After more than 15 years I'm starting to get the first signs of a major relationship problem. Not with e, thankfully, we're doing just fine. I'm talking about the Air Force.
I've been in a committed relationship, you might say, for nearly 16 years now. In fact, I don't have the option of trying to leave until 2013. The Air Force, on the other hand, has no such obligation to me. It demonstrated as much by letting me know that I wasn't worth promoting to lieutenant colonel this time around. Being passed over puts me in the bottom 25% of the 1,000+ majors who were up for promotion in this board. It also means that if I'm not selected next year then the AF will have a second board to decide if it's worth keeping me around. A lot of pilots get what's called selective continuation each time they get passed over, but there's no guarantee. Without being continued, I'll be unceremoniously asked to leave the Air Force within six months of the decision to pass me over.
Wow. That's a hard blow to me. I've been wearing an Air Force uniform since I was fifteen years old. Granted, the first 4 years were as a JROTC cadet, but every day since 29 June 1988 has been with an active duty ID card, no matter what the retirement laws say about my time served. That's more than 20 years wearing the blue, olive green, and camouflage colors of the Air Force. I've said "yes, sir" and saluted more times in those years than I can even imagine. I've been around long enough to see the pendulum swing back and forth more than once on a host of topics.
It seems that the particular topic which will force an early end to my career is the infamous Master's degree. For years it has been an Air Force tradition to get a degree--any degree--to help get promoted. There wasn't any consideration to whether the degree was worth the paper on which it was printed or if the person did their job even .0001% better with that rag on the wall. The assumption was that the haze of getting a degree--even if it involved only sending off $$$ to a degree factory--made a person worthy of the next level of promotion.
A few years back, just when I was getting ready to complete ACSC--another mandatory, probably worthless haze, but that's an entirely different post--I realized that I was old enough to start thinking about a Master's degree soon. It was then that the Chief of Staff of the Air Force decreed that his officers should stop wasting their time on meaningless degrees and that from now on officers should only obtain a degree if required by the Air Force and that only those degrees would be visible on official military records. Fool that I am, I obeyed the CSAF, even though I realized his term was very short and that his decision would probably be quickly reversed.
As it turns out, the reversal wasn't nearly as public as usual because there really wasn't a leg to stand on. The previous CSAF had said his AF officers should stop wasting time and money--much of it gov't money--on useless education. The new CSAF could hardly say that he espoused wasting dollars and effort to help officers "fill a square," could he?
So it was with relatively little fanfare that we were told advanced education would be "unmasked" on future promotion board records. We weren't told to go out and waste time and money, nossir. We were just told that a harmless unmasking would take place, one that effectively returned the Air Force to the wasteful good old days without coming right out and saying it.
I'll admit it again: I was dumb. I shouldn't have believed the leadership when they said unneeded degrees were a thing of the past, because deep down I knew they were just paying lip service to the CSAF. But I was lazy. We were coming back to the States after a tough (but fun) tour in Spain, the baby was on the way soon, and ACSC was d-u-n done. I took a nearly two-year vacation from education, all the while hoping that I would make LTC before the pendulum came back. Instead, it got me squarely in the face. Not only was I not able to complete a degree fast enough after hearing that education would show up on my record, I'm still not able to do anything about it. I need to finish 6 classes by November if I want any chance of having a Master's on my record, and that just ain't gonna happen.
For starters, I can only take 4 courses a year at government expense. With 2 down already this FY, I'd have to pay for 4 of the 6 I need, a total of over $3000. Besides that, I'd have to basically take a "full load" of 18 credits--as a part time student! I'd have to be so involved in my studies that I'd stop working, which as far as I know might also impact my chances of promotion.
Yes, I am wallowing just a bit in self-pity, I realize that. I'll probably come back to this post in a week or so and hit delete, but for now it's hard not to lose hope. As far as I can tell, there's almost no way to avoid meeting the next promotion board without a degree, and that means this time next year I'll be looking for a new job. For the record--not that the AF cares--I'd have stayed until 2013 with no complaints. Heck, I'd have stayed until 3013 if it were possible. It's in my blood far more than any words like job or career or even family can describe. But you don't want me. Wow again. That's hard to take. You won't even blink when I walk out the door, but what am I supposed to do without you?
