Hey…42…Suit up!
I’m not talking about Jackie Robinson, or James Worthy, or even Ronnie Lott.
I’m talking about the fact the United States Air Force (and Space Force) raised their maximum enlistment age to forty-two years old. If that isn’t an indicator of a recruiting crisis, I don’t know what is.
In reality, there are very few enlisted jobs in the Air Force that require you to be in peak physical shape. They do have some very specific jobs where Airmen are assigned to special operations units or are integrated with the Army to provide some very “Air Force-centric” capabilities. The people who do these jobs are absolute rock stars. No joke. Combat controllers, Pararescue, Special Reconnaissance, and even their Security Forces (military police) require very high standards of physical fitness as well as being extremely intelligent, well disciplined, and self-motivated.
The rest of the Air Force…not so much.
No offense to my USAF brethren, but their culture has slowly been transitioning away from a military feel for a long time. You can hear it in their lexicon. They don’t have barracks…they live in dorms. They don’t provide service to units, or equipment, or other Airmen…they have customers. It’s a different world, and it works for them, so I am not criticizing.
Most of their enlisted jobs are technical and hands on. Electrical work. Aircraft repair. Computers. Drones. Communications. Most of those jobs are done on bases where life and living conditions are pretty civil with climate-control, satellite television, and surf and turf on Fridays. Truthfully, these jobs have no real NEED to run a mile or two at top speed or carry a heavy pack or lift heavy objects over and over again. In short, you don’t NEED to be young and fit to do most jobs in the Air Force, you just have to be smart. Again, I’m not criticizing.
But if that is true…and has been true for quite a while…why the age change now? In 2014, the age jumped from 27 to 39. This year it is jumping again to 42. Last year the Navy raised their age limit to 41. By the way, the Navy is similar to the Air Force in their lack of physical fitness requirements to do their job, becoming much more technical than physical in the previous few decades. So, why the recent changes?
It’s because they can’t fill their ranks. This is what happens. When you can’t recruit and retain at a certain level, you lower the bar. The Army did it in 2006-07 at the height of “The Surge” in the war in Iraq. We accepted more non-high school graduates, more low-level criminals, people with face/neck/hand tattoos, single parents, etc. MOST of this was done by granting waivers to applicants and treating them as “exceptions” and not the new standard because the Army knew it was temporary. The Air Force isn’t treating this as temporary…this is a policy change. Why?
Because they don’t see this crisis ending anytime soon. Neither does the Navy. And when the two services that offer the most technical training, the best living conditions (generally), and have the lowest physical requirements can’t fill their quotas…that means the Army is fucked. Which means our military is fucked. This is probably the second or third time I’ve written about the military recruiting crisis, but that’s because it is a national security level concern.
Side note: For all of you that LOVED General Milley and want to give him all the credit for all the things he did as the Chief of Staff of the Army and then as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs…this fucking disaster is on him, too. You don’t get to give him all the credit and none of the blame. He owns this.
This is also NOT the only military personnel management decision going on right now…the discussion of including women in the draft is also on the table again. None of this is coincidence. We have had an all-volunteer military for fifty years. I don’t see that lasting another ten without some drastic changes. It’s just not feasible.
So, the day is coming. And it’s not the fat little baseball manager walking down the tunnel. It’s going to be the President and Congress yelling…
“Hey…42…Suit Up!”