December4, 2006:
The Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is having a hard time
getting new people. Although the air force is in the midst of laying off 40,000
personnel, it can't get enough people in some key specialties. The biggest
shortages are in the special tactics units. These include commando quality
personnel for jobs like air control and combat weathermen (who are landed in
enemy territory to gather more accurate weather data). Until this year, pararescue
(who go into enemy territory to rescue downed pilots) also belonged to AFSOC,
but has now been transferred to the Air Combat Command (which controls all the
combat aircraft). Perhaps Air Combat Command will have better luck in
recruiting, because the special tactics units are short about a third of their
authorized strength. That's largely because standards are very high and, unlike
the army, the air force does not have a large pool of combat trained people to
recruit from.
The
army has found that recruiting special operations people directly from civilian
life is very difficult. Without having many other options,air force
special operations recruiters have been showing up at marathons, "Iron man"
competitions and extreme sports events. That's brought in a few people, but in
the meantime, security companies are taking experienced people away by offering
six figure salaries. The air force has responded with re-enlistment bonuses of
up to $156,000.
AFOC,
which was created in 1990, has 12,900 personnel (active-duty, reserve, and
civilian), but most do not require the grueling training that the special
tactics troops (about ten percent of AFSOC strength) require. This training
typically washes out 40-80 percent of the candidates, takes up to two years to
complete, and costs up to half a million dollars.
AFSOC
belongs to SOCOM (Special Operations Command), which is composed of 52,000
special operations personnel from all the services. SOCOM increased its
strength by about 1,200 personnel this year, but is, like the air force, having
a hard time getting more "operators" (as the commando grade troops are called.)