Document created: 19 September 03
Air University Review, January-February 1974

Reporting Inaccuracies—
A Rose by Another Name

Lieutenant Colonel Monroe T. Smith

If the question were asked, “Who among you is an honest man?” how many would answer, “I am”? Perhaps most—hopefully the great majority. I would expect such an answer because when I ask about honesty, about integrity, I am not talking to the “kickback” artist, the embezzler, the accepter of bribes. These people are patently dishonest. The people I am addressing this article to are everyday “good guys.” These are the people who make the USAF go, the officers, NCO’s, and airmen in all career areas.

integrity defined

A good place to start any discussion is to define the terms. From the looks of things, we haven’t really grasped their meaning. Webster defines integrity as “an unimpaired condition, adherence to a code of . . . values.” A synonym for integrity is honesty. This same dictionary defines honesty as “adherence to the facts,” and goes on to say that “integrity implies trustworthiness and incorruptibility to a degree that one is incapable of being false to a trust. . . .” Further, “honesty implies a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way.” The definitions seem simple, but are they?

Now, picture this scenario. Political tensions in the world have become acute. The President calls the National Security Council together. During the discussion the question of military preparedness comes up. “How many aircraft can you put in the air over area X, properly configured, with crews trained to do the job?” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is asked. The Chairman replies, “I have reports that say N amount, but I don’t put much stock in those reports.” Realistic? Perhaps not. But that is the direction things could go if steps are not taken. Immediate and positive steps; bold steps; well-publicized steps.

Do we have a problem with honesty and integrity in the USAF today? In my opinion, we do. However, we call it by another name: “inaccurate reporting.” Like the proverbial “rose by any other name,” the smell is the same.

specific examples from personal interviews

Let’s get into some specifics. Air Force Manual 65-110, Standard Aerospace Vehicle and Equipment Status Reports, requires that aircraft be reported operationally ready (OR) or not operationally ready (NOR). Aircraft NOR may be either out for maintenance (NORM) or out for supply (NORS).l Status reporting goes to higher headquarters, where the information is used as inputs to a variety of programs. The reporting procedure is exceedingly simple. It would not be germane here to go through the reporting process: an aircraft is either operationally ready or not operationally ready.

Somehow it became a “no-no” for a unit to report aircraft NORS—or at least to report more than a certain percent NORS. A maintenance officer in Vietnam related that his unit had gone 60-odd days without a NORS! The reason for the long spell without a NORS: the unit simply refused to report them! If an aircraft needed a part not available from supply or from repair, the aircraft was simply reported out of commission for maintenance until the part became available. An isolated case, you say. Pick out several issues of TIG Brief from any year and chances are at least one will contain an article about AFM 65-110 “reporting inaccuracies.”2 Inaccuracies are for untrained people; the people involved in 65-110 reporting are well trained and knowledgeable. The procedures are clear. The people responsible for the reports are simply reporting untruthfully.

Take another case of “inaccurate reporting.” The Due in from Maintenance (DIFM) program is designed to assist base managers in controlling their repair cycle items. Parts in the repair cycle in excess of ten days are determined to be delinquent.3 Delinquent items are cause for management actions. Obviously, broken parts cannot be used to repair end items, and these broken parts are counted as base assets. The dollar value of the delinquents is compared to the unit’s total dollar value of all issued repair cycle assets to determine the percentage delinquent. Maintenance and supply officers have found many ways to circumvent the system. One way is to issue (on paper) expensive items to a unit just before the close of a reporting period to increase the unit’s total dollar issues so its percentage delinquent would be within an “acceptable” limit. The IG reports say that numerous “reporting inaccuracies” occur in the DIFM program.4

General Ryan touched on the NORS/DIFM/ repair cycle asset problem in his remarks to the worldwide Logistics Conference on 20 October 1971 when he said, “I can cite examples of aircraft NORS with numerous reparables in the shop [a NORS cannot exist when reparables are on hand]. . . . In most cases there are procedures. . . people are not following these procedures.”5

Another area of “reporting inaccuracies” involves general military training [GMT]. GMT involves many things, some almost onerous. First aid, security, aerobics, etc., are subjects you cannot generate much enthusiasm for. One individual relates how he spent over three years at a major air command headquarters and never once was asked to do any of his GMT. When he inquired about GMT, he was informed that the administrative NCO took care of the GMT requirements.

