Document created: 27 August 04
Air University Review, November-December
1970
So the first year went by, in magnificent exclusion and activity of learning. It was strenuous as a battle, her college life, yet remote as peace . . .This was only a little side-show to the factories of the town.
D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow
Lawrence’s description of college life relates to my generation of junior officers, campus unrest notwithstanding. That little olympiad of formal education is now the common experience of every junior Air Force officer entering extended active duty. It is the singular follow-on experience that commissioned service holds for the young officer that I wish to address, now with the leverage of some perspective. That is, what happens when the formalized college experience (the “little side-show”) that each new lieutenant brings to the service meets head-on with the objective, open-ended demands of men (speaking on the highest plane) involved in a serious business? What happens when the academic world’s clear-cut theorem or classically constructed plot dissolves into a situation where the rules of conformity may not always match the game? Be the results good, bad, or indifferent, I submit that when campus life abuts service life, for the new officer the latter is largely an objectifying, broadening experience.
The nature of this first exposure and its influence on young officers in deciding whether to remain in the Air Force are the broad fabric of this discussion. Its title draws an academic comparison: in the classroom the seminar is a forum for discussion, ultimately to arrive at a consensus or to draw an analogy, perhaps to expand a concept; in many ways the daily exchange of Air Force life has worked to the same end for me. It has been a maturation process that has touched virtually every aspect of living. Many have contributed to the broad experiences of my Air Force “life seminar,” and from them has come the impetus for this discussion.
the democratizing experience
Because the Air Force community presents so much more of a national and international cross section than any academic community, I feel that the service has given me a valuable democratizing exposure. The ventilating effect of this experience is simply not available or possible in those large sunny classrooms presided over by a single professor. Ethnically, regionally, socially, economically, and intellectually there is no comparison. My college classmates, for example, were mostly from families that could afford college. Personally, I find it as stimulating and broadening to talk with and train a Puerto Rican airman (who could not afford college) as to converse with my college roommate or a published professor.
To state the obvious, there is a growing tendency in the academic community toward the liberal viewpoint. Antiwar sentiment, the leadership of some liberal politicians, and emerging social freedoms are all readily apparent and in vogue on the campus. In the service one encounters a broader range of people and comes to know their opinions and attitudes. I have found the tempering effect of opposing viewpoints in the Air Force community most healthy. Avoiding oversimplification, so often apparent in the artificial antitheses (“When all guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” to cite an example), and the pat answers of fashionable viewpoints actually lends weight and dignity of understanding to the held opinion. Thus, one’s viewpoints can be forged from a variety of experience that is not limited to ivory tower consensus.
In short, most college graduates welcome the opportunity to practice within everyday society what they have learned in school. Take a subject commonly (but incorrectly) considered to be esoteric and academic, namely poetry. The imagery of poetry is so firmly chained to the five senses that verse demands actual experience to give it resonance and its deepest meaning. The same is true of natural sciences, engineering, or whatever. No discipline can fully mature if confined to the study; it wants application. The military community provides a seedbed for this maturing. It provides a great service. It also wages war, man’s most astounding negative phenomenon. Within that scenario there is surely life to be lived and experience to be gained.
I find, as well, that the uniform, with its openly worn rank and experience (i.e., service ribbons) is a great leveler. “Rank among second lieutenants is like . . .” (The indelicate quotation and its truth are generally familiar.) This common condition of junior officers was reinforced by the recent decision to discontinue the granting of regular commissions through ROTC and OTS and to require instead that they be won on active duty. There is one exception: the value of the intense and specialized education of the USAF Academy graduate quickly and invariably emerges. My own experience is that to be non-Academy, nonrated, and in a nonoperational assignment decidedly places one in a second-team status. Unfortunately, few enjoy carrying the water bucket, a fact apparent—hopefully—to most personnel officers.
the comparative experience
To draw comparisons of all kinds is part of the maturation process. The junior officer campares service life with his past, and the service compares him with his peers. When I came on active duty, I quickly found that arbitrarily, by virtue of putting on the uniform, I was to be measured in an adult world by adult standards. It is the same when one marries; he automatically becomes a part of adult society and is judged by its standards. In both cases, the meld of society’s law and custom binds him forever to the serious task of living in the strong and objective light of all men’s judgment, criticism, and opinion. To any sensitive person this realization is a splendid guideline for devoting quality effort to the enterprise of living. Accordingly, when one adopts a position in contrast to those of his fellows and then must live by it and show its worth—that is drama and adventure.
