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 shoo-in 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."
"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.