Forum: Air Force Life

I have seen a lot of down-sizings in my day. Generally I believe the cup is half full with USAF as there is a bunch of talent. But this latest company grade officer downsizing is one of the larger, personnel screw ups I remember seeing. Mostly because we hyper manage everything at the higher HQ level, and yet couldn't make simple manpower decisions. We just kept bringing people in and promising a great USAF life yet had no long range officer manpower numbers that made any sense at all. I saw the full up brief on this thing as well as observing a O-6 sit in on this topic. My hats off to those affected by this and a big "thank you" for joining the USAF anyway. This is where the rest of us that aren't affected help those that are. If you know anyone affected by this, give them all the support you possibly can. This basically sucks all the way around.

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Yet I still can understand why the USAF still airs commercials recruiting officers for the USAF! There are enough bright people that want to enter without any advertisement! I heard last years field training program though the ROTC program had a terrible cut off of good cadets just because they USAF cant use anymore officers.

-Aaron

Active Member Joined: Nov 29, 2004 - 01:40 PM Posts: 146

Its a rough time to be a Lieutenant in the Air Force.

In my case, there are currently 65 officers currently in my career field (AMMO) who were commissioned in 2003. Of that number 26 will be cut. I am rather sure there weill be a few who will opt to get out before the board. There is also at least one who will not survive the cuts because of some bad choices that they made, but this is not the place to discuss that.

All I can say is that I am really happy I am not an 02 grad. They currently have 68 in the field and are cutting 40! Or Comm, they have to cut over 200 for 2002.

I am still trying to get a pilot slot in the active Air Force, but I am now also looking at the guard and reserve. I hope that I get accepted to UPT for active duty, but I will take anything I can get at this point. If UPT, the guard or the reserves don't pan out, I still hope that I will have a job after the board so that I can try again next year.

Quote:

Yet I still can understand why the USAF still airs commercials recruiting officers for the USAF! There are enough bright people that want to enter without any advertisement! I heard last years field training program though the ROTC program had a terrible cut off of good cadets just because they USAF cant use anymore officers.

-Aaron

Too true..as a matter of fact AFROTC at UVA here in Virgina asked people to leave, even the ones with pilot slots could drop the program even though they were contracted and/or scholarship cadets. I thought for sure that this would affect my graduating class but lucky for me it hasn't, at least not yet. All I know is I have 12 more months till I commission and only 4 more months until I find out if I got my pilot slot (or possibly Nav/ABM). I keep praying that I get to my commissioning date without any "issues".

Good luck to you AmmoCapt with your persuit of a pilot slot...I truly do know how HARD it is (sts) to get one...just know that the current wait time for UPT as far as I know is still roughly 12 months. IF you already have a PL (private license) that might drop to an 8 month wait. Again, good luck.

Cheers! Cheers

I know a couple of ROTC cadets that basically got their education courtesy of the USAF. Within a semester of graduation a buddy of mine at Clemson was told that they really didn't need anyone with his degree (criminal justice) and that he had to give up his nav slot. Now that he is in law school they have told him that he will be commissioned and thrown into the JAG program upon completing law school.

So, he is being shafted, jerked around, and toyed with. We will see what happens.

How...sad......It is the not knowing that kills me.

Cheers!

Swanee, if he's being commisioned he's not being screwed with sts. He's still being commissioned in the AF, good deal, so he doesn't get to do what he wants, that stinks, but thats life. What comes first, the needs of the AF or your own personal needs, if you put yourself first then you shouldn't be in in the first place...

Active Member Joined: Nov 29, 2004 - 01:40 PM Posts: 146

I suppose that I should mention the two career fields that are actually undermanned for CGOs. They are Weather and Developmental Engineering.

For the forsseable future all CGOs in their third year of commissioned service will face this board. This will continue until the Air Force gets its recruiting numbers to balence the sustainment requirements for a career field.

So what this means is that this Force Shaping Board will continue to meet and select Ammo CGOs (21MX) in their third year of active duty for elimination every year until the needed level is met.

There are a few ways to not meet this board though. The first is to be in a specialized career field, like being a pilot, missileer or possibly a doctor. I'm not sure about the medical folks though. The other way to be immune from the board is to have a total of 15 years total service before 30 September of the year of the board. One of the LTs I work with was a firefighter when he was enlisted, and will have 15 total years this July. He is one of a small handfull of LTs who are safe.

Swanee, if your friend getting shafted? Not necessarily. Yes it does suck that he had togive up his nav slot. But he could have taken the free out. He didn't have to go to law school for the Air Force, or did I miss something. Besides, there is good money to be had in the civilian world with law skills.