Such practice must be nearly universal. TIG Brief of 19 November 1971 said:

. . . reporting of [GMT] accomplishments was highly inaccurate. Many units were reporting 100% completion of GMT written tests, but actual checks of individual training records showed that the figures were frequently in error by large percentages. Reporting of aerobics testing fared no better. . . units were regularly running no-fail programs or reporting unrealistically high percentages of people scoring in the ‘fair,’ ‘good,’ or ‘excellent’ categories.6

Let’s talk about honesty in another area, aircraft accident reporting. To help prevent future accidents, complete and detailed analyses are required on accidents. AFR 127-4 details the requirement for reporting accidents. The dollar value/injury/man-hour criteria are quite explicit in determining accidents versus incidents.

Many cases of “inaccurate accident reporting” came from Vietnam, where battle damage is easy to come by. A maintenance officer related how two aircraft landed gear-up (pilot error) and another landed short of the runway, shearing the gear, and all were reported by the wing to 7AF either as “battle damage” or as incidents only. At a minimum, each aircraft required two complete engines and extensive sheet-metal repair to the fuselage, easily exceeding the limits of an incident and far removed from “battle damage.” Another case of “inaccurate reporting.”

Not all the examples are from the support area. Aircrew members related early difficulty with an air-to-ground missile. Reliability of this missile was a definite problem. Gradually, units began reporting 100 percent reliable launches of these missiles. Yet when an inspection team arrived, missile reliability decreased sharply. Several pilots related how they “tweeked” the system—using all sorts of unauthorized procedures, including the use of aircraft radar in the target area to get a reliable missile impact. Another case of “inaccurate reporting.”

And, of course, the most celebrated case of reporting inaccuracy of all—the General John Lavelle case. Without arguing the merits of the case, it was clear to investigators that General Lavelle ordered or caused false reports to be submitted on air activity over North Vietnam.7

What causes basically honest people to do these things? Many reasons could be cited, but the two I feel most important are lack of leadership by example and use of management systems as evaluation devices.

It is difficult to expect integrity from the rank and file if the rank and file do not see that same quality in those who lead them. The “no NORS” requirement in Vietnam was directed by the Wing Director of Materiel. The aircraft accidents reported as battle damage or incident in Vietnam were done through the concerted action of the Wing Director of Operations and the Director of Materiel.

I am convinced our very top echelon does not condone such actions. As a member of a SAC “First Team” briefing, I listened to General Thomas Power, then SAC Commander, respond to a question about the Management Control System (MCS) by saying he had never fired anyone for being on the bottom of MCS but that he had fired several commanders for lying to him. I believe this is the prevalent attitude of our very top echelon.

Somehow this attitude doesn’t hold true as you come down the chain of command. This attitude of not telling it like it is to the higher commander is not new. There was a time in history when the bearer of bad news was beheaded. Thus it didn’t take long for the rank and file to get the message: the boss doesn’t like bad news.

Today we don’t behead people literally—but we do figuratively. Have you ever seen a high-ranking officer take “bad news” gracefully? The bearer of bad news is frequently put “on the carpet,” grilled unmercifully, berated, coerced, and finally tossed out with the admonishment to come back when the problem is corrected. Either that, or he is told to come back next week or next month with the problem cured. Guess what? The staff officer dutifully returns at the appointed time and the problem is better. The senior officer looks over the “good” reports and congratulates himself on his management ability.

This is not to say that many problems and problem areas are not made better with command interest. They are. What I am saying is that command interest seems to force the problem underground or to force the people responsible for reporting to report a good story whether they have one or not. Units reporting “straight” are quickly whipped into “line” by pressure of being different.

A case in point. From 1964 to 1967 a major air command had an “assistance team” of maintenance and supply personnel who would “help” any base having difficulty getting parts as reflected by a relatively high NORS or cannibalization rate. This “help” came in the form of a thorough inspection of local procedures used in ordering, processing, and repairing parts. It wasn’t long until NORS and cannibalization rates went down in the command. Strangely (?) enough, IG discrepancies in “reporting inaccuracies” went up.