One other aspect of the comparative experience is compensation. It is invariably a point of reference for the junior officer. I feel that except for the junior second lieutenant Air Force compensation compares favorably with that in civilian life. Further, I feel that the security provided by the Air Force medical benefits is invaluable, especially since the cost of medical care is perhaps the most inflated of all the rising costs of living. I do take issue with unreservedly advertising the termination of the twenty-year career as “retirement.” Except for the highest ranks, it would be difficult for an officer to live on the twenty-year retirement pay, after taxes. Moreover, should an officer terminate his service at any point prior to twenty years of active duty, no annuity is forthcoming from the government. This is in contrast to many civilian profit-sharing retirement plans, where one can receive all or part of his retirement contribution after only a few years of service. For this reason, primarily, I was sorry to see the Hubbell pay plan fail of enactment.
In any event, I think the real compensation one seeks in the Air Force is in his job—that ultimate reward of actually being paid to do something one enjoys. Then those twice-a-month paychecks, instead of being merely the necessary thing to live by, become but two slices of bread holding the thick beefsteak of career fulfillment.
the arabic experience
It is. of course, the desire of men not merely to sustain themselves and endure their days in slow deterioration, ending with their six feet of earth. Rather, they seek to flourish and thrive.
Three growth experiences have been dominant for me during my service. I feel, first of all, that the prevailing tendency in the Air Force is toward generalism, rather than specialization. An officer is trained and expected to perform in many career contexts, which is one of the most demanding requirements of the service. The Squadron Officer School’s “whole man” concept exemplifies this idea on a basic level. The opportunity for worldwide duty assignments, on either permanent change of station or temporary duty, at considerable expense to the government, enhances the diversified nature of an Air Force career. To the young officer this challenge is undoubtedly a blue chip in favor of staying in the service.
My second noteworthy growth experience has involved a method of approach to duties, specifically decision-making. For want of a better term, I call it the “modulated” approach to a task, and it seems to be applicable to virtually all situations where a decision must be made or an idea sold. I also feel that such an approach should be consciously cultivated by the junior officer.
I have found in dealing with senior officers that they tend to stand back from the hard-sell, “whiz kid” approach of junior officers pressing their ideas or programs, replete with polysyllabic jargon. Far more successful, I have found, is the dispassionate approach, using simple language, backed to the hilt with facts, and explaining where necessary the shoptalk of a job or project. Then, after carefully laying the foundation, is the time to make a decision or proposal. Thus, having prepared and presented the case and made the proposal, we junior officers concentrate on watching our seniors. Oh, how we watch! The discovery and practice of this modulated approach has been no small help to me in arriving at decisions and working with people.
My third growth experience is interrelated with the other two and closely identified with the Air Force. I am thinking of the familiar term “management,” but as it applies to the junior officer. Not having been trained as a warrior, I have served instead an apprenticeship as a decision-maker (my synonym for manager). Those sound management principles demonstrated to me have been abiding and invaluable.
Without belaboring the topic, let me say that one of the most useful management methods is to relate duties and work flow to working documents. It is an elementary systems analysis technique, but one that works especially well for the novice. By learning the use of every document in the office, one quickly learns the instruments used by each employee, acquires a store of informed shoptalk (“Type me an 1149” instead of “Type me one of those . . . ah . . . forms you use”), and usually, to the pleasure of his subordinates, soon learns the nature of their duties. The Air Force, like a business, is firmly tied to the printed word of the working document. Moreover, the association of document with duty enables the manager to recollect them both. This has been a useful technique for me in almost any office-management situation.
Many outstanding junior officers I have known have scrutinized the Air Force in much the same way as I. Today’s youth are informed, idealistic, and searching for what I have called the arable—the growth— experience, although they may not articulate their desires in so many words. They wish to know if they can produce a useful product in the “factories of the town,” to hark back to the epigraph. If the junior officer finds he cannot grow and produce in the Air Force environment, for whatever reason, he will probably terminate his service commitment in a blue funk at the end of four years. I know, because I have been down that very path with such a decision awaiting me.
Extension Course Institute, AU
Captain Robert M. Dana (M.A., Northwestern University) is Printing Control Officer, Extension Course Institute, Gunter AFB, Alabama. A distinquished graduate of Air Force ROTC, he was the recipient of the Air Force Association Award as one of the nine outstanding graduates of AFROTC in the nation in 1966. Captain Dana attended Data Systems Analysis and Design School, Sheppard AFB, Texas, before assuming his current assignment.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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