Vypergrl, the not knowing is killing me also. My flight application is nearly complete for active duty. Just one more line to edit and its off to my Squadron Commander for review and forwarding to the Group Commander and Wing King. Hopefully by this time next week it will be in the mail to AFPC. I think I'll make another thread about it in the future crew section.

ts79 wrote:

Swanee, if he's being commisioned he's not being screwed with sts. He's still being commissioned in the AF, good deal, so he doesn't get to do what he wants, that stinks, but thats life. What comes first, the needs of the AF or your own personal needs, if you put yourself first then you shouldn't be in in the first place...

Ye ol "needs of the AF" line works with most things but in this case, this particular downsizing event was TOTALLY avoidable. Some moron 2 letter director didn't do their job and was asleep at the PowerPoint briefings for a long time.

AmmoCapt wrote:

Swanee, if your friend getting shafted? Not necessarily. Yes it does suck that he had togive up his nav slot. But he could have taken the free out. He didn't have to go to law school for the Air Force, or did I miss something. Besides, there is good money to be had in the civilian world with law skills.

Basically he didn't have much of a choice. He took the free out, then got into law school. The USAF still said that they could call upon him for 6 years, as that was his commitment for ROTC. Upon being accepted into law school, he was contacted and basically told that he wasn't going to be paying for law school and that he would be JAG, or possibly going into special investigations... (i don't remember the acronym)

He is just upset that he was told he could get out, and took it. Then about 6 months later he they let him know that he was going back and kinda got put in an bad position. He had to go back, if he stayed in law school the USAF would pay for it, but he would have to commit more time, but if he dropped out of law school, he would be stuck in some unknown job, and not get is JD...

He is happy that he will have law school paid for, and now he realizes that this is a pretty damn good scenario. He just wishes that they had not told him he was out, and then yanked him back in when they realized he would be going to law school.

elp, I couldn't agree with you more, but still, any job in the AF is a good way to go (ok, most jobs)...you don't have to look any further than personnel to see the situation...lots of officers telling people what to do, and not a lot of people to do it, I swear some of my longest and most frustrating days of my life have been spent in MPF, so maybe downsizing the officer corp to make room for enlisted in that same spot may be a good thing...but you're right, could have been prevented a while ago

I 100% agree there are too may officers. Its just the way they ignored the problem for years now of bringing in ( many talented people ), tell them the USAF is a great career and then a manning directorate and big decision makers cant read a manning table and know that a curve is climbing out of control and not do anything about it before it is wayyyyyyy too late and end up cutting off all these people you promised all these things too ... cut them off right at the kneecaps due to no error on their part. It is NOT a perfect world but this thing is just real bad. There are a ton of o-5s and o-6s out there that will have to tell their star performers, that they aren't needed in the club anymore. ( NOT FUN ) "Hi Joe, you are really talented and did ( x y z ) programs and did a lot of great suff. Now let me explain why I have to take you out back and shoot you in the head." Its not just the job. ( Maybe or Maybe-not an aircrew can't quite appreciate this Smile

) but there are a lot of fun things to do in the USAF that don't involve flying and give you a good sense of mission. You aren't going to find much of that in the civilian world.
Oh well, I hope everyone gets through it.

I was enlisted. I loved my job. I pretty much did everything I wanted to up to a certain point. Organizational changes happened that made the future "not like the good old days". Time marches on. I had the luxury of getting out in style in the first downsizings of the '90s. I loved the USAF, but got out knowing it was my time. AND... the USAF gave me a check for $25,000 to get out just to be nice. Today, these guys don't have that option.

But yeah again, we have too many "L Tees" in squadrons doing jobs a good E-7 or E-8 can handle with ease and has the years of experience.

What about force reallignment. I talked to an IFF IP just recently who told me that if you wash out of UPT in you were an academy graduate then your choices are to pay back your education which is 136,000 or something like that; or force reallign to the Army officer corp. I know a lot of people prolly dont like this but I dont mind the idea at all. If I couldnt be a pilot I would rather be a ground troop than another job in the AF. No offense to people that work those other jobs, im sure they enjoy them and say theyre great. There is just something about getting shot at though that turns me on. Wink

Anyways, like I said; I get sick everytime I see a recruiting commercial on television; displaying people doing officer jobs.

-Aaron

Don't pick the Army. They have a leadership crisis ( ethics / competency ) of biblical proportions. Until that is fixed......

Have of fixing a problem is replacing/putting in new leadership anyways though. Oh well, we'll see...

-Aaron

Forum: Air Force Life

Company Grade Officer downsizing