The Associated Press Reported that No Air Force Generals Were Punished for Proficiency Test Cheating in Three Missile Squadrons —the Message Being that Air Force Generals Are Responsible for Nothing and Accountable for Nothing

© 2014 Peter Free

 

28 March 2014

 

 

If true, you have to laugh at the Air Force’s idea of discipline, accountability, and esprit de corps

 

From the Associated Press this morning:

 

 

The Air Force took the extraordinary step Thursday of firing nine midlevel nuclear commanders and announcing it will discipline dozens of junior officers at a nuclear missile base, responding firmly to an exam-cheating scandal that spanned a far longer period than originally reported.

 

A 10th commander, the senior officer at the base, resigned and will retire from the Air Force.

 

Members of all three missile squadrons were implicated in the cheating, either by providing or receiving test answers or knowing about the cheating and not reporting it.

 

No generals are being punished.

 

© 2014 Associated Press, Air Force commanders fired in nuke missile cheating scandal, Colorado Springs Gazette (27 March 2014)

 

“It was all them guys that did it — I just carry around the stars on my shoulders.”

 

 

The root of the problem?

 

Other in depth reporting on the scandal indicates that part of the motivation among those involved was to get the 100 percent proficiency test scores that the Air Force had made implicitly mandatory for promotion in and from these disrespected and day-to-day boring missile commands.

 

Critical here is that Air Force supervisory evaluations are written in sugary, over the top praise — virtually no matter how badly the evaluated person actually performed.

 

Consequently, reading between the lines at promotion time requires one to sort through levels from “great” to “walks on water.”  Thus, one surmises, originated the unrealistic 100 percent test score requirement that motivated stressed missile officers to cheat.

 

 

Generally atrocious Air Force discipline — pun intended

 

When you haven’t got the courage to tell subordinates how their performance really is:

 

 

you lose sight of realistic performance levels — which always have flaws;

 

you create a culture in which enforced accountability is impossible because virtually everyone is above average,

 

and

 

you mold a military service in which political ass-kissing is encouraged and rewarded.

 

Keep in mind that it is pretty hard to fire somebody whose previous, cowardly written evaluation said he or she was pretty darn good.

 

 

Whose fault is this lack of discipline and chain of command accountability?

 

Generals.

 

They are the people who set organizational tone.

 

By punishing a bunch of mainly mid-ranking officers, starred commanders apparently escaped responsibility for:

 

 

originating and maintaining a ridiculously inflated evaluation system,

 

failing to investigate and manage the boredom and dead end sense that these mid-level missileers endured,

 

and

 

failing to properly supervise their missileers.

 

It is as if the Air Force general officer rank has no enforceable duties in maintaining a properly functioning chain of command.

 

 

The moral? — The problem is not a bunch of mid-level cheaters, it is lackadaisical Air Force ethos

 

If I, as Air Force general, am accountable for essentially nothing down the chain of command, what organizational purpose does my rank serve?