The second major problem revolves around using management information systems in evaluation. This is a three-pronged problem involving, first, the setting of goals within the information system; second, using the information system to evaluate commands, units, sections, etc.; and third, using data from this same management system for individual evaluation.

Most management information systems have goals established. For example, GMT has a goal of 100 percent compliance.8 The operationally ready rate goal for aircraft is presently 71 percent.9 The Base Self Sufficiency goal is generally accepted as 95 percent.10 The list is almost endless. Goals within themselves are not inherently bad. People should know when the system they are managing is doing the job. However, so many management systems are in existence with seemingly unrealistic or nonmission-related “goals” that people cannot relate the goal to actual mission accomplishment. Consequently, it becomes a game to beat the system.

Management information systems are usually designed to pinpoint trouble areas by exception, so that management can take corrective action. When people become engrossed in achieving some unrealistic goal, they lose sight of what the system actually was designed to do. I am convinced that, when you set an unrealistic or nonmission-directed goal, you initiate a goal-oriented attack—regardless of how it is achieved.

Such goals actually lead to the next problem area: evaluation by management systems. If a goal is established and people know the wing, squadron, or unit is being evaluated (based on achieving or not achieving that goal), they are not going to submit a report showing a bad picture. Why? Because they themselves are being evaluated through this management information system. People are going to use everything imaginable to report achieving the goal, including “inaccurate reporting.”

Commands are being or have been compared against one another in operationally ready (OR) rates, NORS rates, accident rates, DIFM rates, etc. Each lower command echelon compares its subordinate units in a like manner.

What difference does it make if SAC has an 85 percent in-commission rate and MAC a 75 percent? The crucial question is this: Did the command perform its assigned mission during the month/quarter/year? Did SAC train its crews and keep X targets covered? Did MAC haul X tons of cargo or move the Army division in X days? If they failed to do the tasks assigned, all the rates in the world are meaningless. Likewise, if they had 100 percent rates in everything, yet failed to do their assigned task, the rates are again meaningless.

Individual evaluations (OER’s/ APR’s) stem from the wing/squadron/unit comparisons and rely heavily on management information system data. Pick up any promotion folder and here is what you are likely to see: Captain Blank maintained an 85 percent OR rate while keeping his NORS rate to 2 percent. His DIFM rate is always below 10 percent . . . etc. Management information data are used throughout the entire OER/ APR system. Knowing that his OER/APR will reflect what he reports, how can an individual report less than the “acceptable” goal? It would be exceedingly difficult.

The USAF IG is acutely aware of this problem. TIG Brief of 10 March 1972 asked commanders to get out and see what is actually going on and not to rely on the “stand-up” briefing to give them the information. The TIG Brief said, “It is not the nature of the ‘human beast’ to stand up in front of his commander and peers and admit he is guilty of mismanagement.”11 If we cannot expect candid reporting in stand-ups, face-to-face, how can we ever expect candid reporting on faceless, non-threatening pieces of paper?

the solution

First, and most important, we must reawaken the spirit of honesty and integrity. To do this, the very top commanders in the USAF must make it exceedingly clear they will not tolerate lack of integrity, including that which is euphemistically called “inaccurate reporting.”

General Ryan took the first steps toward this awakening. On 13 October 1972 he dispatched a message to all commanders in which he reaffirmed that “integrity—which includes full and accurate disclosure—is the keystone of military service.” He went on to say, “False reporting is a clear example of a failure of integrity.”12

Again on 1 November 1972, in the Policy Letter for Commanders, General Ryan repeated his call for integrity:

Integrity is the most important responsibility of command. Commanders are dependent on the integrity of those reporting to them in every decision they make. Integrity can be ordered but it can only be achieved by encouragement and example.13

The first steps have been taken. Now the IG’s—from Hq USAF down to the units—should be instructed to concentrate on detecting reporting inaccuracies. Since most reports have offices of primary responsibility, commanders should then determine if the inaccuracy was a result of a lack of training, an oversight, or an intentional misrepresentation. Where violations of integrity are evident, the individuals should be handled just like any other violator of the UCMJ.

