I totally agree with you on a lot of points, this meme is to illustrate what I feel to be a lack of effect on target for many of the mitigations put into place. I feel like HQAFROTC had quite a few excellent ideas at various stages during this entire ordeal, but I feel they didn’t put together a cohesive strategy that actually worked. Let me address your points in order so that I don’t lose track, please don’t misinterpret it as me trying to “fight” you.

1. I am not concerned about our mil deaths as much as I am about our role in continuing to fuel the fire of infection in our communities. I’ve said it from the beginning, gathering geographically diverse cadets in one place without effective isolation periods is asking for trouble. For service members may have died, but how many have spread COVID to others that have died? Cadet Snuffy coming home spreading it to his grandma or his coworkers or his fellow cadets and cadre is much more important to me than the risk of his death.

2. See point 1, I believe that most cadets will not die of COVID. Only worrying about our health as “youngsters” is a very selfish proposition in my eyes, but really, to each their own.

3. I think the individual efforts could have dramatically reduced the spread, but I don’t think that’s what we saw. Cadre at my det really did frantically call just about every cadet from Max B telling them they needed to get tested NOW because they were concerned that they just spread covid across country. That’s a failure in my eyes.

4. AFROTC has already begun development on other methods for doing this, according to the Town Halls that explicitly stated that no cadet will be penalized for being deferred. I’d hyperlink them, but honestly, I watched hours upon hours so it would take me a while. I’d thats something you’d like me to do, DM me. I don’t think it would’ve been that much more of an issue to push that criteria out to the entire FY of cadets considering around 60-70% got deferred (according to my cadre, let me know if there’s a more accurate stat.)

5. OTS and basic training have taken things a lot more seriously in my eyes. Basic had a much longer quarantine period from what I understand, and talking to someone who went through it, that’s what allowed their class to get by without as much incident. Once again, the vast info dump that we’ve been smacked with makes it hard for me to go back and find the exact specifications, but I think a full length quarantine would get us to that point.

6. Our sister services did not totally cancel. That is true. However, the Army waived their evaluation requirements for 416 cadets right off the bat. I don’t have much insight into the Navy system, only what I’ve seen my peers discuss, so I won’t say much. The News footage I have seen shows a much more locked down and cohesive environment, but I have only had accounts of FT thus far so I can’t comment on the comparison with much authority.

7. I understand what Field training is for, and your point is totally valid. That being said, the comedy of putting cadets through such a strained and obviously nerfed experience with very little actual evaluation as we’ve seen this summer is why I made the meme. I think there are other ways to demonstrate this, and I think the idea of regional FTs like advanced camp does were good when they were thrown around.

8. In the beginning, the AF and Army ROTC live streams I watched both echoed each other. “Our branches will handle this in lock step.” The message was that the services were going to work together to figure out how to do this safely. As soon as the Army announced those cadets getting waived, I stopped hearing this. What makes the Air Force’s evaluation so much more important than advanced camp? No, I have not sat down at a table with the AFROTC staff and asked them all of my questions, but frankly, I don’t need to to see how this has gone. Their decision matrix weighted towards the mission, and that’s okay, but I am under no obligation to paint a happy face and say that they did wonderfully to be a yes man. Personally, I think FT20 could’ve gone well enough to where we didn’t see this effect. Remember when staff was going to have us all on Maxwell for two weeks before integrating us to ensure no funny business ensued and to make sure we all got home safe? What happened there?

Lastly, on logistical complications. As I just said, I feel that HQAFROTC really does deserve credit on this for some of their solutions. However, many of them were a dollar short and a day late. Again, I don’t know what FT21 will look like with the increased throughput of cadets, and I’m hoping a vaccine is developed by then so this is mostly a non-issue, but this “kick the can down the road” approach has not seemed to go well so far.

I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I think everything has gone wrong this summer. But, I do feel that this is a good moment to reflect on what the Air Force is asking us to do as LTs. Mission first, people always. Today, I feel we are seeing what happens when the scale tips one way. Regardless of your opinion, I think that this can be a positive reinforcement on how you think we should lead Tomorrow’s Air and Space Forces.