Remember how the Air Force had to fire a bunch of officers when it was found that they fudged their readiness evaluations? Apparently, the solution is to throw money at the personnel problems in that career field, according to the Air Force Times;
The Air Force announced bonuses for missileers, which have made officers in the 13N career field the highest paid for the first six years of their careers. A new second lieutenant makes $34,862 per year, and a missileer in that rank is eligible for bonuses of up to $300 per month, along with additional bonuses for those who complete initial skills training and targeted incentive pay for airmen operating outside their main base.
After six years, pilots are eligible for aviation pay, which then makes them the highest paid.
In addition to pay, the Air Force has provided new vehicles to officers, deep-cleaned their launch control facilities, and adjusted their schedules to improve their quality of life, Harencak said Tuesday at an Air Force. More changes are still to come as the service continues to review recommendations from Global Strike Command’s force improvement program.
Well, that should attract a better class of people – you know, folks who will do the job for it’s own sake rather than being mercenary about it all.
Oh how I miss Strategic Air Command! General LeMay has to be spinning in his grave.
Agreed!
Had he been around when this first came to light, he probably would’ve shot somebody.
Don’t think so.
In spite of his reputaiton, LeMay was actually a reasonable man – hard as hell, but reasonable. Virtually all of his apparently “out of control” acts were actually calculated actions designed to cause a specific outcome.
On the other hand, LeMay’s successor at SAC – Thomas Power – might well actually have tried to have somebody shot. LeMay himself once agreed that Power was somewhat of a “sadist” and called him an “autocratic son-of-a-bitch”.
I dodged a bullet telling my recruiter that I wanted nothing to do with nuclear. Despite his repeated pushing. Now that I think about it, he was like an overly amorous boyfriend trying to push boundaries.
Don’t most of these jobs involve sitting in bunkers underground, staring at monitor screens?
I think I’d want more stuff, too.
Similiar to “F#ck up, move up” ?
Yeah, somewhere around $250 per month after taxes will buy a helluva lot of extra competence.
I hope the sarcasm above is obvious.
Attention, USAF: this is due to selection, training, and leadership problems. Money ain’t gonna fix it.
It may not buy “competence” but for the missileers who are stationed at FE Warren in Cheyenne, WY they can zip across the border to Colorado and buy some decent weed with that money. 😉
Theres a whole squadron of missileers out of FEW that operate solely in Colorado
Yeah, but they can’t take it back out of Colorado. Or, they aren’t *supposed* to.
Its one thing to give proficiency pay for things, but this is them literally paying for their lax leadership and requirements of so many who’ve been relieved.
Hopefully they don’t give others pink slips so they can afford to pay for this new “option” of theirs.
I remember reading about a CSM Conference a decade ago. Someone asked the SMA about pro pay for Army Instructors because of the job they do.
His response, “Well, instead of giving that to ONE group of Soldiers, I’d rather roll it up into base pay for everyone.”
4 months later, Drill Sergeants got a pro pay increase… Oh, big surprise, that SMA was a former Drill too.
It’s something to pray for, but let’s face it. The AF is gonna renege on the “pause” to the retention boards, and when they do, you’re gonna see even more enlisted either voluntarily jump ship, or they’re gonna put out more of the actually worthwhile, dyed in the plaid leader type NCOs and SNCOs to cover this cost.
Have we ever had a phony missileer?
Not that I know of. Generally people fake military service to gain respect, not pity. 😀
I don’t see how this could possibly change the morale problems if missileers are still considered the redheaded stepchildren of the USAF.
As long as it’s seen as a dead end career field, nobody is going to choose it if they can choose something more prestigious, which means that by default our most powerful and deadly weapons will be operated by those who couldn’t make the cut into a better career field.
Not exactly confidence-inspiring, eh? As I said before, if the USAF doesn’t respect the ICBM mission (and it seems they don’t) then turn them over to another service (either the Army or the Navy.)
It’s interesting to note that the Soviets resolved this problem by actually having the “strategic rocket forces” as a completely separate service. Looking back, it probably would have been a good idea to do that way back when, but nowadays the last thing we need is another layer of bureaucracy. So turn them over to the Army and call them a branch of the Artillery. Or turn them over to the Navy and have them be a branch of the Navy nuclear forces (although my fear would be that being posted to the likes of FE Warren in Wyoming or Minot, a thousand miles or more from the nearest ocean would be a fate worse than death for any squid worth his salt.)
You hit on the real problem at the end. Almost no one is going to join any branch of the military to sit in a hole in the ground in Wyoming winter.
I’m glad to see the quality of life issues addressed, it’s relatively cheap to do that stuff and it should help a bit with undoubtedly cratered morale. But that and pay and bonuses aren’t going to fix it, they’re going to have to incentivize good folks into that career somehow.
