Military Promotions
Why is it that the Armed Services’ Top Brass are not typical of the Officer Corps?
With the dawning of the Space Age and the development of guided missiles, the number of pilots in the Air Force has dropped steadily—until today fewer than one of three officers is a flier. When it comes to top brass, however, pilots still dominate the highest ranks: More than four out of five Air Force generals are fliers. A similar pattern, although not so striking, exists in the other military services. Certain favored branches win a disproportionate share of the top promotions.
These patterns cast disturbing doubts on the fairness of promotions in the armed services’ officer corps.
In “Military Promotions,” a new category of the Military Truth blog, we share posts that explore this troubling phenomemon.
Trump ordered officials to find some reason to deny Vindman’s promotion—they found nothing
These quotes sum it up: “That’s not a unique situation. It’s exactly the kind of thing that happens to many in the military when they’ve done ‘something wrong’”…., “It’s a personal tragedy for a man who should have had another decade or more of contributing to the future of the nation he loved. It’s a national tragedy in that it clearly shows how Trump is willing to use his power to quash the lives of honorable people who have the temerity to believe that America is what America claims to be.”
You’re Not One of Us
Officers had daily study sessions together, but, of course, being the only enlisted student in the class, I wasn’t invited and did my best to study the material on my own. The very first glance I had of the final test, it all became clear because it was exactly the same “test” the professor had started the course with “to see where we were.” The officer/pilot group wasn’t studying the course material, but reassembling the test and studying THAT, “forgetting” to invite me to their sessions since I was still an enlisted troop, while they were commissioned.
Letter to Robert Toth
Retired USAF Captain Don Chapin’s personal experience validates Robert Toth’s view that the military promotions process is skewed in a letter to the author
Armed Services Top Brass Not Typical of Officer Corps
An excellent, well-researched article, which my personal experience in the USAF Squadron Officer’s School, as reflected in the accompanying article’s Letter to Robert Toth, fully supports.