I dont know if everyone has heard yet, but they are changing Field Training for 2008.

here is the link to the 2008 FTM:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2...FOATS_T-203.pdf

Linky no worky.

The Great Lies of Air Force ROTC:
---------------------------------
1. "Camp evaluations are based on performance"/"Peer evaluations don't count toward the camp evaluations"
2. "Camp teaches teamwork and camaraderie"
3. "Camp teaches people to be leaders"
4. "CTAs are at camp to teach people how to perform under stress"
5. "All cadets are bound by the Honor Code"
6. "You have to put the flight first and put yourself second"/"You are not at camp as an individual"
7. "You can use the peer evaluations to discipline abusive cadets"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 5683239,

1. "Camp evaluations are based on performance"/"Peer evaluations don't count toward the camp evaluations"

The camp evaluation contains over 2 dozen performance categories, including:
Customs & Courtesies,
Physical Fitness,
Drill & Ceremonies,
Image & Bearing,
Initiative,
Judgment & Decisions,
Situational Awareness,
Attitude,
Human Relations,
Motivation,
Verbal Communication,
Tact/Sensitivity,
Adaptability to Stress,
etc.

Except for Physical Fitness, the performance criteria are immeasurable. You cannot measure a person's attitude, bearing, or morale. It is all just guesstimation and approximation.

Furthermore, the FTO has only a very small amount of time to generate the evaluation material he needs. The camp evaluation is similar in scope to annual job performance reviews conducted at most professional jobs. The difference at camp is that the FTO has only 6(or 4) weeks to generate the material he needs.

On top of that, the FTO must evaluate 17-22 cadets in this short period of time.

All these factors create a situation where the FTO lacks material on which to base his evaluations. Even my FTO told me, "Six weeks is not enough time to write a proper evaluation."

Since the FTO does not have enough material, he generates material by using peer evaluations as filler material. Peer evaluations are based on popularity. Another way he generates material is to ask other people, "What do you think of 'so-and-so'?" He then writes the evaluation based upon the opinions of others. The collective opinions of others are not an indicator of performance, but of reputation.

The inevitable result is that the camp evaluations are based on reputation and popularity, rather than on performance or merit.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 5683239,

2. "Camp teaches teamwork and camaraderie"

All the cadets in a flight are required to periodically fill out peer evaluations. The FTO is required to competitively rank all the cadets in the flight from best to worst. Since most field training performance is immeasurable, the FTO uses the peer evaluations to rank the cadets.

Human nature dictates that every cadet wants to be ranked the highest, but only one person can be. Nobody wants to be ranked the lowest, but somebody has to be. Therefore, as an individual cadet, your self-interests are in conflict with the self-interests of everyone else in the flight.

It is analogous to Survivor, where everyone wants to be the last survivor, but only one person can be. Nobody wants to be voted off the island, but somebody has to be. It is an environment of conflicting self-interests.

Therefore, camp is an environment of conflicting self-interests, where the criteria for determining whose self-interests are met - is very poorly defined. In this type of environment, people succeed through treachery and backstabbing. You have to make everyone else look bad so that you look good by comparison.

It is contrary to the ideas of teamwork and camaraderie.

3. "Camp teaches people to be leaders"

It is human nature to want to protect one's own self-interests. It is the nature of leadership that you have to make people do things they don't want to do. Nobody wants to do their jobs, but as the leader, it is your duty to make subordinates do their jobs - which they don't want to. It's like Lieutenant Singer said on JAG, "Leadership is not a popularity contest."

Politicians have to please people and keep them happy. A Congressman must please his constituents in order to get a good approval rating.

If you are at camp and are rotated into a command position, you must do whatever it takes to please your flight mates and keep them happy, so that they will give you a good peer evaluation - just like the politician trying to get a good approval rating.

If you act like a leader and make your subordinate flight mates do tasks that they don't want to do, then naturally they will retaliate against you by giving you a negative peer evaluation - because people want to protect their own self-interests.

Therefore, you must not act like a leader at when you are in a command position at camp. Instead, you have to act like a politician - who will please people and keep everyone happy - in order to get a good peer evaluation.

4. "CTAs are at camp to teach people how to perform under stress"

CTAs are people who have one more year of non-active duty ROTC experience than the incoming cadets. In the grand scheme of things, one year of non-active duty ROTC experience is not a whole lot. The effect is that they are not really any more mature or competent than the cadets they are yelling at. Most of the CTAs still do not meet officer standards. Because of their infantile nature, the CTAs are really at camp to have fun hazing cadets, because they got hazed when they were at camp. It is all a power trip. For them, it is their "turn" to do all the hazing and yelling, just like a senior fraternity brother hazing new pledges. It has nothing to do with teaching people to perform under stress. It has everything to do with hazing and power trips.

