Stephen Coonts - Combat

The day was spent on what was called “resolving the gray area.” In the course of deliberations, many candidates had a score that permitted them to be promoted, but there weren’t enough slots to promote them all. So every candidate with a potentially promotable score had to be rescored until there were no more tie scores remaining. Naturally, when the candidates were rescored, there were candidates with tie scores again. Those had to be rescored, then the promotable candidates lumped together again and rescored yet again until enough candidates were chosen to fill the slots available.

In deliberating the final phase of rescoring the “gray area,” panel members were allowed to discuss the rationale behind their scores with each other. It was the phase that Norman most dreaded, and at the same time most anticipated — a possible head-to-head, peer-to-peer confrontation with Harry Ponce.

It was time, Norman thought, for the Slammer to get slammed.

“Norm, what in blue blazes are you thinking?” Ponce exploded as the final short stack of personnel jackets were passed around the table. “You torpedoed Waller again. Your rating pushes him out of the box. Mind tellin’ me why?”

“Every other candidate in that stack has Air Command and Staff College done in residence or by correspondence, except him,” Norman replied. He didn’t have to scan the jacket — he knew exactly which candidate it was, knew that Ponce would want to go to war over him. “His PME printout says he ordered the course a second time after failing to finish it within a year. Now why do you think he deserves to get a promotion when all the others completed that course?”

“Because Waller has been assigned to a fighter wing in Europe for the past three years.”

“So?”

“Jesus, Norm, open your eyes,” Ponce retorted. “The Soviet Union is doin’ a free fall. The Berlin Wall came down and Russia’s number one ally, East Germany, virtually disappears off the map overnight. A Soviet premier kicks the bucket every goddamned year, the Baltic states want to become nonaligned nations, and the Soviet economy is in meltdown. Everyone expects the Russkies to either implode or break out and fight any day now.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Fighter pilots stationed in Europe are practically sleeping in their cockpits because they have so many alert scrambles and restricted alert postures,” Ponce explained, “and Waller leads the league in sorties. He volunteers for every mission, every deployment, every training mission, every shadow tasking. He’s his wing’s go-to guy. He’s practically taken over his squadron already. His last OER went all the way up to USAFE headquarters. He flew one-fifth of all his squadron’s sorties in the Sandbox, and still served as ops officer and as acting squadron commander when his boss got grounded after an accident. He deserves to get a promotion.”

“But if he gets a promotion, he’ll be unavailable for a command position because he hasn’t completed ACSC — hasn’t even officially started it, in fact,” Norman pointed out. “And he’s been in his present assignment for almost four years — that means he’s ready for reassignment. If he gets reassigned he’ll have to wait at least a year, maybe two years, for an ACSC residence slot. He’ll get passed up by officers junior to him even if he maintains a spotless record. A promotion now will only hurt him.”

“What the hell kind of screwed-up logic is that, Weir?” Ponce shouted. But Norman felt good, because he could see that the little lightbulb over Ponce’s head came on. He was getting through to the supercolonel.

“You know why, Colonel,” Norman said confidently. “If he doesn’t get promoted, he’ll have a better chance of staying in his present assignment — in fact, I’d put money on it, if he’s the acting squadron commander. He’s a kick-ass major now — no one can touch him. He’s certainly top of the list in his wing for ACSC. As soon as he gets back from Saudi Arabia, he’ll go. When he graduates from ACSC in residence, he’ll have all the squares filled and then some. He’ll be a shooin for promotion next year.”

“But he’ll miss his primary zone,” Ponce said dejectedly. He knew Norman was right, but he still wanted to do everything he could to reward this outstanding candidate. “His next board will be an above-the-primary-zone board, and he’ll be lumped in with the has-beens. Here’s a guy who works his butt off for his unit. Who deserves it more than him?”

“The officers who took a little extra time in professional career development and got their education requirements filled,” Norman replied. “I’m not saying Waller’s not a top guy. But he obviously knew what he had to do to be competitive — after all, he’s taken the course twice, and he still didn’t do it: That’s not a well-rounded candidate in my book. The other candidates have pulled for their units too, but they also took time to get the theoretical and educational training in. Four other guys in that stack finished ACSC, and two of them have been selected to go in residence already. They’re the ones that deserve a promotion.”

“Well of course they had time to do ACSC — they’re ground-pounders,” Ponce shot back.

The remark hit a nerve in Norman’s head that sent a thrill of anger through his body. “ Excuse me?”

“They’re ground-pounders — support personnel,” Ponce said, completely ignorant of Norman’s shocked, quickly darkening expression. “They go home every night at seventeen hundred hours and they don’t come to work until oh-seven-thirty. If they work on weekends, it’s because there’s a deployment or they want face time. They don’t have to pull ’round-the-clock strip alert or fly four scrambles a day or emergency dispersals.”

“Hey, Colonel, I’ve done plenty of all those things,” Norman retorted angrily. “I’ve manned mobility lines seventy-two hours straight, processing the airmen at the end of the line who’ve been up working all night because all the flyers insisted on going first. I’ve worked lots of weekends in-processing new wing commanders who don’t want to be bothered with paperwork or who want to get their TDY money as soon as they hit the base or their precious teak furniture from Thailand got a scratch on it during the move and they want to sue the movers. Just because you’re a flyer doesn’t mean you got the corner on dedication to duty.”

Ponce glared at Norman, muttered something under his breath, and chomped on his cigar. Norman steeled himself for round two, but it didn’t happen. “Fine, fine,” Ponce said finally, turning away from Norman. “Vote the way you damned want.”

Resolving the “gray area” candidates took an entire workday and a little bit of the evening, but they finished. The next morning seemed to come much too quickly. But it started a little differently — because General Ingemanson himself rolled a small file cabinet into the room. He carried a platter of breakfast burritos and other hot sandwiches from the dining hall atop the file cabinet.

“Good morning, good morning, folks,” he said gaily. “I know you all worked real hard yesterday, and I didn’t see most of you in the Club this morning, so I figured you probably skipped breakfast, so I brought it for you. Take a couple, grab some coffee, and get ready for the next evolution.” Hungry full birds fairly leaped for the food.

When everyone was seated a few moments later, General Ingemanson stepped up to the head of the room, and said, “Okay, gang, let’s begin. Since you worked hard yesterday to finish up your gray area candidates, you’re a little ahead of the game, so I have a treat for you today.

“As you may or may not know, once a promotion board is seated, the Military Personnel Center and the Pentagon can pretty much use and abuse you any way they choose, which means they can use you for any other personnel or promotion tasks they wish. One such task is below-the-zone promotions. We’re going to take two hundred majors who are two years below their primary promotion zone, score them, then combine them with the other selected candidates, resolve the gray areas, and pass their names along for promotion along with the others. This panel gets one hundred jackets.”