allegations with the Commandant. If they both still believe it was hazing, that person will be disenrolled. Please do not get caught hazing; TO's are the bastion between a professional military and a regular college. We need you to stay in your job and follow the rules. We are fighting for you to get more freedom; we cannot do that if we are constantly being accused of hazing violations."

While I understand that hazing is not ok, the stretch of the definition of hazing has become almost a joke at this point. Can anyone tell me any kind of military training that is not hazing? Because apparently bed drills (having C4Cs remake beds due to infractions) is hazing if the Training Staff are not also doing so. LOL!

This is not the only thing considered hazing. Consider this year's training ROEs, or at least some of my personal favorites:

- "Assigning remedial training to an entire group based on the deficiencies of an individual or a few individuals" - because nothing screams teamwork more than "if you mess up, i don't care because i won't be punished!"

- "Requiring all Four-Degrees in a squadron to indiscriminately move rooms by a set timeline" - I guess having flexibility isn't the key to airpower after all.

- "Cadet Military Training events will not be designed with the primary objective to reach physical conditioning goals." - obviously, USAF doesn't have a fitness problem. at all.

- "While conducting calisthenics... cadets shall not conduct more than 3 sets of each exercise. Each set shall not exceed 1 minute of work and shall be immediately followed by a period of rest equivalent to the period of work (1:1 ratio of work to rest)." - when you are in a war, you won't have to do physical activity longer than a minute.

- "If a low/high crawl event is incorporated [in training], all cadets (including upper class cadets) at the training event will conduct the low/high crawl, unless on a medical profile." - because it's clearly maltraining if you don't do it with them. Once a freshman, always a freshman. You just get to decide what the group does.

- "Cadets will not conduct the low or high crawl in snow or on wet, uneven, or rocky terrain." - after he escaped from a POW camp in Vietnam, Capt Lance P. Sijan only had to low crawl on a field flatter than Kansas. And when his captors tried to catch him, they had to low crawl too, because otherwise that wouldn't be fair!

- "At no time will the weight of the ruck exceed 20% of the individual's body weight." - when you are carrying survival equipment on a deployment, it'll never be heavier than (1/5)*[your body weight]. God takes care of the rest. Hope you can call in that 9-line, because you definitely won't have anything weighing more than a few books to help medically!

- "Lunges are not authorized indoors." - I can't find of a reason for this, not even a comical one unfortunately.

- "Squadrons are not authorized to require cadets to complete pushups/sit-ups upon entering/exiting the squadron area." - because we definitely don't have a fitness problem in USAF, and especially not at USAFA! How dare you suggest such a thing!

I have to finish a presentation for a class tomorrow, but my list could go on and on and on. Keep in mind that this doesn't include the unwritten rules that you can get in trouble for. Any physical training, bed drills, and supermans (rapid changing of uniforms due to infractions) must be done with the C4Cs.

Some squads are able to get away with doing real training, but it relies on a strong band of trust between upperclassmen and freshmen. If anyone spills, even unintentionally, it's GAME OVER for the training staff, the squad comm, and likely the AOC career-wise.

In short, USAFA leadership is asking Training staff to do their jobs with not one, but two hands tied behind their backs. And blindfolded too. It all reminds me of a story my Ac Advisor told me last year. When he was going through OTS, the MTIs were not allowed to yell at them because, for a very short while, yelling was deemed to be maltreatment. Doesn't that sound like a complete joke? That's what USAFA has turned into: a joke. Its remaining pillar left standing is academics, and sorry, but a lot of colleges besides USAFA do just as well or better in that field.

What's the purpose behind all of this? Well, we had some very *iconic* meetings with General Marks (who has only briefed us a total of 2 or 3 times... he's the least visible Commandant that I have witnessed so far) and many on Wing Staff were able to elicit that the main reason for so many C4C ROE changes was that "we aren't in Vietnam anymore, and we shouldn't be preparing freshmen to be in POW camps." Not kidding, that is word for word what one of my friends on Wing Staff told me. Because we totally aren't headed for near-peer conflict in the near future! Ah, yes, I remember... the US can't be in a near-peer conflict because we already had a War to end all Wars. So there isn't a risk of any POW camps, right? And we aren't ill-prepared for what a POW camp would look like, right?

I guess I am the spitting image of a fed-up, negative cadet... but I'm not the only one. Recent results from our DEOCS survey - the results of which were completely invalidated because we were coerced to take it by the Commandant by allowing those who took it to wear civvies to class on a few days - showed that morale across the wing had dropped some 30%. On top of that, several changes have been announced regarding future Training ROEs, a likely scrapping of Recognition altogether, and a new cadet pass system. All of these were wildly unpopular, but their impact could not be shown in the DEOCS because the survey deadline closed before the Commandant briefed us about them.