5. "All cadets are bound by the Honor Code"

In reality, the Honor Code only applies to people who are unpopular. Popular people can always get away with murder (proverbially). Bill Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice, but he can never be punished because he's popular. It's like Senator DeHaven said in G.I.Jane, "When you're popular, you don't need the 10 Commandments."

If a cadet is popular and breaks the Honor Code, no one will dare report him - because he is popular. The officers will not care about his infraction, because he is popular, and the camp evaluations are based on popularity. If a cadet reports a popular person for Honor Code violation, then the report will get struck down further up in the Chain of Command. Furthermore, the whistleblower-cadet will be punished by his fellow flight mates with negative peer evaluations. It is retaliation for "snitching".

Therefore, popular cadets are exempt from the Honor Code. In reality, the Code does not apply equally.

6. "You have to put the flight first and put yourself second"/"You are not at camp as an individual"

The cadets are not evaluated as a flight or as a team. They are evaluated as individuals. There is not one single form at camp for the Alpha Flight Evaluation, Bravo Flight Evaluation, Charlie Flight Evaluation, etc. There are hundreds and hundreds of individual evaluations written at camp. Even during the so-called Group Leadership Problems, the cadets are still evaluated as individuals. Therefore, there is no incentive to put the flight first nor is there any reward for being a team player. Your only incentive is to promote yourself as an individual - so that you will get a good individual evaluation.

Of course, there may be times at camp when it is in your interest to act like a team player and pretend to support the flight, but only as a means toward the ultimate end of glorifying yourself as an individual.

So in reality, you are at camp as an individual, and you must put yourself first and screw the flight - because you are evaluated as an individual, not as a team.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 5683239,

your FT rank doesnt mean THAT much in the grand scheme of things... Even if you arnt ranked that high, performance at your det can easily overcome any negative impact FT would have. To spend that much time picking apart the negative is really just sad.

There's one thing I agree with you on, MCO85:

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
your FT rank doesnt mean THAT much in the grand scheme of things.

Especially since there are some Distinguished Graduates who later went on to get court-martialed on active duty.

Case in point: Randy R. got a high paper ranking when he went to camp and later got a coveted CTO slot (CTAs used to be called CTOs).

As a lieutenant, he committed conduct unbecoming an officer and got kicked out of the Air Force.

Shortly after he was commissioned, he went back to his detachment and participated in a hazing session along with the POCs. He was a 2LT right there hazing cadets just like a CTO at camp. He had no authority to issue demerits and was not even a student of that university. It was conduct unbecoming an officer.

Later on after going on active duty, he did not last long in the Air Force.

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
To spend that much time picking apart the negative is really just sad.

Instead of thinking of it as, "picking apart the negative", I prefer to think of it as, telling the unbiased truth without the sugar-coating.

Whenever an institution teaches a sugar-coated version of reality to people, it is doing them a disservice in the long run.

In the book, Think and Grow Rich, the author states that in order to be successful, it is necessary to think of the world accurately, which means to think of things as they really are, not how you want them to be.

I am merely thinking accurately - of how things really are, not how ROTC wants them to be.

While I make it a point not to judge an issue until I hear both sides (and I'm still waiting to hear the other side), why would an FTO care about a cadet's popularity? I mean, what does that have to do with anything? The FTO's job is just that- To T the F- not play popularity judge.

quote:

Originally posted by chaimss:
why would an FTO care about a cadet's popularity?

The FTO does not directly care about a cadet’s popularity; he cares about scraping enough material to fill out the camp evaluations. Measuring cadet popularity is simply a means to that end. He has a gazillion immeasurable performance criteria to guesstimate, approximately 2 dozen people to evaluate, and only 6 weeks to cough up the material he needs. And since he cannot evaluate you while you are sleeping, he really has only 4.3 weeks. Somehow he has to fill in the holes. He does it by:

1.) Asking the other cadre, “what do you think of ‘so and so’?”,
2.) Making snapshot evaluations, and
3.) Using peer evaluations

Previously, CTAs were called CTOs(Cadet Training Officers). During my camp, my flight mate Cynthia once took too long in the shower. When she finished, CTO Smith grilled her in front of the entire flight for taking so long. That engrained in everyone’s minds a belief that Cynthia was a bad cadet. Shortly afterward, the final peer evaluations took place - with Cynthia’s public scolding still fresh in people’s minds. Because of that scolding, Cynthia got rated second to lowest. At Cynthia’s final debrief with the FTO, the Captain told her, “because you were rated low in the peer evaluations, I am rating you low in my evaluation.”

