Air Force To Get Tougher With Recruits

Don't forget Stargate Command! :)

Don't forget the PJs, Combat Controllers, and the Security Forces Ravens.

From what I've seen, the Air Force has absolutely no idea how to train recruits. I think the best way to describe it is confusion "we know that you're supposed to yell at new recruits, so that's what we'll do!"

If this gives them some focus, more power to them. Next up for reevaulation, I hope, is their god-awful ROTC field training.

Check out what AFOSI is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and I feel confident you can add them to your list of Air Force warriors. Surely the seven Agents killed in action in Iraq would qualify I think.

http://www.osi.andrews.af.mil/library/fallenagents.asp

Full disclosure: I am a former AFOSI Agent and Detachment Commander.

About time they did something like this, more and realistic training has been needed for years. When I came on active duty for the AF I had come out of the USMCR as a lateral transfer to the Air Guard then to active duty for the purpose of serving as a firefighter. I attended recruit training at Parris Island in 1978 in 2nd Battalion, platoon 2037, and was an M-60 tank crewmember. The lessons I was taught as a boot by SSgt McVeigh, Sgt Collins, Sgt Cook and the other drill instructors were things that have stayed with me my whole life. I never knew how lucky I was to be trained as a Marine until I went through my first Prime Beef Deployment exercise and saw that my fellow Airman including the SNCO inspectors from MAJCOM did not know how to pack a sea bag and had no concept of what an AWOL bag was. This was further evident every time I went to weapons training with the M-16, both in how to use it to when it came time to clean them. Some weapons were inspected and accepted that would have had the Gunny shoving parts in places they don’t belong. The instructors actual got on my case because I disassembled the weapon in their minds to far.
As retired SNCO I’m glad they are finally changing, I tried for years to ensure my Airmen were better prepared but there is just so much you can do as an individual flight chief on the flight line.
It’s funny even at 47 I still would like to contribute in some way. I received a letter three years ago from the Air Force Reserve offering a chance for retiree’s to join the Reserve and continue to serve. I called the recruiter listed and after much back in forth he could not find a unit that would take a MSgt because it would take away a slot from one of their traditional reservists. Even with ACC/CV looking into it I could not get any traction.
My daughter boyfriend who is a Corporal in the 2nd LAV suggested since I was once a member of the USMCR I call the USMCR to see if they have a similar program, but I seriously doubt the Marines would want an old tanker who’s vehicles are museum pieces and whose AF jobs were firefighter and F-15/F-111/A-10/U-2 avionics craftsmen.

Last number, which is pre-Clinton fire sale days, was that 4% of the USAF actually flew. A B52 pilot I heard used to say, "That's a lot of pylons."

As a retired Air Force officer, who served in the Navy during the Korean conflict, I say it is about time the Air Force basic training recognized the military part of the Air Force.

While stationed at Osan AB in Korea in the 1960's I handed a loaded M1 carbine to an airman, assuming he knew how to handle it. Big mistake -- but I was able to get it back without a disaster.

And when my airmen were assigned to base defense they needed a lot of training, which they did not get.

Thank God we made it through the 1960's without relying on Air Force personnel, other than Air Police / Security Forces, for security of a base. I'm sure that most of those airmen would have done their best, but they were not prepared.

I worked with a lot of great Airmen - TACP, STS, & PJ, however I think the Air Force could use a general change in culture.

An Air Force officer in my MBA class used an example of his challenges organizing a "Flicker Ball" tournament during his officer basic course when discussing his leadership experience. Apparently this was an evaluated task for the course.

John said
"If this gives them some focus, more power to them. Next up for reevaulation, I hope, is their god-awful ROTC field training. "

Already in the works, actually. This coming summer is the first of the 'new' FT session. First off, it's all in one place: Maxwell AFB, Georgia. It used to be at three or four bases (such as myself going to Ellsworth AFB, SD).