I simply refuse to accept that this is the way USAFA has been in the past. Sure, it may be a pendulum swing, but I highly doubt the pendulum has ever swung this far. This place is a shadow of a shell of what it used to be.
 
usafa2525 said:
That's what USAFA has turned into: a joke.
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"Whether you think you can, or think you can't - you're right" - Henry Ford

I'm not a USAFA or academy grad, but I do share from the perspective of a leader in a large company and occupying leadership roles in related, much larger organizations.

The culture of an organization is defined by the people, not the "rules." At each level of leadership, the people are the filter through which the rules flow downhill. Sometimes those rules make sense; sometimes they don't make sense, but there's a good reason; and sometimes they make no sense and there is no good reason. Make the best of the framework you're given. I personally will put my money on the organization with a crappy framework, but good people (and attitudes) any day.

This is a safe place to share thoughts and ideas and get great advice and perspective from the many amazing and experienced service people and academy grads, but be careful how far down the rabbit hole negativity goes. You ARE USAFA.
 
usafa2525 said:
I simply refuse to accept that this is the way USAFA has been in the past. Sure, it may be a pendulum swing, but I highly doubt the pendulum has ever swung this far.
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I was part of USAFA for a total of 19 years over the course of 3 decades. What you have described is what takes place about half the time there is a change in Commandant. So, it really is a pendulum swing.

Commandants, particularly if they are grads, often want to return things to the way they were when they were cadets...since it seemed to have served them so well in the past...at least well enough to get them to 1-star. Some take you back to a time when the pendulum was left, some take you back to when the pendulum was right. If a new Commandant inherits a bunch of problems, then that could make the pendulum swing even harder or faster.

The examples of "hazing" you posted are not the only means to develop leadership skills in officer candidates, and they were likely called out because of an over-reliance on them by training staff when there seems to be minimal development taking place at the cost of precious time that four degrees (and training staff) could be using to study, memorize knowledge, or hit the gym.

As a Squadron Training Officer, you should be listening to the direction of your chain of command, trying to discern their intent, and then exercising some creativity and the leadership skills YOU learned (regardless of how you learned them) to turn what they want into reality. Rather than moving rooms, making beds, and dropping four degrees for pushups, think of a larger problem your squad, group or wing is having, and focus element leaders and flight commanders on leading the four degrees to work as a team, to plan and execute a solution. You might all learn more about leadership and improve USAFA at the same time.

USAFA is your one big chance to develop penalty free. Use this time. Once you graduate, your JOB as an officer will be to listen to your chain, discern their intent, and lead a team to accomplish the mission or solve a problem. Help in accomplishming your mission will come from other CGOs in your squadron. Some of them may be cadets who graduated a year or two after you...maybe even the four degrees you are training right now...so try to avoid an us vs them view of four degrees.
 
FalconDad2026 said:
"Whether you think you can, or think you can't - you're right" - Henry Ford

I'm not a USAFA or academy grad, but I do share from the perspective of a leader in a large company and occupying leadership roles in related, much larger organizations.

The culture of an organization is defined by the people, not the "rules." At each level of leadership, the people are the filter through which the rules flow downhill. Sometimes those rules make sense; sometimes they don't make sense, but there's a good reason; and sometimes they make no sense and there is no good reason. Make the best of the framework you're given. I personally will put my money on the organization with a crappy framework, but good people (and attitudes) any day.

This is a safe place to share thoughts and ideas and get great advice and perspective from the many amazing and experienced service people and academy grads, but be careful how far down the rabbit hole negativity goes. You ARE USAFA.
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Especially at USAFA, it is definitely the rules that define the organization. Good attitudes only go so far, and that's been pretty obvious over the past year.

Part of my job description is to prepare C4Cs for their culminating training event, Recognition. And yet, PP has taken away all the tools which work to prepare them for such an event. My staff and I, indeed the whole squad, has tried to make the best of the framework we've been given, but it has not been working well at all. Standards are completely lax, to the point where the standards are being written out of doctrine altogether. For example, C4Cs are now allowed to be at rest in their squadrons after 1745. This is completely unheard of.

