USAF photo by SrA. Grovert Fuentes-Contreras Too Much of a Good Thing By Amy McCullough, Senior Editor The Air Force is struggling to keep its personnel numbers in balance. t seems the threat of yet another the number down to the authorized “Without these actions in FY10, our combat deployment is less daunt- 332,800 by the end of Fiscal 2012. overall retention would have exceeded ing than the weak job market. In addition, the Air National Guard the goal by more than four percent,” The majority of today’s airmen is projecting it will be at or near its CMSAF James A. Roy told the Senate have spent their entire careers at authorized end strength of 106,700 by Armed Services personnel subcommit- war—many can’t count their combat the end of Fiscal 2011. tee in April. tours on one hand—yet Air Force re- To remedy things, Air Force leaders tention is at a 16-year high and active have implemented a series of voluntary Above: USAF Lt. Col. Andy Veres (l), duty end strength remains bloated above and involuntary force-shaping measures, Provincial Reconstruction Team Zabul congressionally mandated levels. such as convening reduction-in-force commander, re-enlists MSgt. James At the end of Fiscal 2010, there boards and encouraging early separa- Sandifer at Forward Operating Base Smart, on top of Alexander’s castle in were 334,196 active duty personnel, tions through waivers for active duty Qalat City, Afghanistan. Active duty but officials say they expect to whittle service commitments. retention is at a 16-year high. 80 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 2011 Of the more than 172,000 airmen who mandated levels. Control and recovery separation program. They must now leave filled out the 2010 Air Force Climate (in combat rescue and special tactics), active duty service by Oct. 1. Survey, 80 percent said they liked their airfield ops, intelligence, civil engineer- That means several officer year groups jobs and 95 percent said they believed ing, public affairs, and contracting were and competitive categories no longer their unit was accomplishing its mission. the most stressed fields for commis- have to face the September reduction- Although many acknowledged stress sioned airmen. in-force board, said Maj. Gen. Sharon levels have increased at home as a result As of June, efforts to slim the active K. G. Dunbar, force management policy of heavier workloads and longer work duty force appeared to be on track, and director, adding that USAF wants to hours due to deployments, the number Jones said he was confident the 2012 leverage voluntary separation and retire- of airmen who intend to remain on active timeline could be met. But more work ment programs to the maximum extent duty increased slightly over the results of remains, as the high retention rates are possible. the previous survey conducted in 2008. expected to continue into Fiscal 2013. Formal cross-flow boards for midgrade Retention is highest among midcareer “Whenever you have a spike in reten- officers were held for the first time this airmen (six to 10 years of service) but tion, you have two options. You have to year, Jones said. Modeled after the non- down for more-senior airmen. In Fiscal carry the overstrength and pay for it, commissioned officer retraining program, 2010, the Air Force reached 100 percent which is hugely expensive and in fiscally the idea was to maintain highly skilled of its retention goal for airmen with 17 constrained times, not the easiest thing airmen and push them, involuntarily if months through six years of service, but to do, or you have to cut assessions,” necessary, into in-demand fields where it exceeded its goal for airmen with six to Jones said in a June interview. “When their skills may be useful. 10 years of service by nine percent, Roy you cut accessions, you end up living The number of airmen USAF took said. The third retention category, airmen with the effect … for 20 to 30 years in was very small because a lot of people with 10 to 14 years, is struggling, coming different career fields, so these are not saw opportunities and volunteered, Jones in at 93 percent in Fiscal 2010, he said. easy decisions to make.” said. Though he would like to see the Air Yet, more than 18 percent of the ac- Case in point: Despite the high re- Force “get in the habit” of convening tive duty force serves in stressed career tention rates, Roy said the Air Force is such boards, he said it’s not yet clear if fields, with a high rate of deployments still working to overcome several skill it will be necessary next year. and manning shortages in those Air Force imbalances resulting from “deliberately Last year, officials also brought back specialty codes, according to the service’s under-accessing” end strength in 2005. the limited initial skills training board Fiscal 2012 budget. for airmen who failed to pass their initial The majority of the 16 enlisted Force-Shaping Challenges skills training. The board was tasked with stressed career fields are those in high Then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. retaining or separating airmen based on demand, such as explosive ordnance Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael the needs of the Air Force, according to disposal, crypto linguists, airborne in- W. Wynne decided to cut end strength Roy’s testimony to the SASC person- telligence-surveillance-reconnaissance, starting in Fiscal 2006 in an effort to nel panel. “[When] you are over in end or geographical intelligence analyst, mitigate modernization costs. strength, if you have someone that fails said Lt. Gen. Darrell D. Jones, deputy But officials didn’t have to contend their initial skills training [and] if you chief of staff for manpower, personnel, with a tanking economy the last time can’t reclassify them into a shortage and services. The Global War on Terror the Air Force undertook such large-scale career field, why would you keep them?” has blurred the lines between traditional force-shaping measures. In 2005, the Jones asked. operational career fields and support unemployment rate hovered at five per- The boards face tough decisions, vital Too Much of roles, so airmen in stressed fields such cent, a significant departure from today’s to the health and longevity of the force. as contracting and civil engineering stubbornly high unemployment rate, The Air Force is hoping Congress will also are likely to find themselves on the which has gone higher than 10 percent. put a few more tools in its force-shaping front lines at some point in their career. “As people choose to stay in longer, tool box. The service has requested The Air Force ended its voluntary we have to actively manage that end that Congress reinstate its authority to a Good Thing enlisted force-shaping programs this strength as best we can,” Jones