If one had eight years or more on a combat flight crew, pilots navigators or electronic warfare officers, you qualified to participate in a unique telephone conference call. The call came from the Chief of Personnel at SAC Headquarters. Included in the conference hookup were you and your Wing Commander. That call could determine your future career. It was a very important call.

The gist of the call was the opportunity to express your preference for job assignments. You were typically asked if you 1) wanted to remain on a flight crew where you were, or 2) if you wanted another assignment within SAC, or 3) whether you wanted to go to school, or finally 4) whether you wanted to be reassigned out of SAC to some other Air Force job. Taking that conference call could mean charting the direction of your entire career.

For pilots, at that time, the typical career progression was to move up from co-pilot on a bomber crew to pilot-in-command, thence perhaps to squadron level operations officer, on to squadron commander and eventually to Wing operations officer and, with luck, to Wing Commander. That meant proving yourself as a qualified aircraft commander and leader of your crew, being someone of proven dedication to the unit and determined to stick with the system.

But for non-pilots, the navigators, radar bombardiers and electronic warfare officers, career progression was far different. In fact, the likelihood of progressing beyond flight crew status to a staff job was limited. And where could you go from there in a pilot's Air Force? You clearly had to make a giant leap away from crew duty to some other career field entirely.

Thus it was not surprising for conference call participant pilots, aware that their own Wing Commander was on the line, to respond by saying that they wanted to remain on a flight crew. They wanted to demonstrate their dedication to the mission, crew performance and the accepted progression methodology. But for other crewmembers the nature of the conference call was very often different entirely. Non-pilots typically expressed interests in school assignments, staff opportunities at higher headquarters and even ground jobs totally apart from flight crew duties.

The school choices generally available included the Air Command and Staff School, a place to fill an important square in your military career development path, or an academic course at either a civilian university or the Air Force's own Institute of Technology. The former choice could lead to a headquarters job up the line, perhaps even a joint services staff position. The latter could not only enhance your value to the service, it could improve your employability after completion of your military career.