Second, my camp was four weeks of garrison BS (honestly). Lots of marching, lots of changing clothing really fast, more marching, and being evaluated for absolutely everything. We spent three days in week four on our field leadership exercise, basically a bare-base deployment. That was the only three days worth going, in my opinion. As group commander, I was actually under reall, do-or-die stress managing the defense, logistics, and operation of a 274 person encampment. Starting this summer, it's two weeks garrison, two weeks deployment- drastic change.

Eli said:
"An Air Force officer in my MBA class used an example of his challenges organizing a "Flicker Ball" tournament during his officer basic course when discussing his leadership experience. Apparently this was an evaluated task for the course. "

Oh, you can be evaluated for anything. If someone can be declared a 'leader' or organizer, than you can be evaluated. We regularly evaluate cadets doing things like Human Knot exercizes, teamwork activities, and even plain old drill courses.

Do I agree with it always? No. Do I complete it anyways? Yes.

I've had a number of active AF officers tell me, straight-up, "Just deal with the ROTC crap, then you can learn to be an officer once you commission and start working in your AFSC."

What is the oldest Air Arm in the service of this country?
Naval Aviation.We are almost 100 years old. Always remember, the Air Force are rookies.
No malice, no degredation, just fact.
By the way, my mom married my dad when he was in the air force, in 1953. Dad wore a TAN uniform.
It's just a professional thing.

Dissing the Air Force. Some of it deserved, much of it not.

Thing is, this is a good thing, and we need to encourage this effort.

The most encouraging thing for me is seeing the Air Force acknowledge that they are part of the larger military structure rather than a separate military element

Gen. Coleman was one of the finest SF (Security Forces, not to be confused with Special Forces) leaders and achieved legendary status within the senior NCO/officer corps. Unfortunately, the highest ranking SF officer is a Brigadier. They still work for the Zipper Suited Sun Gods (also known as Pilots and Navs) who run the Air Force and get zero to honest-to-God enemy contact (excluding the odd SAM launch or un-aimed skyward MG fire) despite the fact that there are air force troops running convoys, handling detainee transport, running theatre internment facilities, conducting offbase combat patrols, training Iraqi Police and Iraqi military, etc. That also doesn't take into account the TACPs, PJs and other SOF types.

Too little, too late is an understatement. Being safely "In the rear with the gear" was the air force paradigm, but as we know in the long war, no longer the case. If we can shed the "Safety First" complete risk aversion corporate mentality and recognize the unhappy fact in war and the training for it, it people get hurt, we'll be better off.

Oh, and Foxman--don't lump us RAVENs in with TACP and PJs; doing so borders on insulting what the SOF guys do. We get some additional training and are generally a little better fighters, but we're doctrinally nowhere near TACPs. Thanks though.

I like to bash the Air Force as much as the next guy-but to just wrap it up in a quote that they are not warriors is over the top and not correct.

The USAF is actually right in trying to take care of its people-and the reason its Basic and other training's have gone down hill is because it was the first service to have too many women in it. Diversity is killing the USAF warrior ethos. As it is now doing in the Navy.

Andrew was on the money regarding the redone FT encampment. However, I'd add that as someone who wasn't on group staff for the field exercise, it was pretty much a joke. Better than the garrison "training," granted, but still a joke. I mean, our convoy "training" was done in minivans, for christsakes. 100% TINS serious. Minivans. You're telling me the USAF couldn't have spared a few Humvees? Basically, if you were in an actual leadership position at the group or squadron level, you got some useful experience. That was maybe 20% of the encampment, if that. Everyone else got to do pointless shit (like convoy training in minivans) and occasionally raise a red rubber ducky and shout "bang bang" when your CTAs came out of the woods simulating Hamanistani terrorists.

However, it sounds like they're changing that somewhat. Of the two weeks spent in the field, the first week will be spent at a training complex set up at Maxwell (same complex I used for my three day FLX), which will probably be nominally useful. The second week, though, is going to be at JRTC at Fort Polk, which I think actually stands a chance at being useful. They're supposedly going to get to use M-16s/M-4s that fire the paintball round, which is a tad more realistic than having a rubber ducky and shouting "bang bang."

