Air University Review, November-December 1984
Dr. Charles C. Moskos
IN THE spring of 1983, I was privileged to spend several days with Strategic Air Command (SAC) units at Minot and Grand Forks Air Force Bases in North Dakota. During that time, in the company of a small group of U.S. Air Force officers from manpower and personnel headquarters, I conducted "focused interviews" with small groups of enlisted members. The average interview session lasted about one hour and typically consisted of four to six participants. These groups of enlisted personnel were homogeneous in terms of Air Force specialty code (AFSC) and rank. In this manner, we talked with lower-ranking airmen and both junior and senior noncommissioned officers (NCOS) in various SAC assignments (i.e., bomber, tanker, missile squadrons, and general support services).
The reception these Air Force men and women accorded their visitors was characterized by candor and often by good fellowship as well. The people assigned to the Strategic Air Command bases at Minot and Grand Forks are truly impressive. The SAC mission is being carried out by people of high quality and dedication.
Although I have conducted research on the armed forces for many years, this trip provided me with an opportunity to become acquainted with a part of the Air Force with which I had had little previous direct knowledge. My purpose was not to focus on issues specific to Minot or Grand Forks but to form some ideas and tentative conclusions that had more general applicability to Air Force personnel issues. This article is an informal account of some of the personnel issues as I saw them.
The renewed emphasis to improve the quality of the enlisted force within the Air Force is an effort to produce or strengthen the "whole airman." No longer is off-duty behavior considered irrelevant to the airman's role. In the longer view of things, emphasizing the total person and life-style is clearly a step to reinvigorate the professional or institutional aspects of Air Force and to reverse the trend toward occupationalism or an "eight-to-five" mentality. These goals can be pursued largely because recruitment and retention have taken a considerable upturn in the early 1980s.
From the viewpoint of some lower-ranking airmen, however, such quality emphasis is sometimes seen as capricious or heavy-handed. Some individuals are surprised to learn that one can be discharged from the Air Force for such behavior patterns as off-duty drug use, driving while intoxicated, writing bad checks, and even repeatedly missing appointments. Likewise, some middle-level supervisors find the new role of melding job performance and off-duty behavior unsettling. None of these reactions should be surprising.
On no account, however, should the Air Force retreat from a quality force. But it may be advisable to consider ways to give lower-ranking airmen a bigger picture or context. Precisely because higher standards are expected of airmen than of civilians, the point should be made that the Air Force is a way of life, more honorable and distinctive than that followed by most of their civilian counterparts. Airmen might also be reminded of the low-quality performers who were removed, and whose departure has made for better work and living environments. The mechanisms for imparting this information and attitude might be first sergeants' initiatives, commander's calls, printed media, and possibly peer communications.
Similarly, there is a widespread view that promotion time for junior airmen has been lengthened substantially. Some of this thinking reflects a confusion between time-in-grade and time-in-service requirements. Few airmen perceive delayed promotions as the inevitable outcome of improved retention rates. Again, factual and contextual information must be transmitted to the airmen. We, in our own small way as interviewing visitors, were able to defuse some of the concerns about slow promotion.
In light of the proposed pay freeze at the time of the interviews, we expected to find some resentment about pay. We found less than we had anticipated. Perhaps the slowing of inflation rate, the sense of security offered by the Air Force, and the absolute amount of compensation combined to reduce concern over the proposed pay freeze. Significantly, fewer airmen compared their pay with that of civilian counterparts than I had expected. Indeed, when comparisons were made with civilian friends, they were usually to the advantage of the Air Force. A striking fact that emerged during the interview sessions, however, was that most airmen did not see themselves performing work that had a civilian counterpart. When comparisons were made, they were much more often with federal employees than with private-sector workers.
By far the most frequent contrasts made by Air Force members were in regard to other Air Force members. In particular, there was some resentment expressed by those who were subjected to irregular shifts or alert cycles as opposed to those who had "less demanding" jobs with regular hours. In this aspect, the Air Force "institutionalists" seemed to be reacting against the "occupationalists."
I recommend that the Air Force reexamine how support facilities can adjust to those who work at the center of Air Force functions, rather than the other way around. One illustration of how helpful scheduling can be accomplished is the way some on-base college courses have classes that are repeated several times during the week. Perhaps this kind of flexibility is needed in other support services.
It appears that career incentives and motives vary, depending on where one is located in the Air Force career structure. Of course, there are individual exceptions, but the following generalizations seem warranted.
recruits
People join the Air Force out of a combination of reasons: patriotism, a desire for skill training, a chance to do something different, and the state of economy. These factors affect recruitment propensity in other services also. I would argue, however, that the model Air Force recruit is someone who sees the Air Force as a means of upward mobility, a way to acquire a position unavailable in civilian life and responsible and secure to a degree not found in the other services. Such recruits, in time, become the backbone of the technical branches and the NCO cadres. Therefore, postservice education benefits (such as the GI Bill of Rights) are not as important to Air Force recruits as in-service education and skill training.
first-term reenlistees
For the person who has been in the Air Force four to six years and is considering reenlistment, the variables are different from those of the recruit. Job satisfaction, career development, and a reenlistment bonus, if available, become paramount. Geographical assignment also becomes a factor (although this aspect may be more pressing for those stationed in the northern tier). If family considerations are present, base facilities and medical benefits for family members also assume importance.
career reenlistees
For the person who has been in the Air Force ten years or so, yet another setof considerations becomes salient. The Air Force as a "way of life" becomes ingrained, and "in-kind" compensation takes on added importance. Retirement benefits loom extremely important. The continual talk of changing the retirement system has become a kind of running sore in career commitment; it also causes senior NCOs to transmit negative vibrations to junior airmen. Settling the retirement issue should be a top priority in the military personnel community.
