Danger West

It’s unusual for someone with as many years of service as me to get out. The thinking goes that after 10 years, you need to limit your options and continue doing something you hate for another ten years, so you can get the crumbs from Uncle Sam’s table for the rest of your life. I don’t subscribe to that theory. I believe that you should be using your skill, knowledge, and abilities to their fullest extent for the greatest possible benefit, both monetary and emotional. I don’t believe in giving maximum effort for the absolute bare minimum in return, which is all you’re ever going to get from the government.

Apparently, I’m not the only one. I’m used to getting the typical, “but you’re not gonna get retirement!” response, but I keep hearing tales of other people with lots of years that are getting out as well. Most of it is of the “I know a guy…” variety, but the phenomenon didn’t dawn on me until I went to the Transition Assistance Program class. Let me slightly re-phrase that: when I had to wait three months to get into the TAP class. When I asked why there was such a long wait, the clerk replied that a lot more people than usual were getting out.

Once I was in the class, it became apparent that it wasn’t filled with the usual first-termers and retirees. A healthy chunk of the class was comprised of folks with 14-17 years who were simply fed up and were pulling chocks. There was even an Security Forces guy with 18 years who was getting out. Now that’s hardcore. I wouldn’t even do that. His reasoning was simple: “I joined to be part of the best and to facilitate excellence. That’s no longer the case.” Of course, there was an economic incentive. He had been offered a job working for one of the security companies that have sprung-up during the war. They were going to pay him $120K plus benefits. The pay would only go up from there.

The rest of us had a variety of reasons, but at their core were objections to the direction the Air Force was going. All of us had been through the Reduction in Force (RIF) from the mid-90s and saw what it had done, so we didn’t care to go through that again with this “AFSO-21” nonsense. All of us joined and served an Air Force dedicated to excellence and treating its people as highly-skilled technicians instead of unskilled laborers. As more and more airmen are snatched to drive trucks for the Army, and more and more leaders start talking about “Combat Airmen” and a “culture change”, it’s apparent that the focus has shifted to being second best and accepting mediocrity as the norm. I can’t remember the last time our leadership used the “A” word; you know, that pesky “A” in USAF. We might as well call ourselves the United States Army Auxiliary and be done with it.

We all had something else in common, as well: we all had our degrees, or were close to completing them. One of the guys already had his Masters. We all came from an Air Force that valued continued education and certification, the rationale being that a more educated force was a more effective force. Of course, the main drawback is that a highly educated force demands more of its leadership and doesn’t happily accept whatever BS is shoveled their way. A highly educated force wants more responsibility and it wants to be appreciated. We know we can’t be paid more and that the promotion system isn’t geared toward top performers, so all that most of us ask in return is to be respected and appreciated. That’s not really happening anymore. An unhappy result of the dumbing down of the Air Force is that very smart and talented people are being told to shut up and color. Those smart and talented people are now walking out the door to earn what they’re worth. It’s not hard to leave the Air Force when the Air Force has already left you.

Since finishing TAP and going about my business preparing for my next life, I’m consistently bumping into mid-career NCOs who are leaving as well and mostly for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. I don’t know if there’s some sort of self-selecting bias in effect, like when you buy a car and suddenly notice a lot of other people driving the same as yours, but I get the distinct feeling that there’s a quiet exodus occurring in the background that no one’s talking about. The Air Force isn’t going to advertise it, and I doubt it’s a high percentage, but when you regularly bump into people getting out and you hear people from different squadrons all complaining about losing key personnel, then it’s hard not to think something unusual is going on.

I think one of my friends, who’s thinking of leaving himself, described it best. He said, “It’s like the Lord of the Rings, when all the elves were quietly leaving middle-earth. They didn’t make a big show of it. They just quietly glided through the forest and left. I don’t think anyone really noticed until they were all gone.” Yeah, he’s a dork like me.