There's even the possibility they might fly them in on Herks.

The Navy may have the "oldest" air arm, but I would disagree on it's effectiveness. The Navy is now down to one airframe(F18) thou a good one. The Air Force would have never allowed one of its highly classified reconnasence aircraft fall into the hands of the Chinese. That crew would have been court-martialed.
While doing my 20+ years in the AF I and others recognized that our basic training was very poor compared to other branches and as Skippy-san said the large number of women had a lot to do with it.
As far as a "uniformed airline" well I'm waiting to see Delta or United start loading Nukes, MK82-84's AGM's,20&30mm guns, AIM 9,7,120's etc.

Mike, my problem with field training is the backwardsness of it all. Those environments are, by design, crafted so as to cram 5-6 months worth of training into a 1-3 month period.

But in the odd world of AFROTC, two years of ROTC training and classes are wasted to train for this single month of..uh, training? where you are charged with the nebuluous mission of "being evaluated." I haven't used any of my field training lessons in the real Air Force (Beds, AF marching, chow lines, etc). There's no purpose, no real goal of it all. I think it's a waste.

And imagine how irritating it is as a VMI guy to have part-time cadets from civilian schools yelling at you. Most of them seemed lost, from my observations.

I think Navy ROTC has it right. If you're going to branch into the Marines, you will be trained by Marine Drill Instructors for a full 3 months at Quantico. Otherwise, they send you out to actually work in the fleet on their summer cruises (see Bullnav's post above). Midshipmen get real Navy experience, are mentored by NCOs and officers alike, and come back with a good idea of the type of job that they want to shoot for upon their commissioning.

The Air Force has no need for this type of high intensity training. They owe it to their cadets to give them real instruction that will be both useful and applicable in the active duty Air Force.

Andrew -

When did the Air Force move Maxwell AFB to Georgia??

It has always been in Alabama.

Field training has been moved TO Maxwell. The base is still right there in Montgomery.

You'll get no argument from me there. I learned a few things at FT, very few of them probably what I was "supposed" to learn. The best thing is that, at my Det. at least, there is almost universal acceptance of the fact that FT is pretty much a joke and that you need one type of "leadership" to be evaluated well at FT (be brash, loud, and a general dick to everyone, always looking out for yourself) and another type to actually be a leader and an officer (the opposite of everything you were supposed to use to do well at FT). I followed the second style, and got ranked on the low end. (I got ranked most underrated from my flightmates, so that was nice, and I got a sweet CATM coin from the NCO at the range for shooting best in my flight, so it wasn't all bad.)

So basically, the end result is that the training environment fosters a leadership style that is diametrically opposed to what we should be teaching cadets.

And don't get me started on the joke of "evaluating" cadets through an individual drill evaluation. Are you kidding me? "Okay TSgt. Snuffy, get the troops from the maintenance shop in formation. We're marching to get some lunch at the BK."

Bottom line, I'd agree 110% that the Navy does things the right way, as does the Army, with their summer encampment actually being out in the field. Not saying the USAF needs to go to that type of training, but it fits the service's mission. A more Navy type of mentoring and tracking into a field (SWO, subs, aviation) would seem to be appropriate to the USAF.

For anyone interested, here's the AF Link story on the change: http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123084531

Oh, and re: your comments on the two years of training to prepare for the one month of FT, no f**king shit! For two years, out of something like 10 Leadlabs that weren't briefings or parade, there were maybe 2 or 3 that were something other than some form of marching or drill. Because that's exactly what you need to know to be an Air Force officer.

And I know, I've heard the standard response that it's what you need to do to get through AFROTC to get into the real Air Force, but I think that sort of mentality needs a serious reevaluation. Our training should directly lead to the real Air Force, not be something completely unrelated from it.

Mike, glad to hear you and your DET agree. I'm glad to see that they're trying to put the "field" into field training, this being an expeditionary air force and all, but I'd still like to see them employ a more appropriate training style.

