Tag Archives: Force Structure Announcement

Chapter 45

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Ah, it’s that time of the year again.  The lights are going up, the air is crisp and the stores are packed.  It must be Christmas!  So what’s on your wish list?  Wish lists are interesting things.  Over the years I’ve known lots of people who have wanted very specific things.  They’ve made lists, searched for days or months or years but, in the end, wound up with something totally different.  Let me give you an example.

Years ago we had some friends who were looking for their first home.  They sat down, put together a list and off they went on the hunt.  They wanted a brick home, on a corner lot, off-street parking with a garage, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, older, with character, and a great school district.  We all pitched in and directed them to every house we thought might be a contender.  After months of searching they bought a wood frame house with 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, on-street parking, in a sketchy neighborhood.  When we asked them why they picked it, they said it had a nice front porch.

I’ve seen the same thing happen with cars.  People have asked my opinion. They’ve told me they want the best gas mileage they can get because they drive a lot.  Something nimble, great handling and reliable but, in the end, they bought a huge SUV.  They then tell me they got “a great deal” and it gets the best mileage “in its’ class”, 20 mpg instead of the 19 mpg the others get.  But I think the most disappointing choices people make are the everyday ones that lead to consequences they don’t really think out to a logical conclusion.

Folks want to save for their future, be financially responsible, not have to worry so much about retirement, but “wanting” to do it and making the day to day choices to make it happen are completely different.  It’s really all about simple math.  We are not the government.  We just can’t spend as we please and print more money when we run out or steal it from someone else.  Our finances are a zero-sum game.  You really only have two choices, earn more or spend less.  If you like to eat out 4-5-6 times a week, enjoy several nice vacations per year, always drive a new car, and give your kids everything they ask for, I don’t want to hear whining about not being able to pay for college, having no money for retirement, or me not being taxed enough.  Dave Ramsey says it best, “If you want to live like no one else later, you have to live like no one else now”.  In other words, every dollar you spend on something you “want” now is 3-4 dollars you won’t have for something you “need” later.

Let’s take the car example.  If you’ve resigned yourself to having a $250/month car payment for the rest of your life, that’s $30,000 every 10 years.  But if you spend $15,000 on the right car, new or used, and keep it for those ten years, treat it well, spend $5,000 to maintain it, you come out $10,000 ahead.  Invest that, plus the $10,000 you’ll add to it every 10 years, and you see how much you can save.

Define the goal, make a plan, execute the plan, and make day-to-day decisions within the framework of the plan.  Organizations should work the same way.  Earlier this year the Air Force came up with a poorly conceived plan to save money and restructure its’ forces.  It produced the plan in a vacuum and then dropped it on the country with little or no pre-coordination.  I think we all remember the results.  There was a blistering wave of protest from all sides and Congress sent the Pentagon back to the drawing board.  Several weeks ago the Air Force decided that, since the last method didn’t work so well, they would try a different tact.  They sent out briefers to Congressional staffers to float a trial balloon.  Nothing in writing, just “talking points”.  The problem was that there was still no strategic planning done, just political maneuvering and an attempt to appease the Council of Governors.  For example, for some bizarre reason they added aircraft back into the 908th at Maxwell but still proposed closing the 911th at Pittsburgh.  The only reason for proposing to close Pittsburgh is that they mistakenly calculated that it has less than 300 civilian positions but, in reality, the 908th actually does have less than 300 civilian positions and they could be closed unilaterally without a BRAC or Congressional involvement.  In fact, AETC has been trying to defund the maintenance and operating costs of the airfield for years which would save the Air Force budget millions per year.  This all comes back to keeping your eye on the goal and thinking long term.

There are plenty of ways we can personally and, as a nation, save money.  We need a safety net in our country but that net has become a hammock for way too many people and raising taxes never solves fiscal problems.  What works for you on a micro basis also works for the country on a macro basis, stop spending!  But that’s a discussion for another day. If there’s something you really want or need it’s never too early to start planning and saving.  Make a list, check it twice…..

Next week, more on goats.

Chapter 44, The Moral of the Story

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For those who are reading this without having read Chapter 43, you’ll need to go to scroll down to fully appreciate the context!

The gauntlet has been thrown!  Mark asked the question last week, “So, where’s the moral in the story?”.  That, my friend, is a good question.  I like to think there’s an object lesson in almost any story so, after much thought, here we go.

We’re given tasks every day.  Whether it’s from your boss, or your wife, or even your Dad.  We all have work to do and, usually, a limited time to do it in.  The confusion with difficult taskings come when it’s not clear how to accomplish the job or what the end results should be.  In the military we call it “commander’s intent”.  You need to know what the desired end result is.  For instance, if my Dad had said that we need to find some way to calm down the nasty goat then we might have come up with another solution.  Maybe we could have drugged the thing, or bought a female goat so that he would have an “outlet” for his goatly passions.  We might have just put a round in his head and served up some cabrito for dinner. But, we knew he wanted the goat to continue to be available for mowing duties.

The other half of a tasking is the method.  When there is something to be done there is often a preferred method or, at least, a limited number of options.  If my Dad had instructed us to remove the goat’s offending appendage we could have used a variety of more expedient techniques.  Pruning shearers, machete, chainsaw, or my Mom’s butcher knife, any would have adequately accomplished the job.  But the goat would have either bled out, died from shock, or ended up with a nasty infection.

The Air Force has been given a task.  Whether or not you agree with the national security objectives of the administration, we find ourselves in the position of trying to maintain the security of the country with an ever shrinking budget.  The goal is to maintain as much capability as possible at the lowest possible cost.  Sounds simple but, even with our nation’s future at stake, the Air Force has continued to play politics and failed to even try to apply any cost benefit analysis to its recommendations.  They were given an opportunity to go back to the drawing board after the utter failure of the Force Structure Announcement earlier this year but instead of working to meet the tasking professionally with data and common sense they have, again, attempted to apply a pure political solution to, what should be, an apolitical recommendation.  The states have a voice when it comes to the ANG but the Reserves finds itself in the position of the bastard stepchild.  For example, AFRC is saddled with three incredibly expensive wings on facilities fully owned and operated by the reserves yet the Air Force seems to be blind to their fiscal responsibility and continue to recommend the most cost effective units for closure.

Either senior Air Force leadership is executing a brilliantly conceived plan to convince Congress that they are incapable of doing their job and the BRAC process should be initiated so they can blame someone else, or someone has used the little rubber band on them and they care more about their own careers than the security, financial and military, of the country.

I do hope it’s the former.

As always, comments welcome, and feel free to link to your Facebook page.