When I founded this blog in 2015 one of my fundamental goals was to create a place where people could go to augment their knowledge of official guidance. One of the primary things I wanted to avoid was to enable people to be lazy and not read the source guidance such as AFIs, the TFOT guide, etc. This is in fact why from 2015 to 2018 I have not uploaded the TFOT guide to my site. If you want to be an officer, you need to learn how to find and understand the governing regulations. In a way, I consider applying for and completing OTS as an outstanding exercise in how to actually be a successful officer. The sooner you master many of these skills, the faster you will be able to run as a commissioned officer. (I actually decided to upload the TFOT guide to my site a few months ago, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.)
Danger of Subverting Authority
The other danger with posting documents on my site is subverting the authority of the leadership who actually owns it. If I put this document on my site, OTS leadership loses a little bit of control of it. They still own the “official” channels such as Wings and the Holm Center web site, but they cannot remove it from my site. This is why I am extremely sensitive about what I post on my site. I typically, to an exhausting level of effort, redact official information such as phone numbers, email addresses, etc. I don’t want to be the cause of a security incident or a massive influx of spam to official workflows. To this end, if OTS leadership asks me to do something to help them control their message, I will absolutely comply. If they need me to pull memos or slides from my site I will do so as soon as possible.
There is a lesson in this point as well. As an officer it is extremely important for us to dwell within the authority of the officers appointed over us, and to not limit the decision space of our superiors. A practical example of this is if you learn from your buddy at AFPC that your troop was selected for OTS. Instead of letting your senior rater or commander decide how to notify your buddy, you tip them off. It isn’t necessarily wrong, but that isn’t your notification to give and you robbed your senior rater or commander from having the honor. Another example would be posting a blog post about the latest change in OTS policy. Instead of allowing the OTS Commandant to decide how to inform the public, you force his hand and are narrowing his decision space.
Now that you know where I am coming from I will inform you that I have decided to do a post about this document. My methods for making my posting decisions are my own, but know that I do have deliberate lines that I draw before making each and every post.
OTS Welcome Guide
This is by far the highest quality reporting instructions I have seen from my time in this business. I can’t speak to what you should do if this document contradicts with any of your other reporting instructions, but just know that this is an official document signed by the OTS Commandant. It is also available on the official OTS web site. To assist with ease of access, I posted it on my site as well.
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