Document created: 11 August 05
Air University Review, September-October 1966

Military-Civilian Manpower
in the Air Force

Colonel James F. Risher, Jr.

The Current Department of Defense project for the replacement of some 75,000 military personnel with a somewhat smaller number of civilians has been treated in the news media as a rather original management concept. Most news accounts of these plans have failed to make even passing note of the fact that for years civilian employees have constituted a substantial portion of the operating forces of the Department of Defense. Such treatment may leave an impression that the feasibility of employing civilians in many support jobs has been overlooked in the past by military management.

Such an impression regarding the Air Force would indeed be erroneous. We can look over the span of the past twelve years or so and say that—taking an average of the many fluctuations of the manpower program and onboard strength—approximately one in four of Air Force personnel at any point in time has been a civilian. During this span of years civilian employees have performed not only in the support and administrative functions referred to in recent news accounts concerning the DOD announcement but also in most types of assignment except those requiring rated specialties or command of Air Force units. Even these exceptions require some qualifying explanation. We have had civilian flight instructors, employed on a contract basis, at various periods throughout Air Force history. Many Air Force command pilots on active duty today shot their first landings and many subsequent ones under the watchful eyes of a civilian instructor. And while I can cite no record of a civilian employee exercising command of an Air Force unit, civilian employees of the Air Force have served in a vast number of senior supervisory capacities. Air Force civilians have supervised and evaluated the performance of Air Force officers through the rank of colonel in a variety of assignments and circumstances.

These preliminary generalities are so well known to most Air Force readers that our purpose in citing them may be questioned. Our purpose is most assuredly not to suggest an attitude of resistance to the latest Department of Defense program for selective replacement of military personnel with civilians. On the contrary, these familiar facts are cited as an introduction to a discussion of related but less familiar facts which will show that the Air Force has long pursued the management objectives of this DOD project.

A review of Air Force manpower management history of the past twelve years reveals several massive projects and numerous lesser ones designed to make maximum use of civilian personnel in lieu of military. These projects have all had the purpose of determining and achieving the proper military-civilian mix (to use a popular term) in the Air Force personnel structure at a particular point in time. The term “mix” refers to the total manpower capability that is purchased with Department of Defense funds to carry out the Air Force mission—not only in-service military and civilian personnel but also contractual services. Contractual services will be covered in more detail at a later point in our discussion.

Our primary purpose here is to trace the more significant of those actions taken from time to time to establish the optimum force mix of in-service military and civilian personnel. Although we make frequent reference to historical documents, we make no pretense of completely documenting this facet of management history within the scope of this article. At most, we hope to provide an outline of the Air Force approach to this aspect of force management, the criteria employed, problems encountered, and results achieved.

An early, if not the earliest, studied effort to make maximum practical use of civilians on an Air Force-wide basis was conceived in September 1953. While this project, officially known as “Native Son,” was concerned primarily with overseas areas, its implications and effect were not limited to these areas. Late in 1953, Hq USAF dispatched a team of staff representatives to Far East Air Forces (FEAF) an United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) to determine, in collaboration with these commands, how many military and Department of the Air Force (DAF) civilian personnel could be replaced with native personnel.

The criteria for substitution took into consideration the requirements for security, requirements for mobility and quick reaction time of tactical units and their support functions, availability of local labor resources, local training capabilities and potentials, and other factors essential to such actions. As a result of these surveys, approximately 43,000 military (some DAF civilian) personnel authorizations were programmed for retrieval in fiscal years 1954 and 1955 by replacement with some 31,300 native personnel.¹ (The difference between military spaces retrieved and native substitutions is explained, no doubt, by savings in the military pipeline, reductions in training overhead, etc.—essentially the same factors that enter the current DOD calculation that 60,000 civilians will replace 75,000 military.)

Speedy and aggressive action was taken to implement this program. The greater portion of the two-year objective was achieved in FY 1954 and the remainder, as planned, in FY 1955.²

The significance of Project Native Son cannot be easily overstated. In the first place, the approximately 43,000 military authorizations saved constituted about half of the over 86,000 total military reductions which were achieved or firmly programmed through a variety of management actions in the 1953-55 time period. These actions were all part of a concerted effort to bring Air Force manpower in line with the ceilings imposed. In the second place, the difference in cost of native salaries and the overall cost of maintaining the equivalent military and DAF civilian force overseas resulted in very significant monetary savings. From the standpoint of benefit to native economies, promotion of good community relations and understanding, and other intrinsic aspects, Native Son was a very significant program.

This is not to say that there were no disadvantages to be overcome. Difficulties and limitations did occur, and they varied considerably from one location to another. Broadly speaking, there was an overall loss of productivity in individual jobs until training programs could improve skill levels of native personnel. This was true even though native personnel were employed for the most part only in the more routine and uncomplicated administrative and general support functions. Even today, despite much-improved training programs developed over the years, we must accept some loss of efficiency in order to attain the overall advantages of hiring native personnel to perform Air Force jobs around the globe.

Another type of disadvantage, recognized in preparation and defense of the FY 55 manpower program, was that civilian substitutions tended to make the ratios of officers to airmen and of NCO's to lower-grade airmen apparently top-heavy. It was explained that this was because the civilian substitutions were generally in the lower grades of airmen and that the trend in military ratios would be deceptive unless the basic cause was understood. The FY 55 program was approved with knowledge of both trend and cause.

Changes in numbers and types of units in the overseas commands have caused fluctuations from time to time in the ratios of native personnel to Air Force military and DAF civilian personnel. This is inherent in the periodic application of acceptable criteria to current unit and mission composition. However, it appears that Native Son set a pattern for management of overseas personnel resources which has continued, with refinements, to the present.

Project Home Front was begun in 1954 as a corollary of Native Son, which was terminated as a formal project in that year.³ The objective was to make feasible substitutions of civilian for military personnel, primarily in the enlisted ranks, in the United States.

The Home Front project was prompted not only by the success of the overseas project but by an increasing shortage of airman skills resulting from the expiration of enlistments contracted during the Korean conflict. The project developed, therefore, as a closely controlled substitution of civilian authorizations and personnel for military as skill shortages occurred or were firmly forecast. The time period of Home Front as an active project was late FY 55 through FY 56.

This substitution program employed essentially the same criteria as the previous overseas program. Security requirements, mobility and response capabilities of tactical units and their direct support functions, availability of civilian manpower in the required skills, local training capabilities and potentials for sharpening and orienting available skills to Air Force job requirements—all these factors were applied to the many local situations involved. The foremost additional criterion, which was closely monitored from Air Force headquarters, was the maintenance of or, in some cases, adjustment to an acceptable ratio of zone-of-interior to overseas (ZI/OS) in the various skills. This was considered necessary in order to avoid excessive or unusually protracted overseas duty among airman skills where the ratio was not sufficient. Personnel staffs contended, with convincing logic, that failure to control this factor would affect re-enlistments adversely and in the long run compound a situation the correction of which was one of the objectives.

In order to attain the overall balancing of skills in this respect (the ZI/OS ratio), military authorizations were actually increased in some skills under Home Front, although the main objective and trend were in the other direction.

 Home Front ceased as an active project on 30 June 1956, with provisions for completion of unfilled major command hiring objectives by early 1957.⁴ The original goal of approximately 30,000 substitutions was essentially achieved.

There is little need to belabor these two early Air Force projects in view of the many subsequent changes in manpower programs and force composition. They were self-generated projects, employing criteria generally acceptable to the Air Force commanders concerned. Yet together the two projects substituted approximately 61,000 civilians for some 73,000 military personnel during the 1954-56 period—approximately the current DOD objective for at least the first phase of substitution in the entire defense structure.

The concept of management that gradually emerged required selective use of and strict accounting for contract services as a part of the total manpower mix. Thus the function of manpower contract management was established in the Air Staff (Directorate of Manpower and Organization) in 1959,⁵ to be the focal point for Air Staff action on contractual services involving manpower. It was recognized that management of the Air Force dollar expenditure for manpower involves coordinated management and administration of three distinctly different manpower resources: military manpower, inservice civilian manpower, and manpower obtained through contract.

We use the words “distinctly different” advisedly. Before continuing the discussion of more recent developments from the standpoint of overall Air Force management, let us indulge in a rather elementary discussion of the matter from the viewpoint of the Air Force commander—whether of squadron, base, or major command—in performance of his mission.

If there were no differences in the manner in which civilian and military personnel are administered and paid, no difference in classification and promotion procedures, no difference in legal rights and privileges, there would be small choice—from the responsible commander's viewpoint—as to which jobs under his control were occupied by military and which by civilians. Contractual services represent still another resource available to the Air Force commander.

It seems reasonable to say that the commander's degree of positive control over the personnel resources allotted to his particular mission is in the following order: first, military; second, in-service civilian; and, third, contractual services.

Thus the commander whose mission calls for execution of contingency plans and other immediate responses, or for frequent overtime and unusual hours to fulfill unprogrammed requirements, will be most reluctant to have a significant portion of his in-service personnel civilian, and he will not willingly accept contractual services as a part of his resource. By contrast, the limit of his control for movement or overtime of the military resource is the limit of human compassion and endurance. His control over the in-service civilian is largely circumscribed by his funding ability to provide for overtime. (This is no disparagement of our loyal and industrious civilian employees; it is an administrative fact of life. When funds were not available, civilians of all grades have worked overtime for compensatory time off, often never realized. Furthermore, civilians in executive positions do not distinguish between normal time and overtime in “getting the job done.” The basic funding limitation on overtime in a large work force, however, is obvious.) With contractual services, of course, the commander is limited by the terms of the contract.

On the other hand, the commander whose mission assures him of a reasonably firm prediction of requirements will welcome contractual services for many functions. His burden of training and supervision is removed, and he is concerned only with quality of performance or services provided. The contract has actually purchased some degree of relief from responsibility and supervisory workload. Similarly, he may welcome or prefer civilian employees because his mission can thus be accomplished with a smaller military force to be supported and administered on a 24-hour basis.

Any discussion of this matter must recognize that these three elements of manpower represent not only divergent potentialities and limitations to the Air Force commander. They represent and are subject to divergent interests and pressures on the national economic and governmental level. Furthermore, the Air Force's ability to manage the primary resource, the professional Air Force officer and the enlisted airman, is inescapably dependent upon how well the total force is blended. It is dependent, to a great extent, upon how well the various pressures of rightful interest are objectively evaluated and balanced to provide reasonable stability in the manpower program.

Two extracts from Air Force management history, spanning the 1960-61 period, provide graphic record of these pressures in action.

. . . During this period [July-Dec. 60], an increasing number of requirements have been laid on . . . to provide data and information to various Congressional groups and to answer specific inquiries regarding the Air Force policy on the utilization of military, in-service civilian and contract service manpower resources. Operating under fixed manpower ceilings and policies and procedures which do not fully reflect the integrated management of all types of manpower resources required by the Air Force, the Air Force is faced with explaining an increasing number of problems that result from the adjustments which must be made among various types of manpower resources to accomplish changing workloads. Continued effort is being made. . . to establish mutually consistent policies and to have these policies accepted throughout the Air Staff, the Department of Defense and by the Congress.”⁶ (Italics supplied.)

. . . No let-up was experienced in the number and variety of Congressional inquiries and hearings received during this period. All could be broken into one of two categories—those concerning the replacement of contract personnel by inservice personnel or those concerning the replacement of civil service personnel by contract personnel. The inquiries covered subjects as varied as motor vehicle maintenance, BMEWS, SAGE, Missiles, pilot training, etc. . . .⁷

It is beyond our scope to trace the numerous fluctuations of the force structure resulting from developments in aircraft, weapons, and equipment, the changes and adaptations of operational concepts and techniques, the reaction to world tensions (the Berlin Crisis of 1961, for example), and the adjustments to the hard facts of budgetary limitations and manpower ceilings. However, an examination of any single year's M&O history will identify numerous actions to improve efficiency of operations, reduce manpower costs, shift resources to priority missions, and make management decisions to properly adjust the manpower forces among the military, in-service civilian, and contractual services elements. 

Many of these actions were in response to guidance from the Department of Defense. Some were in response to the DOD's continuing drive to consolidate functions and services common to all departments. Still others—less in scope but no less significant—originated within the major commands and subordinate organizations in response to the Air Force's continuing management improvement program. These ranged widely in scope of action and variety of organizations and activities concerned. They involved periodic surveys and manning adjustments of various headquarters staffs, major organizational realignments among and within the major commands, and decisions to contract or not to contract various support functions. These actions involved significant numbers of personnel, both military and civilian, and sizable funds.

In the period 1962-64 a comprehensive review of the entire Air Force structure was conducted with the purpose of revalidating and revising, as necessary, guidance to field commanders for determining the proper balance of manpower resources. This review, actually initiated in late 1961, in its first and final phases involved the entire Air Staff. The staff, each element working in its primary functional area, developed proposed manning criteria by type of resource (military, civilian, and contract services) for all the many Air Force functions. These recommendations were incorporated in instructions to the major commands, which were requested to review and comment on the Air Staff's proposed criteria. Fund limitations, personnel ceilings, and ZI/OS personnel ratios were not considered in this analysis, since the objective was to establish a “pure” requirements.⁸

In due course, detailed recommendations from all major commands were received, involving every function and every type of job in the Air Force. Analysis of command recommendations revealed a number of areas in which there was general agreement on substantial conversions from one type of manpower to another. While these recommendations were being reviewed by the Air Staff, the Department of Defense requested the Air Force to develop views on a proposed conversion of 6000 military authorizations to 4500 civilian (primarily in MATS aircraft maintenance) and to perform a survey of all Air Force military positions for possible conversion to civilian authorizations (OSD Project 6). The Manpower MIX project proved timely indeed to the Air Staff in response to the requests.⁹

A most significant result of the Manpower MIX and Project 6 studies was the synthesis of their findings into updated policy and criteria, which were reflected in Air Force Regulation 26-10, “Manpower Utilization,” 24 February 1964 (superseding AFR 40-3, “Utilization of Civilians within the Air Force”) and a revision, 9 June 1964, to AFR 25-6, “Use of Contractual Services,” 5 October 1960.

Three distinct principles of management, which are complementary and mutually supporting, are delineated in the first paragraph of AFR 26-10.

The first of these principles we may call that of the total force:

The second principle we may refer to as that of the primary military mission and organization:

The third and by no means least significant principle we may refer to as that of the military-civilian team:

Whatever else may be apparent from our review of management history, the dynamic, continually shifting nature of the Air Force personnel structure is evident. For this reason if no other, we hesitate to speak of permanence in discussing any aspect of its management—even such an abstract thing as a management principle. Yet, is there any manager who will contend that the Air Force can do other than think and manage in terms of the total force, with all the subtle factors involved? Is there any managerial logic that can eliminate or bypass the primary military mission and organization principle? Or, is there any recent development in management techniques that can or should outmode the Air Force's principle of the military-civilian team?

In the absence of positive evidence to the contrary, one is tempted to suggest that there is an enduring quality in these principles which will make them basic to force management for the foreseeable future.

We make no such suggestion of longevity about the existing composition of the force, however, or about the specifics of criteria which may implement these principles at any given time. We have already recognized that application of current criteria brings some degree of change on almost a daily basis. Periodic major reviews, such as we have discussed, will bring substantial alterations of the force composition, because of the complicated nature of the mission and organization and the shifting factors that play upon them.

Periodic and timely reviews of criteria may be expected to eliminate or reduce the significance of certain elements, while perhaps introducing new considerations. The definitions of direct and indirect support of tactical (combat) units, for example, may have different connotations and applications in the age of manned satellites and space vehicles. There may be an evolution of thought and experience as to the balance between military and civilian in supervisory and staff positions. The problem of overseas rotation of personnel (maintenance of an acceptable ZI/OS ratio) may be diminished with reduction in overseas force commitments. The many impeding disparities in administration, pay, promotion, and legal rights and status between military and civilian personnel may be corrected or alleviated. Should this latter occur, the Air Force's concept of the “total force” would be considerably enhanced.

This recognition of inevitable change is not, by any means, a suggestion of change for its own sake. We may predict that our present criteria may be revised in due course without implying that we should waive or discredit current guidelines hastily. The only force we can bring to bear on this management problem is human judgment, fortified by experience and a knowledge of and appreciation for the Air Force mission in all its intricacies.

Our past experience has amply demonstrated that significant alterations of the force structure should be made only after the most searching analysis of the many factors involved. Although we have reviewed several major projects that improved overall force management, we have no reason to contend that all past personnel substitutions, either one way or the other, have been good for the Air Force from the standpoint of personnel management. Many substitutions were made in response to influences and necessities not directly related to accepted management principles. And of course we have no reason to hope that the future will shield us from the necessity of making drastic alterations, in either direction, which must be recognized as undesirable from the standpoint of the Air Force's internal management. If overriding national objectives, of whatever nature, require this, the inescapable adverse effects upon career integrity, morale, and motivation of the military or civilian element must be recognized. The inevitable costs of these human reactions cannot be truly evaluated because of the many elusive factors involved, but they cannot be discounted.

With reference to the current Department of Defense project, we may assume that past actions of the Air Force in this area of management will be the base line for future changes of force structure. We cannot speculate as to the number of civilian substitutions that may be profitably made in the Air Force at this time. We do, however, have reason to believe that Air Force management is prepared to provide a realistic answer to this question.

Notes

1. History of the Directorate of Manpower and Organization, Hq USAF, DCS/O, 1 July-31 December 1953, p. 18. Hereafter cited as History, M&O.

2. History, M&O, 1 January-30 June 1954.

3. History, M&O, 1 January-30 June 1955.

4. History, M&O, 1 January-30 June 1956.

5. History, M&O, 1 January-30 June 1962.

6. History, M&O, 1 July-31 December 1960.

7. History, M&O, 1 January-30 June 1961.

8. History, M&O, 1 July-31 December 1961.

9. History, M&O, 1 January-30 June 1962.

10. Air Force Regulation 26-10, “Manpower Utilization,” 24 February 1964.

Contributor

Colonel James F. Risher, Jr. (M.A., University of South Carolina) is a member of the Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, Air University. He received his Air Force wings in July 1943 after previous service as an infantry 1st lieutenant. He completed a combat tour as a B-17 pilot in the Eighth Air Force in 1944. Subsequent assignments have been as a staff officer in the Directorate of Manpower and Organization, Hq USAF, 1951-55; Professor of Air Science and Commander, AFROTC Detachment, North Carolina State University, 1955-58; Deputy Commander, 6313th AB Wing, Kadena AB, Okinawa, 1958-61; and Chief, Ground Safety Division, Directorate of Aerospace Safety, Deputy Inspector General Group, Norton AFB, California, 1961-65. Colonel Risher is a graduate of the Air Tactical School and Command and General Staff School.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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