Stephen Coonts - Combat

“Shit-hot,” Harry Ponce exclaimed. “We get our hands on the best of the best of the best.”

“I don’t fully understand, sir,” Norman said, raising a hand almost as if he were in grade school. “What’s the purpose of such a drastic promotion? Why do those officers get chosen so far ahead of their peers? It doesn’t make sense to me. What did they do to deserve such attention?”

“As in all promotion boards, Colonel,” Ingemanson replied, “the needs of the Air Force determine how and why officers get promoted. In this case, the powers that be determined that there should be a handful of individuals that represent the absolute best and most dedicated of the breed.”

“But I still don’t …”

“Generally, below-the-zone promotions are incentives for motivated officers to do even better,” Ingemanson interrupted. “If you know that the Air Force will pick a handful above the rest, for those who care about things like that, it’s their chance to work a little harder to make their jacket stand out. It’s been my experience that generally the BTZ guys become the leaders in every organization.”

“That’s to be expected, I suppose,” Norman said. “You give one person a gold star when everyone else gets silver stars, and the one with the gold star will start behaving like a standout, whether he really is or not. Classic group psychology. Is this what we want to do? Is this the message we want to send young officers in the Air Force?”

Ponce and some of the others rolled their eyes at that comment. Ingemanson smiled patiently and responded, “It sounds like a never-ending ‘chicken-or-the-egg’ argument, Colonel, which we won’t get into here. I prefer to think of this as an opportunity to reward an officer whose qualities, leadership, and professionalism rise above the others. That’s your task.

“Now, I must inform you that some of these jackets are marked ‘classified,’” General Ingemanson went on. “There is nothing in these files more classified than ‘NOFORN’ and ‘CONFIDENTIAL,’ but be aware that these files do carry a security classification over and above a normal everyday personnel file. The files may contain pointers to other, more sensitive documents.

“Bottom line is, that factoid is none of your concern. You evaluate each candidate by the physical content of the file that you hold in your hands. You won’t be given access to any other documents or records. You should not try to speculate on anything in the file that is not on a standard promotion board evaluation checklist. In other words, just because a candidate has annotations and pointers regarding classified records doesn’t mean his file should be weighed any heavier than someone else, or because a candidate doesn’t have any such annotations shouldn’t count against him. Base your decisions on the content of the files alone. Got it?” Everyone nodded, even Norman, although he appeared as perplexed as before.

“Now, to save time, we do below-the-primary-zone selections a little differently,” Ingemanson went on. “Everyone goes through the pile and gives a yes or no opinion of the candidate. The candidate needs four of seven ‘yes’ votes to go on to round two. This helps thin out the lineup so you can concentrate on the best possible candidates in a shorter period of time. Round two is precisely like a normal scoring routine — minimum six, maximum ten points, in half-point increments. Once we go through and score everyone, we’ll resolve the gray areas, then put those candidates in with the other candidates, then rescore and resolve until we have our selectees. We should be finished by tomorrow. We present the entire list to the board on Thursday, get final approval, and sign the list Friday morning and send it off to the Pentagon. We’re on the home stretch, boys. Any questions?”

“So what you’re saying, sir,” Norman observed, “is that these below-the-zone selectees could displace selectees that we’ve already chosen? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“That’s a statement, not a question, Colonel,” Ingemanson said. There was a slight ripple of laughter, but most of the panel members just wanted Norman to shut up. “You’re right, of course, Colonel. The BTZ selectees will be so identified, and when their OSRs are compared with the other selectees, you panel members will be instructed that a BTZ selectee must really have an outstanding record in order to bump an in-the-primary-zone or above-the-primary-zone selectee. As you may or may not know, BTZ selectees usually represent less than three percent of all selectees, and it is not unusual for a board to select no BTZ candidates for promotion. But again, that’s up to you. No more questions? Comments? Jokes?” Ingemanson did not give anyone a chance to reply. “Good. Have fun, get to work.”

The Officer Selection Reports began their circulation around the table, each member receiving a stack of about fifteen. Norman was irked by having to do this chore, but he was intrigued as well. These guys must be really good, he thought, to be chosen for promotion so far ahead of their peers.

But upon opening his first folder, he was disappointed again. The photograph he saw was of a chunky guy with narrow, tense-looking blue eyes, a crooked nose, irregular cheeks and forehead, thin blond hair cut too short, uneven helmet-battered ears, a thick neck underneath a shirt that appeared too small for him, and a square but meaty jaw. He wore senior navigator’s wings atop two and a half rows of ribbons — one of the smallest numbers of ribbons Norman had seen in six days of scrutinizing personnel files. The uniform devices appeared to be on straight, but the Class A uniform blouse looked as if it had a little white hanger rash on the shoulders, as if it had hung in the closet too long and had just been taken out for the photograph.

He was ready to vote “no” on this guy right away, but he didn’t want to pass the folder too early, so he glanced at the Officer Effectiveness Reports. What in hell were they thinking — this guy wasn’t anywhere ready to be promoted two years ahead of his peers! He had only been to two assignments in eight years, not including training schools. Up until recently, he was a line navigator — an instructor, yes, but still basically a line officer, virtually the same as a second lieutenant fresh out of tech school. Sure, he had won a bunch of trophies at the Strategic Air Command Giant Voice Bombing and Navigation Competition, and several raters had called him “the best bombardier in the nation, maybe the world.”

But one rater, a year before he left his first PCS assignment, had only rated him “Above Average,” not “Outstanding.” He didn’t have a “firewalled” OER. One of his last raters at his first assignment had said “A few improvements will result in one of the Air Force’s finest aviators.” Translation: He had problems that he apparently wasn’t even trying to fix. He wasn’t officer material, let alone a candidate for early promotion! He wasn’t even promotable, let alone leadership material! How in the world did he even get promoted to major?

What else? A master’s degree, yes, but only Squadron Officer School done, by correspondence — no advanced leadership schools. What in hell was he doing with his time? One temporary assignment with the U.S. Border Security Force — which went bust before the end of its third year, disgraced and discredited. His OERs at his second PCS assignment in Las Vegas were very good. His last OER had one three-star and two four-star raters — the four-star raters were the chief of staff of the Air Force and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a very impressive achievement. But there were very few details of exactly what he did there to deserve such high-powered raters. He had some of the shortest rater’s comments Norman had ever seen — lots of “Outstanding officer,” “Promote immediately,” and “A real asset to the Air Force and the nation” type comments, but no specifics at all. His flying time seemed almost frozen — obviously he wasn’t doing much flying. No flying, but no professional military schools? One temporary assignment, totally unrelated to his primary field? This guy was a joke.