Bringing midlevel technicians into career enlistments is the crucial issue. If there must be a primary focus on any enlisted group, it should be on technicians in the second enlistment. In-service education, perhaps including a "sabbatical" for engineering training, would be more appealing than the GI Bill with transferability provisions for dependents.
Among this older group too is the widespread view that the level of technical experience is dropping, that the younger technicians of today are less broadly trained than in times past, and that general technical expertise is giving way to more narrow, if not rote, mechanical skills. Thus, advanced technical training may not only serve to strengthen commitment in an important segment of the enlisted career force but also enhance operational readiness significantly.
The Air Force is undergoing a transformation in one significant way that is perhaps not fully recognized. Security personnel now make up the third largest Air Force specialty--8 percent of all enlisted personnel-and, it is reported, upward of 20 percent of personnel at major SAC bases. In all likelihood, the security function will continue to be a growing one. Nuclear weapons, in particular, require stringent security precautions. The Air Force is moving into a situation where there is an interface between highly technical and labor-intensive skills. The implications of this phenomenon are yet to be recognized, much less assessed.
The crux of the issue for the security force is that security duty is tedious and boring. At the same time, security personnel must be capable of reacting quickly and appropriately in the event of security violations. Viewing this situation, I would advance the hypothesis that post-entry disillusionment is higher in the security force than in just about any other enlisted specialty. One of the central manpower concerns of the Air Force in the years to come may well be the maintenance of morale and alertness in the security force.
The role of women in the Air Force seems to be approaching some sort of balance. I project slightly increasing numbers of women in the Air Force, with, at the same time, proportionately fewer assigned to hard-core, "nontraditional" work. I see trends toward some kind of formal movement on the part of Air Force women toward a form of distinctive consideration. Already, certain junior female officers are designated "resident consultants for women" to advise enlisted females. There is a National Military Women's Pilots Association, which apparently is in the process of changing its name and constituency to National Military Women's Association. Informal "networking" among women in the Air Force will in all likelihood become more pronounced.
The issues of fraternization and joint-service marriages will continue to cause command concern and administrative headaches. Official policy will be to discourage fraternization strongly, perhaps by establishing and enforcing specific guidelines, and to make fewer accommodations to joint-service couples. Simultaneously, the incidence of both fraternization and joint-service marriages is likely to continue to grow. I would estimate that currently about one-fourth of all Air Force women have military spouses.
Future trends in the role of civilian spouses of Air Force personnel are not easy to predict. I do not see a renaissance or widely based return of wives in the volunteer activities that underlay so much of the military community in the past. What may occur, however, is that the individual wife may take part in base activities with different intensities during different assignments. Such participation will be inversely related to job opportunities in the base area.
An increasing proportion of officers in the security field will probably have prior enlisted service. The same pattern seems to be true for missile officers. Thus many officers in security and missile assignments will be retiring after only fourteen or so years of commissioned service. The implications of this trend need to be taken into account in the long-range manning of the officer corps. There is also the anomaly that progression from the enlisted ranks into the officer corps is more characteristic of enlisted members from relatively soft skills than from those with technical skills.
The growing public debate on national strategy and nuclear deterrence will have impacts on definitions of Air Force professionalism. We can expect that the debate will lead to more self-reflection within the Air Force on the role of the Air Force. Some individual Air Force members may dissent from national policy publicly and cause some organizational embarrassment. The heightened interest in national security issues, however, will dovetail with efforts to emphasize the calling aspect of Air Force life. Ultimately, public debate will foster an internal consensus on the Air Force role and contribute to a more professional definition of Air Force service.
In general, there can be little question that organizational trends within the Air Force are positive. The Air Force is going through a period of transition and is moving toward a modern form of military professionalism and institutional commitment. The trend toward "occupationalism" seems to have crested. A new equilibrium in the service is being struck in many ways. The quality emphasis within the enlisted force, for example, can be interpreted as making the Air Force role more inclusive than it has been in the immediate past. Pay-by-skill formulas will be proposed and perhaps even partially adopted, but the long-term trend will be toward a greater appreciation of nonsalary forms of compensation. Air Force leaders must continue to show vigilance in counteracting persistent external pressures to move the armed services toward an occupational model.
Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois
Contributor
Charles C. Moskos (B.A., Princeton University; Ph.D., UCLA) is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Rockfeller Foundation Humanities Fellow. Dr. Moskos is the author of The American Enlisted Man (1970), Peace Soliders 91976), and articles that have appeared in the Review and many other publication.
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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