They should also kill any ROTC prep time. Completely defeats the purpose. Everyone should go into those environments on an equal footing, not based on how well your Det trained you.

Right now FT the only absolutely mandatory summer training for AFROTC cadets. There are a few others, but most of these are either real basic survey level type "this is the USAF" stuff for people between their 100/200 year or they are advanced stuff reserved for either top notch cadets with connections or engineers with good grades who want to be engineers for the Air Force. Other than that, there's no equivalent to the Navy's program of everyone taking some sort of a cruise every summer.

Make summer training mandatory every summer. First summer is spent doing a survey "this is the USAF" type thing like they have now; second summer is spent at a higher intensity FT training environment that is solely dedicated towards expeditionary training; third summer (or fourth summer if you're on the five year plan) is spent doing specialized training in whatever field you're going into, since by this time you'll know your AFSC. This would also solve the Det prep time problem, as the only possible standardized training environment would be the FTish training after your sophomore year, and the Det would only be able to train you in the real basics, like SABC, land nav, and maybe some marksmanship. No real advantage there.

But hey, what do I know. I'm just a 300 cadet with a few conditionals and a low FT ranking. :-p

what your PAS thinks of you has more to do with your future than conditionals.

I like your plan, though I think the first two summers should be real life USAF stuff (flying with C-17 crews, working CSS desk at fighter squadrons, etc) and that the last summer (once AFSCs have largely been determined) dedicated to expeditionary Air Force training.

And the most important thing is that ROTC cadets are NOT charged with training other ROTC cadets. Get real deal NCOs in there for a full month of proper deployment training (convoys, POW, firearms, hand-to-hand combat, assault, etc), in an environment that is actually designed TO TRAIN, not just arbitrarily scream.

You get rid of that cutthroat shit when you stop polluting the learning environment with "I won't get my pilot slot if I don't make DG!!" mentality. Cadets should be there to train and learn, nothing else.

"what your PAS thinks of you has more to do with your future than conditionals."

Oh, I know. Of course, we're on our third PAS here in as many years. I've gotten a new PAS every year I've been here, but anyway.

I agree on the cadets training cadets thing. Personally, I think CTAs are pretty stupid. Some of them had some training value, but most of them just liked to yell, which for some reason wasn't really intimidating at all. By about TD-3 I got real good about tuning them out. On the other hand, our NCO MTI could make you feel about two inches tall just by pulling you aside and talking to you in a low voice. (He had his shit together, though...promoted to SSgt at the encampment; he was an MTI as a SrA, if that tells you anything about how squared away he was.)

But yeah, switch the expeditionary training to the third summer, make sure it's real expeditionary training (no convoy training with minivans), and make sure it's done by the professionals, and I think we've got a plan.

So are you going to email Maj Gen Flowers or should I? ;-)

I agree that ROTC taught me little to nothing useful. The 'Superman Drills' taught me how to get ready quickly which I have actually used when my unit recalled me or I was late getting up. The always hurrying and staying on schedule helped me when I was the team leader for my RAVEN course and we weren't late once despite severe shortages in time. The excessive 'attention to detail' that is always pounded because there are no other metrics to evaluate upon helped me edit reports sent forward and items that needed my concurrence. That's about it. ROTC was a means to an end; it gave me a chance to get involved in something while I was in college, the opportunity to make some great friends, a few bucks for books and tuition, and a general sense of belonging. Active duty taught me so much more, but I still take issue with many AFSCs having such a long backlog for career training that you are doing your job or flubbing your way through it without any formal training for several months or years. Its a wonder I didn't get shot in the 9 months I was waiting for training; thank goodness for good NCOs to babysit me and keep me safe on numerous dangerous felony incidents.

Oh--and for the record--ASBC is equally pointless. I passed the final exam on the first day (a pre-test); it was basically field training part II; with the yelling and inspections removed.

I remember watching the Army ROTC guys learning how to do team movements; rappell, shoot, landnav, etc and wishing I didn't have to learn the great merits of airpower in the cultlike indoctrination of pilot/nav hero worship.