Next, goals within the management information systems should be thoroughly reviewed with an eye toward eliminating not only the unrealistic goals but also the goals for goals’ sake. For example, the operationally ready rate of aircraft (71 percent) has been supposedly inviolate for over a decade. Yet, General Ryan told all major commands, “I am convinced that ‘OR’ standards as used today pertaining to equipment readiness are no longer a valid measurement of a unit’s combat-ready status.” He went on to delete the 71 percent OR “standard” as a criterion for arriving at the unit’s combat-readiness status.14 There are many other supposedly inviolate goals throughout our management systems in desperate need of revision or elimination.

Next, Air Force Manuals 36-10 and 39-62 must be revised to limit severely the inclusion of management information data as a fact or specific achievement in the evaluation of how an officer or airman performs his job.

Further, the USAF must modify all ratings/evaluation systems that rely on management information data. Internally generated, local management data should not be used in rating/evaluation systems. This will remove the major incentive and driving force behind inaccurate reporting. If ratings/evaluations are necessary—and I feel that some are—then the data source should be other than a local management system.

Finally, top echelon commanders must realize the consequences of “beheading” bearers of bad news. This is not to say that mediocrity must or should be accepted. Management systems are designed to highlight problem areas so that root-cause corrective action may be taken. By refusing to accept the very thing that the system was designed to reflect, the top manager forces people at the lower echelon into “reporting inaccuracies” so they or their bearers of bad news do not get “beheaded.”

If the cure seems extreme, sometimes extreme problems require extreme solutions. Somehow we must get across the idea that check marks on a computer card purposefully mismarked are as much a lie as an oral or written falsehood. Only by recognizing the problem for what it is and responding with a positive action program from the top down can we be assured that what is contained in a particular report is, in fact, fact. A positive program, properly administered, would make it unnecessary to call this rose by another name.

Air War College

Notes

1. AFM 65-110, Standard Aerospace Vehicle and Equipment Status Reports, 1 September 1968, p. 3.

2. For example, TIG Brief, Number 1, Volume XXIII, 15 January 1971, p. 13.

3. AFM 68-1, Maintenance Management, Vol. II, Chief of Maintenance, (Aircraft and Missile), Department of the Air Force, Headquarters USAF, Washington, D.C., p. 2-103.

4. For example, TIG Brief, Number 9, Volume XXIII, 7 May 1971, p. 10; and TIG Brief, Number 14, Volume XXIV, 28 July 1972, p. 14.

5. General John D. Ryan, “The Logistics Manager in the 70s,” Supplement to the Air Force Policy Letter for Commanders, February 1972, p. 14.

6. TIG Brief, Number 22, Volume XXIII, 19 November 1972, p. 21.

7. Hedley Burrell, “Probe Begins on Demoted AF General,” Washington Post, 12 June 1972, p. 1; and George C. Wilson; “Bombing Violation Conceded,” Washington Post, 13 June 1972, pp. Al and 16.

8. AFM 50-15, General Military Training, para 1-4.

9. AFM 65-110, p. 18.

10. Maintenance Processing of Reparable Property and Repair Cycle Asset, Technical Order 00-20-3, 15 June 1972, para 3-6.

11. TIG Brief, Number 4, Volume XXIV, 10 March 1972, p. 1.

12. CSAF message to ALMAJCOM 1634/72, 13 October 1972.

13. P. 1.

14. CSAF message ALMAJCOM 1126/70, 5 August 1970.

Contributor

Lieutenant Colonel Monroe T. Smith (M.S., George Washington University) is Commander, 22d Organizational Maintenance Squadron, March AFB, California. An ex-career NCO, he has served in maintenance organizations in SAC, TAC, and PACAF, including tours as Atlas F missile crew commander and maintenance control officer, Cam Ranh Bay, RVN. He has been a faculty member, Air Command and Staff College. Colonel Smith is a graduate of ACSC (1968) and Air War College (1973).

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.

Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor