Black Wednesday

Yesterday wasn't an overly happy day for lieutenants in the Air Force.  After the threat of Force Shaping looming over our heads for about 8 months, The List finally came out on Wednesday.  I've been lucky enough to be an observer throughout the process since I graduated in 2004 and for this cycle those under the gun were 2002 and 2003 graduates.  I've been treating these past months as a tutorial for what I may have to go through in October--trying to figure out what my best option is for "playing the game".

Yesterday three of my friends found out that they were, in essence, being laid off by the military.  Simply by virtue of there being too many of us.  Not because they were bad officers.  Not because there had been disciplinary issues.  For no other reason than the fact that the Air Force got a little crazy with the recruiting there for a while and recently realized they couldn't afford to pay us and fight a war at the same time.  All three of these officers were prior enlisted which means that even though they only commissioned two or three years ago, they've accumulated over a decade of military service each that is now for nothing.  A resume booster.  It's kind of a dark atmosphere around here and I honestly don't know what to say to them.

"Hey, sorry you lost your job... want to go to lunch?"

I suppose they could try to come back in as guard or reserves, but with further cuts coming to active duty and guard/enlisted troops, they'd just be back in the line of fire in another few months.  I don't think a person can deal with that kind of rejection again that soon.

As for me, I just try to keep my head down and my mouth shut for now.  I'm very careful of what I say to who and try to avoid the subject all together with any supervisors or commanders.  It's kind of a crazy time to be in the Air Force right now for a number of different reasons.  A really crazy time.

And then, on top of all that, Chris got voted off of American Idol.  I'm not sure I want to live in a world that can choose Elliott and Taylor over Chris and Katharine.

Comments

[Becky]

I didn't realize they did that for people that hadn't really done anything wrong. YOu're right, since they didn't make it to 20, their time thus far is worthless. There's something rather odd about the fact that we continue to hear that there aren't enough troops to really finish this war off, yet they're saying they can't pay for the ones it would take? I wonder if it's across all services?

[M]

The shortage is with finding ground pounders. The Air Force and most communities in the Navy are overmanned. The Army and Marines are running their folks into the ground, the DOD only has so much money, and they're taking it from the other services to support the Army in particular. On our side, we are all fully expecting to "augment" somewhere ugly for 6-12 months while on our shore tour.

Knowing a tiny bit about manpower and funding, I'd say that although I am appalled that JO's with prior enlisted time would be on the guillotine, that would provide the most potential savings to the number crunchers while keeping endstrength. It's really quite disgusting, but at the same time, the other alternative would be to cut more people... with the remaining folks still having to maintain the same output... so the optempo would be even higher, attrition higher, etc.

It's a lot easier for the big wigs in their cubicles and conference rooms to make these decisions than it is to be the real, live person having to deal with the consequences.

[Culotte]

Holy crap! You're the first person linking to me on their blogroll. I'm so mother effing honored.

You have a very interesting perspective you have, by the way. And while I'm not watching American Idol this season (I couldn't take the loss of Constantine last year- never again), I feel your pain.

[RisibleGirl]

That's going on in my company too. Lots of peers from 15 years ago even being laid off.

I'm doing my best to fly under the radar these days. Yech.