‘We Take Old People’ – Air Force Trying Anything to Get Somebody in a Uniform These Days

Golly, things are tight in the military as far as bodies, recruitment, and retention go. Nobody wants in, and they are having a rough time getting people who are in to hang around, even with the wonders of #Bidenomics roiling the outside economy.

GOSH, WONDER WHY?

Champion of USAF diversity@usairforce Lt Gen. Richard Clark, 1st Black US Air Force Academy Superintendent, spoke @ CBS:

“This country’s getting more brown”

“If we don’t open up entire population [for USAF] to draw from, we limit ourselves”

🤔
💯 of 🇺🇸 can join if qualified pic.twitter.com/lQRIO1lcA4

— NOVA Campaigns (@NoVA_Campaigns) February 3, 2024

Every service except my beloved Marine Corps has had to get downright creative, relax age/weight/medical/education standards, start up pre-bootcamp camps for fat bodies who want to enlist, loosen purse strings, and try retooling recruitment message after message in efforts to come up with anything that entices a warm, breathing bi-pedal to enter and raise a right hand.

So far…bupkiss.

Outside of a draft or the old British method of press gangs, the Air Force can’t do much more than what it’s already doing to sucker in new victims. As far as retention of the help they have now, they have already begun to institute some changes they hope will be enough to tip the balance in the service’s favor vice precious experience and maturity walking out the door as soon as an enlistment is up.

At the end of last year, the Air Force extended the high-end time allowed to be in one grade or rank. There has always been a terminal number of years one could sit at a rank if you didn’t get promoted – whether it was your fault or simply that there had been no promotion slots available to promote into. This wasn’t meant to be arbitrarily cruel. For one thing, it moves people out so it doesn’t logjam those in the ranks beneath them. There has to be turnover, or there would never be any advancement, and life would truly be miserable. Being able to wallow at one level also encourages the slackers to carry on indefinitely, contributing little to the productivity of the unit and quite possibly being deleterious to unit discipline, morale, and cohesion.

Sometimes certain people need to be jettisoned.

In these times, too many people are leaving. So even though some military specialties are tight as far as promotions go, the Air Force has seen fit to extend the time-in-grade tenure for ranks, hoping folks’ll stick around.

For fiscal year 2024, the Air Force, hoping to retain more of its experienced airmen, has automatically raised the maximum number of years enlisted members may serve at a given rank.

Eligible airmen may serve an additional two years without a promotion before they’re forced to exit the service, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. The maximum time an enlisted airmen may spend in a given rank is called high year of tenure.

The Air Force high year of tenure extensions apply to enlisted grades of airman basic through senior master sergeant to keep experienced service members in the ranks and keep the Air Force mission ready, Air Force spokeswoman Master Sgt. Deana Heitzman told Stars and Stripes by email Dec. 

That was a relatively easy fix, but the next suggestion to leak out of Air Force HQ this Tuesday was pretty radical. They’re bringing back a program that’s been dead for over 65 years, and why? Because they’re losing all their technological talent to the outside, where, while they might have to put up with DEI, etc, BS, they don’t go to jail if they call a faux-female superior “Sir,” or tell them to p*ss off. 

And they can walk off any old job any old time they want.

The pay raise and what bennies are attached to becoming a warrant officer from, say, a Tech Sergeant (E-6) may just make the difference. Maybe some enlisted kids – including ours – will see fit to jump if the math works and they aren’t going to revoke whatever version of the retirement structure you’re currently vested in for the new, major suckage one (a real consideration in Ebola’s case).

Air Force officials are considering bringing back warrant officers and may start creating a training program this year, reversing a decision from 65 years ago when the service ended that grade, according to a planning document obtained by Military.com.

The three-page planning order says that “great power competition” — Defense Department lingo for escalating defense spending and resources against adversaries such as China — is underscoring the need to resurrect warrant officers, the corps of highly technical service members who are above the enlisted ranks but below the commissioned officer ranks.

