Yankee Flight,
If you all have not noticed yet, your pennant is gone. It was taken last week because you had the lowest weekly score. This is disappointing, to put it mildly. Something that counts heavily is attendance, to PT, Llab, and Flight meetings. Your attendance is horrible. As Llab goes there are several of you close to failing due to attendance. PT attendance as far as I know has never been more than two people at any one time. Flight meetings, the one time that is truly for you, is totally worthless. Last Sunday we had 5 people in attendance, in a flight of 17 or so people you all are not even getting a third. Flight meetings are your time to come together as a team. It is your time to mesh and form as a group. So far I have not seen any team building. All I see are individuals, by now I should see a team. I have truly tried to get everyone involved, I have tried motivating you, I have tried yelling, and I have tried being your friend. I cannot be the flight, I cannot just give you everything. I am not going to hand you an ROTC career, you have to motivate yourselves and your team. If you all want to succeed then you have to change your attitudes. Right now they suck, and I am not the only one that notices. I have had several POC come up to me and ask me point blank, "Why does Yankee flight suck?". I don't know how that makes you all feel, but it makes me mad. It makes me mad because I know you all have a whole lot more potential than your are demonstrating.
When we did our goals almost all of you put down that you wanted to be honor/warrior flight. At this point you are not even in competition for it. Also, unless you all change something very dramatically your pennant will be taken again next week. I truly want you all to succeed, but I am done putting all the effort in. It is time to see more work out of you all. I will not have another flight meeting unless I get at least 75% of you all responding to me with a personal email assuring me that you will attend another flight meeting. If you do not, then I will not have another flight meeting the rest of semester and you all can go about it on your own, I am not here to hold your hand. Also, unless you want a very upset Flight Commander you will all learn your Warrior knowledge.
I am going to leave you with one last thought. You are all in the military. This is not some social club, we are here to learn how to be leaders and warriors. One day if you get a commission you will be in charge of people's lives. I can see how many of you may not be able to equate this training environment to the real world, but it does. If you can't perform these simple tasks we ask of you with a little enthusiasm, how do you expect to be able to accomplish a mission that might ask more than any other profession. The military is a way of life, that is something that you must all think long and hard about. If you are not ready to make that commitment, then you might want to reconsider your enrollment in ROTC.
Respectfully,
C/Capt Hutchins
