Comment on Anon manages the impossible

• cobysev@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I can’t speak for the other branches, but the Air Force’s physical requirements actually got harder in 2010.

  When the Iraq War kicked off in 2003, they opened the floodgates and recruited everyone they possibly could. As far as I know, physical requirements didn’t change then. I actually signed up a month before 9/11 happened, so when I was processing through MEPS in late 2001, everyone was gung-ho about serving and fighting terrorists to “protect America.” And our medical evaluation was pretty standard.

  About a year later, when things started to settle down over there, the federal govt realized they were way over their federal allotment for service members. The Air Force specifically had an excess of 14,000 members they needed to get rid of. And so began many programs over the next decade to cull our numbers and get back to our federal limit.

  At first, they gave us the option to nullify our contract and walk. But when people tried to take that option, commanders wouldn’t release them because they didn’t want to lose manpower. So the federal govt had to change the program, saying that no one - not even commanders - could deny you if you wanted to leave.

  A lot of people left, but that didn’t get rid of the numbers they wanted, so other programs went into effect. They started cutting people by overmanned career fields. They also started denying tons of reenlistments. I almost didn’t get to stay in the Air Force because they were only approving like 10-11 reenlistments per month, and I was #252 on the waiting list, with only 4 months left until I either reenlisted or got the boot. But at the last minute, when my final month was up, they said they hit their quota for the year and everyone else on the waiting list was automatically approved.

  We started calling it the Air Force Hunger Games, because you never knew if your job was safe. Officers had no chance; it was rationalized that, since they already have a bachelor’s degree (a requirement before becoming an officer), that they will do fine on the outside, so they were just cut without warning. Lists of officer names would drop each month, and if your name was on it, your career was over and you had to go home.

  I was enlisted, not officer, so they usually gave us a better chance of sticking around. But I remember one year, I barely missed the cutoff for promotion to Technical Sergeant (E-6) and shortly after, all E-6’s in my career field with my time in service got the boot.

  In 2010, the Air Force decided that our PT (Physical Training) requirements were too lax, so they changed the annual test practically overnight. The new policy saw people failing like crazy, and subsequently getting kicked out. That helped reduce our numbers greatly.

  They also added a waist measurement to our PT test, justifying that people over a certain waist size were at greater risk of heart disease and other health complications. That was the hardest component of our test, because if you failed, you had a month to get in shape and pass.

  You know how hard it is to lose inches on your waist in only a month? Almost no one passed after failing a waist measurement. It was a hotly debated topic for the next decade, and they finally removed it from our tests about a year or two ago. I never had to worry about it because I was always a scrawny kid, so I got max points on the waist measurement component every time.

  I will say, I stopped hearing about the Air Force Hunger Games sometime around 2015 or so. I think the Air Force finally made it to their quota. Heck, around 2018 or so, the Air Force changed our enlisted HYT (high-year tenure), allowing lower ranks to stay in longer before being forced to separate. A Staff Sergeant (E-5), the lowest of the leadership roles, can actually stay in for 20 years and qualify for retirement now. They said we needed more technical experts/lower leadership roles to stick around longer, as they were what kept us functioning smoothly. The higher ranks (E-7 through E-9) were strict upper management, and the Airmen (E-1 through E-4) were just workhorses. It was the middle ranks (E-5/E-6) that were experts in their field, managed the Airmen directly, and implemented the projects passed down the ranks.

  Long-winded story short, I’ve never heard of the Air Force specifically dropping physical requirements to get people to join. Heck, they always stressed how important it was that we were in the best shape we could be in, because you never know when you’ll find yourself behind enemy lines with a 100 lb ruck sack, and the nearest military base is 10 miles away. You need to be able to handle some extreme physical situations in order to survive. And the team is only as strong as their weakest member.

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  • SupraMario@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I remember the air force doing something like this, as I had a buddy who was dropped and he was one of those guys with a degree. He never planned on doing the career thing but it was a shock to him. Nice input though.

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