You might say "well you should just enforce the standard." How exactly would you like me to do that? The boundaries on physical training are so tight that nobody struggles with it if they are corrected, so it doesn't work as a method of enforcement. Yelling at them used to work, but C4Cs have figured out that it's pretty much the only thing we can do now, so it doesn't lead to lasting change. Imploring them to do the right thing works maybe 10% of the time, but if that was what we should do, then there would be no need for Training staff in the first place. Restricting them to base would for sure be extremely effective, but 9 out of 10 AOCs overturn restrictions the same day Training staff assigns them. Paperwork is the most popular way to fix stuff nowadays, but it generally doesn't work because PP will refuse to sign 174s, Form 10s, etc. that punish C4Cs in any negative way.
 
GoodRun said:
I was part of USAFA for a total of 19 years over the course of 3 decades. What you have described is what takes place about half the time there is a change in Commandant. So, it really is a pendulum swing.

Commandants, particularly if they are grads, often want to return things to the way they were when they were cadets...since it seemed to have served them so well in the past...at least well enough to get them to 1-star. Some take you back to a time when the pendulum was left, some take you back to when the pendulum was right. If a new Commandant inherits a bunch of problems, then that could make the pendulum swing even harder or faster.

The examples of "hazing" you posted are not the only means to develop leadership skills in officer candidates, and they were likely called out because of an over-reliance on them by training staff when there seems to be minimal development taking place at the cost of precious time that four degrees (and training staff) could be using to study, memorize knowledge, or hit the gym.

As a Squadron Training Officer, you should be listening to the direction of your chain of command, trying to discern their intent, and then exercising some creativity and the leadership skills YOU learned (regardless of how you learned them) to turn what they want into reality. Rather than moving rooms, making beds, and dropping four degrees for pushups, think of a larger problem your squad, group or wing is having, and focus element leaders and flight commanders on leading the four degrees to work as a team, to plan and execute a solution. You might all learn more about leadership and improve USAFA at the same time.

USAFA is your one big chance to develop penalty free. Use this time. Once you graduate, your JOB as an officer will be to listen to your chain, discern their intent, and lead a team to accomplish the mission or solve a problem. Help in accomplishming your mission will come from other CGOs in your squadron. Some of them may be cadets who graduated a year or two after you...maybe even the four degrees you are training right now...so try to avoid an us vs them view of four degrees.
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I believed in the pendulum swing theory last semester. I am privileged to be close to several individuals editing the CS&D, which basically defines cadet life, rules, etc. as you know. The next CS&D will allow C4Cs to walk on the Tzo at rest. I have never heard of something like this happening, but since you worked there for 19 years, perhaps you had seen this?
 
usafa2525 said:
I believed in the pendulum swing theory last semester. I am privileged to be close to several individuals editing the CS&D, which basically defines cadet life, rules, etc. as you know. The next CS&D will allow C4Cs to walk on the Tzo at rest. I have never heard of something like this happening, but since you worked there for 19 years, perhaps you had seen this?
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Some classes have been recognized early in the Spring, some have been silenced (ignored and unsupervised as a form of punishment, which in theory would allow them to do as they please), and some have been given "at rest" for a week or more as a reward. But the broader point is "hitting the strips" is a singular military training activity--and I use this term loosely given its dubious officer development value--it is one tactic used to achieve the broader goal of officer development. ROTC has nothing like it. Does it produce poorer officers? No, it achieves the same ends in a different way. Your Comm is just asking you do things in a different way, regardless of when four degrees will be at rest next year.

The change will be hard, as change always is. You won't be able to model things (with slight improvements) after the way things were done with you. Instead, you may have to start from scratch. This is good for the AF, and is a fundamental tenet underlying how SF is standing up. Get a fresh look at the world, and adjust to the changing environment. Turn the near peers into far peers.
 
I admit that I am concerned about the training at USAFA. Has it been this bad before? Not sure. I do know some of the directives are coming from above USAFA, so there's always that.

I will say that I hear from parents of Doolies (I am an admin for the parent support pages). Many have said that their Doolie is concerned about getting Recognized. Many are being told they are "not ready". Seems to me that that may be a way to motivate those who truly are not ready for Recognition. No one wants to spend an extra month or so without the privileges that their classmates have earned.

As for the upperclassmen. That's tougher to address. The AMTs need to step up and ensure that standards/procedures are followed. It is their job, after all. I want to point out that the classes of 2024/25 are the "covid classes" and they missed out on many of the traditions and, dare I say, training that previous classes had. Perhaps this is part of the issue? I am not there. I don't have any other insight except for what parents have told me that their cadets have said. Too many degrees of separation, perhaps.
 
Doolies are always concerned about Recognition. They are concerned when they are top ranked four degrees, and they are concerned when they are among the lowest ranked four degrees. Their concerns are just different. Upperclassmen always tell cadets they are not ready to be recognized, at least until Recognition approaches. They tell this to four degrees that really aren't doing well as a whole, and they say this to those that doing pretty darn well as a whole. In both cases it is to create doubt and spur a higher level of performance. I don't know how else to communicate that what is reported here is "word on the street" from cadets in some form (with minor variations) every year.