said. specifically target overmanned career spring, announcing it had reached its “We’ve opened up voluntary programs fields, enabling it to fill much-needed Fiscal 2011 end strength goal for en- significantly to encourage people to leave shortages, Jones said. listed airmen. Last year, the Air Force the Air Force, waiving active duty service As of June, the Office of the Secretary announced it was cutting 6,000 active commitments, [and] encouraging the blue of Defense was reviewing the request duty enlisted and officer personnel, to green program, where airmen go in to and seeking input from other services. but officials announced in April that the Army. ... But ... the Air Force is just Jones said military officials have been USAF will forgo the last two remaining on the leading edge of our force-shaping talking with staff on Capitol Hill, but date-of-separation rollback phases for challenges.” it’s not clear when the provision will be enlisted personnel. Special provisions The Fiscal 2011 National Defense introduced. in the Palace Chase program, which al- Authorization Act enabled eligible of- If approved, the selective early retire- lowed active duty airmen to transition ficers with prior enlisted service to apply ment boards will be one place where to the ANG or the Air Force Reserve, for retirement after eight years of active change will be evident. Current SERB and other early out waiver programs commissioned service, rather than 10, rules say USAF can only consider lieu- also were canceled. if they have completed 20 years of total tenant colonels two times deferred and The big challenge remains in the of- active federal military service. colonels with four years’ time in grade. ficer corps where retention is especially As of mid-April, about 300 officers “You can only have them meet a SERB high. At the end of Fiscal 2010, the in non-high-demand specialties chose to board once every five years, but you have Air Force was 2,300 officers over its take advantage of the service’s voluntary to address an entire competitive category, AIR FORCE Magazine / September 2011 81 Guardsmen with the Illinois Air National Guard board a KC-135 at Scott AFB, Ill., in March on the first step of their deployment for Operation Odyssey Dawn. The ANG predicts it will be at or near its authorized end strength by the end of this year, but it will take the active duty force a year longer. USAF photo by SSgt. BrianValencia J.

meaning all line officers, all biomedical a year to $25,000 a year to maintain deployment-to-dwell time ratio, the service corps officers, [etc.],” Jones said. some of the most highly trained airmen time airmen spend at home versus Each category is made up of many dif- with skills such as cyber warfare and deployed. ferent career fields, and shortages and nuclear weapons. Enlistment bonuses As of March 1, more than 38,000 air- overages vary significantly. range from $1,000 to $17,000 depend- men were deployed, about 5,000 of them Under the current rules, the board ing on the skill. supporting joint taskings. As a result of does not have power to specifically target demands from combatant commanders, shortages, and good officers in high- Human Capital Strategy the Air Force has seen its 179-day tours demand fields can end up getting pushed Despite retention levels and fiscal increase from 12 percent of all deploy- out. “What we would like to do in the constraints, the Air Force still needs ments in 2004 to 60 percent today. By future is get enhanced SERB authority enlisted bonuses, retention bonuses, and October 2012, the 179-day tour length that would allow us to go in and say we SRBs to encourage airmen in stressed should essentially be the norm. need people in this AFSC and these year career fields such as EOD to re-enlist. Some 1,800 USAF deployment re- groups to leave and not everyone,” Jones The nuclear field remains one of the quirements (seven percent of all deploy- said. Without the additional authorities, most difficult to manage with the small ments) call for airmen to be deployed it won’t be as clean, he added. number of nuclear bases and a growing for 365 days, Roy said, and filling both Bonuses are another vital force-shap- number of dual-use career fields (those deployed and home-station missions ing tool, and though likely to shrink as with both conventional and nuclear ca- continues to take a toll on units. the Pentagon enters an age of budget pabilities). The human capital strategy The new 179-day deployment standard austerity, bonuses probably won’t go is one way to vector the right airmen, will keep airmen on typical deployments away. The Air Force’s Fiscal 2012 bud- with the right skills, into the right career for an additional 60 days but will also get request contained $30.5 billion in field, Roy stated. provide them and their families more military personnel funding, including a Under the strategy, the service created time at home, Roy noted. 1.6 percent pay raise and $630 million its first-ever enlisted development team The deployment-to-dwell time will for bonuses. to guide the careers of senior enlisted range from one-to-one to one-to-four, These funds are critical to carrying out airmen in the same manner traditional depending on the career field, but with a range of missions expected of the Air development teams have focused on of- the revised rotational baseline, most Force. “Selective re-enlistment bonuses ficers and civilians. The team will look airmen will now spend six months on are our most effective, responsive, and at senior NCOs’ training, education, and call for deployments followed by 24 measurable tool for targeted retention,” experience to see if they are qualified months at home. Under the previous Roy said. “The FY12 budget for new to fill critical nuclear positions. Both 120-day standard, during which most SRB contracts does change from FY11’s the nuclear weapons maintenance and airmen deployed for 179 days anyway, budget of $145.9 million, as we expect the munitions and missile maintenance airmen spent four months on call and 16 to offer SRBs to fewer than 90 enlisted fields have developed prioritization months at home. specialties in FY12.” lists to ensure USAF assigns the most “Obviously, 179s have increased tre- SRB payments have dropped from qualified airmen to positions by order mendously, but so has the demand,” $156 million in Fiscal 2009 for new of importance within the nuclear en- Jones said. “Even though we’ve seen bonuses to $129.9 million this year, Roy terprise, Roy said. an increase in both areas, the [179-day said. Right now the Air Force is offering As force shaping continues, lead- standard deployment length] has been retention bonuses ranging from $6,000 ers also are focused on improving the successful.” n 82 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 2011