Once during chow, CTO Raphael issued everyone in Charlie Flight a late demerit, when in reality the flight actually finished eating early. (Raphael did it just to get a power trip from hazing.) So Cadet Stephen reported Raphael for Honor Code violation. He wrote a formal letter and submitted it through the chain of command by the book. But because CTO Raphael was popular, the motion got struck down. Furthermore, Stephen got scolded for being a snitch and was labeled as a whiner by his flight mates. The flight retaliated against him by slamming him on the peer evaluations. The FTO used Stephen’s bad peer evaluation record when writing his camp evaluation.

How long ago was this? Is it possible things have changed since then?

I was at Ellsworth 1 last summer, the lies are true. It should be called Field Evaluation not Field Training. There are exceptions, my flight was one of them but we also had a Prior Enlisted FTO who knew what was going on. Other flights had officers who had not been exposed to much and merely perpetuated the cycle of stupidity.

quote:

Originally posted by chaimss:
How long ago was this? Is it possible things have changed since then?

It was in the 90s. What has changed is that:

-CTOs are now called CTAs
-The academic aspect of the 6-week camp is now separated into a distinct 2-week period.

Other than that, camp still has:

-A gazillion immeasurable performance criteria
-Lack of measurable performance criteria
-Individual competitive rankings
-Individual peer evaluations
-Excessively detailed individual evaluations
-Lack of group evaluations
-Lack of sufficient time for FTO to generate evaluation material
-Authority figures (CTAs) who are different from the people they train by only 1 year of non-active-duty ROTC experience

These elements of camp are what make it so different from the way it is portrayed in the Field Training Manual, or from the propaganda that ROTC teaches.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 5683239,

quote:

Originally posted by VANDAL905:
I was at Ellsworth 1 last summer, the lies are true. It should be called Field Evaluation not Field Training. ... Other flights had officers who had not been exposed to much and merely perpetuated the cycle of stupidity.

You’re right about that, VANDAL. Just think what it’s like for the camp commander. He actually has to write an evaluation paragraph for EVERY cadet in his ENTIRE camp. In a 6-week camp of 500 cadets where lights out is at 21:15 and wake up call is 04:30, this comes down to a mere 1.4 hours/cadet to write that paragraph! And for a camp of 600, 700, or more cadets, the colonel has even less time to write his comments. How on earth does he come up with the material he needs? I would speculate that something like this happens:

• Camp Commander asks COC, “What do you think of ‘so and so’?”
  
• She doesn’t know, so she asks the DCOCs, “What do you think of ‘so and so’?”
  
• They don’t know, so they ask the FTOs, “What do you think of ‘so and so’?”
  
• He doesn’t know, so he uses the peer evaluations. It all boils down to the peer evaluations in the end.

So much for the common propaganda that, “Peer evaluations do not count in the camp evaluations.”

So why am I doing this? I want to gain self-discipline, self-control, leadership skills, etc. and you're telling me that you don't actually learn these, rather you learn how to beat the system. Or did I miss something?

quote:

Originally posted by 5683239:
There's one thing I agree with you on, MCO85:

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
your FT rank doesnt mean THAT much in the grand scheme of things.

Especially since there are some Distinguished Graduates who later went on to get court-martialed on active duty.

Case in point: Randy R. got a high paper ranking when he went to camp and later got a coveted CTO slot (CTAs used to be called CTOs).

As a lieutenant, he committed conduct unbecoming an officer and got kicked out of the Air Force.

Shortly after he was commissioned, he went back to his detachment and participated in a hazing session along with the POCs. He was a 2LT right there hazing cadets just like a CTO at camp. He had no authority to issue demerits and was not even a student of that university. It was conduct unbecoming an officer.

Later on after going on active duty, he did not last long in the Air Force.

Big deal. There are also bottom third, middle third, and top third cadets that get court martialed. Field training is basing you off 4 weeks, thats it. And ya, it is a little shady because it all depends on your FTO. But its not as bad as you are making it out to be, and like I said, your field training rank does not mean that much. I know someone who got bottom third at FT and still got an ENJJPT slot and went to Sheppard...