In my 32 years in the AF, I never had a single job that was so clear cut that I knew exactly what to do, there was plenty of specific guidance on how to do it, and my commander never asked me to do it differently or better due to personal preferences, his/her bosses' preferences, or some external political constraint. For the cadets: this is the hand you have been dealt and your job is to figure out how to accomplish it as best you can. If you do a stellar job, you will stand out, and possibly rise to a higher leadership position in the Wing in order to challenge you so you can keep growing. If you do a ok or poor job, you will move on to the next semester and a new squadron job, and your four degrees will still be recognized (as nearly all are every year). This is how it works every year, regardless of all the little changes and examples. And when you graduate and, for example, become an Aircraft Maintenance officer, you will be given a bunch of NCOs and a ton of young airmen, a huge library of tech orders and regulations, and your Commander will ask you do all sorts of things that are going to be tough to do, particularly if you don't like working nights or weekends. Hopefully you learned how to handle it while you were at USAFA and had the training wheels on. ROTC doesn't get four years of this kind of development, so make good use of it.
 
usafa2525 said:
Especially at USAFA, it is definitely the rules that define the organization. Good attitudes only go so far, and that's been pretty obvious over the past year.

Part of my job description is to prepare C4Cs for their culminating training event, Recognition. And yet, PP has taken away all the tools which work to prepare them for such an event. My staff and I, indeed the whole squad, has tried to make the best of the framework we've been given, but it has not been working well at all. Standards are completely lax, to the point where the standards are being written out of doctrine altogether. For example, C4Cs are now allowed to be at rest in their squadrons after 1745. This is completely unheard of.

You might say "well you should just enforce the standard." How exactly would you like me to do that? The boundaries on physical training are so tight that nobody struggles with it if they are corrected, so it doesn't work as a method of enforcement. Yelling at them used to work, but C4Cs have figured out that it's pretty much the only thing we can do now, so it doesn't lead to lasting change. Imploring them to do the right thing works maybe 10% of the time, but if that was what we should do, then there would be no need for Training staff in the first place. Restricting them to base would for sure be extremely effective, but 9 out of 10 AOCs overturn restrictions the same day Training staff assigns them. Paperwork is the most popular way to fix stuff nowadays, but it generally doesn't work because PP will refuse to sign 174s, Form 10s, etc. that punish C4Cs in any negative way.
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If I didn’t already know my DS username on this site I’d think you were him lol. He is a 25er and has pretty much communicated to me the same sentiments. Part of training staff, very frustrated with the recent “hazing” protocol. He even says the C4Cs are feeling let down down the loosened standards.
 
AF Roots said:
If I didn’t already know my DS username on this site I’d think you were him lol. He is a 25er and has pretty much communicated to me the same sentiments. Part of training staff, very frustrated with the recent “hazing” protocol. He even says the C4Cs are feeling let down down the loosened standards.
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Me too!
 
What makes this painful for the Grad community is that we have been here before.

No ****, so there I was...

August 2005
The Supe, a Citadel grad who implemented sweeping changes after the sexual assault scandal, is on his way out.
The Comm, a USAFA grad fighter pilot who would carry around big sword(?), is in hiding due to "controversy" surrounding religious references in his speeches.
Recognition has not happened for the last 2 years. Survival training did not happen in 2005.
4* are at attention and running the strips, but there is minimal squadron training. Minimal passes for 4*.
USAFA has the longest academic calendar in the country.
Facebook is still limited to specific colleges and has just arrived at USAFA.
Smartphones do not exist yet.

October 2005
Supe change of command: the new guy is a USAFA grad and a Personnel officer with huge hair.

November 2005
4* are "at ease" and can walk (but not talk) on the T-zo after coming back from Thanksgiving.

December 2005
Comm change of command: first-ever female Comm, a USAFA grad, arrives.

January 2006
Mandatory wing-wide breakfast returns.
UOD is BDUs (starched and ironed, boots shined) for 2 days each week to allow physical training during the duty day (at minutes, on the T-zo before Noon Meal Formation).
Squadron training returns, including running Three Bears, SABC drills on the athletic fields, and low crawling in the snow.

March 2006
Recognition returns


Those of us that lived the whiplash were incredibly proud of what we accomplished when training returned. I credit it for my military and civilian successes.

What is on the wall in the boxing gym? "Tough times don't last, tough people do."
 
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