“The service must examine new ways to develop and retain a highly capable, technologically capable corps of air-minded warfighters,” the document says. “To fully leverage the technical depth and breadth of talent of our airmen and cultivate the strategic advantage USAF technicians have historically provided, we will make the necessary preparations to re-establish a WO [warrant officer] corps and deliver foundational training for designated WO-1 candidates.”

Retention of assets is the name of the game.

Plugging holes already in the manpower chart is important, too, because that affects readiness. That has to be done right now. 

The Air Force announced yesterday morning they’d take old people – not old NEW people, mind you.

But you Air Force retirees on the dock? Guys who got out after 6 or 8? Want another year – or four – flying desks or jets? Still fit in a uniform?

COME ON DOWN

The Secretary of the Air Force has reimplemented the Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program in an effort to leverage the talents of our highly trained and experienced officer and enlisted military retirees to help minimize the service’s critical manning shortages. Application window opens Feb. 8, 2024.

Applications must be submitted by Jan. 31, 2026, and the program allows up to 1,000 retired officer or enlisted personnel to active duty at any given time. Additionally, under this VRRAD program, the period of active duty service is limited to no more than 48 months. Personnel will only fill vacant active duty authorizations. Retired applicants selected for Extended Active Duty can expect to return to active duty anywhere from 4 to 6 months from their date of application.

“The VRRAD program is a strategic enabler to embrace experienced talent, tapping into a valuable resource of retired members to fill critical roles to close the gap against our peer competitors,” said Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services.

Retired officer applicants are limited to Line of the Air Force commissioned officers retired in the grade of captain through lieutenant colonel. Officers who volunteer to return to active duty under the VRRAD program will primarily fill vacant rated staff, active flying staff, Officer Training School, Squadron Officer School, and Jeanne M. Holm Center academic staff. While all members that meet eligibility may apply, we are targeting the following Air Force special duty codes:

How about them apples? Sounds like a deal if you were in the market for a no-promotion-pressure paid gig.

There could be a worm in that barrel.

Now, our son Ebola has a sneakin’ suspicion that this may be a final offer, desperation, “Well, we tried” sort of situation to set up a “stop-loss” order. In other words, because of the overall disgust with the state of military service in general, he and his active duty bros don’t think there are going to be enough willing takers to fill already gaping holes even with this handsome offer. The Air Force will claim they’ve done everything possible to keep people in the service voluntarily and it hasn’t worked.

If you read the above release again, you will see I have highlighted the words “service’s critical manning shortages.” Those are the magic words. 

To maintain readiness, they would then be forced to keep or retain people involuntarily which is what a “stop-loss” order is. It “stops” the service from “losing” any members when there are critical manning shortages. Once it’s issued, if you were due to retire, your six years of obligated service was up in a month, or you’d submitted your resignation (as an officer) to go fly for Delta?

FUGGEDABOUDIT

You’d better hope you hadn’t chucked your sky blue uniforms, because you’re staying in them until the Air Force lets you go. And it will be up to them, not whatever the date on your paperwork says. 

It is a deadly serious thing. The Army is an old hand at it.

…Despite the length of the wars and substantial number of troops deployed, the Selective Service system was never activated for the GWOT. In 2002, the active-duty army was able to deploy 105,000 soldiers at a 1:1 dwell time and 70,000 soldiers at 1:2 dwell time. The army deployed soldiers at higher rates than could be sustained and operated at close to a 1:1 dwell until 2009. Additionally, the reserve component, which was designed to be a stopgap, operated at just over a 1:2 dwell time. By 2010, more than two million service members had deployed, with 43 percent serving multiple deployments. The impact of repeated deployments on the health of service members is well documented.

The workforce shortage drove the services, particularly the army, to extreme measures. The army implemented a stop-loss policy from 2001 until 2010. This policy was involuntary servitude and prevented troops from leaving the service despite having completed their voluntary commitment and often having completed at least one combat tour.  The army also recalled thousands of separated soldiers back to active duty.

Man, oh, man – there is going to be hell to pay, morale-wise. And honestly – if it’s bad enough that these kids already think that way, it’s pretty bad.

What a mess they’ve made of things and it took no time at all.