Hell, jjak – incentivizing this would actually be easy. But the USAF won’t like my solution.
Here’s a partial solution on the officer side: phase in a requirement for a minimum of one tour – preferably a launch-officer or command tour – in a missile squadron as a requirement for an officer’s promotion to O5, O6, or O7+ (not sure which level would be best).
Good folks might not want to be there, true. But if it’s a requirement for career progression to higher levels, that will indeed ensure that the proverbial “best and brightest” don’t avoid it like the plague, either.
Model here is joint duty assignments. 30+ years ago, they were considered “bad” and avoided – after all they took the officer away from their parent service doing something “unimportant”. After Goldwater-Nichols, they became highly coveted.
Not sure how to handle some of the enlisted side, particularly the missile maintainers, as that’s often highly equipment- and expertise-dependent. But I think something similar would work there, too, with the possible exception of a small number of missile-specific enlisted specialties.
Well, I agree that’s one way to make it work. Basically treat it like guard duty or post police call: An unglamorous but necessary duty that everyone rotates into and out of.
That would solve the problem of it being a graveyard for poor performers but I’m not sure it would fix the morale problem in the force. After all, nobody gets excited about guard duty or post police call.
Martinjmpr: IMO, “morale problem” is synonymous with “leadership problem”.
Time and good leadership can fix bad unit morale.
You mean a nice, shiney new medal didn’t work?
The precedent is now set-want more money? Cry about morale and cheat on tests…
Okay being a former SAC Titan II crew member I am sitting here head in hands in disgust. The problem here goes along with most current military problems. Ass backwards incentives and motivations. You do not reward an overall Squadron or Wing record of poor performance with more money, better schedules or anything except a little wall to wall counseling on how things are done the SAC way, now the AF Nuclear Program way. (after all we’re not talking about a fucked up inventory count on garden rakes over at Base Civil Engineers. No we’re talking about some of the most serious shit happening. Try to translate this into the Navy Nuclear Submarine program and see what happens and how far and fast it flies.) NO, you give pay bonuses and time off incentives to the consistently top most performers. Non hackers are told to polish up their resumes and look forward to a nice life in the civilian sector.
I just don’t get this. The officers and men I served with, without incentives and with lousy shift rotations, did an exemplary job…always. They had a personal pride about being the number one Squadron, Wing or Group in the Air Force’s Nuclear program. Just the trophies on display at Wing Headquarters were enough. That and the realization that they were doing one of the most serious and deadly jobs on earth. WHAT da hell has happened to this generation of airmen? It seems they have an entitlement mentality when it comes to signing on the line and then giving the service they committed to give and guess what. THE F@CKIN’ AIR FORCE IS AGREEING WITH THEM!!!
I think one could argue that when the Cold War ended, the reason for the existence of the ICBM force did, too. During the Cold War the missileers were the tip of the nuclear spear that kept the commies at bay.
Now they’re….uh…what are they? They’re there because the Soviets and the Chinese have ICBMs but that’s pretty much the ONLY reason they’re there.
If we can’t transfer the missileers to a service that will respect them then maybe it’s time to ask ourselves whether we even need ICBMs at all. After all, our missile subs can reach pretty much anywhere in the world and unlike ICBMs whose locations are known precisely (hell, you can drive right by them on public highways) the locations of our submarines are secret and constantly changing.
Martinjmpr…Excellent point and well taken.
Unless, of course, an adversary makes an unexpected advance in underseas detection and tracking capability. Then subs become just as vulnerable.
The vulnerability of strategic missiles is well-known, and has been for decades. Ditto manned bombers (bases and planes can be targeted). The potential vulnerability of subs in the event of an enemy making such an unexpected at-sea detection capability is why the strategic TRIAD (nuke missiles/bombers/subs) still exists today.
That’s the argument, anyway. Whether it’s valid or not today is a reasonable question. I tend to think yes, but not everyone agrees. And the precise mix and/or numbers are certainly open to debate.
I agree.
And I read somewhere not too long ago that our adversaries can, in fact, determine the location of our subs. I think that was the case for a while. Google “Crazy Ivan”…
I’ll defer to any of our readers who are former submariners, Bill. But my reading of history leads me to believe that “Crazy Ivan” was a maneuver executed by a Soviet sub when they thought they might be being tailed, but weren’t sure.
The thing is, in a time of budget cuts, is this kind of redundancy a luxury we can afford?
Put another way, how many A-10’s can we field for the cost of ONE missile wing (and remember, we have three.) And how much actual capability would we lose if we had TWO missile wings instead of three?
Where is the defense dollar best spent? Certainly if we shuttered one missile wing we’d hear cries of despair from the good people of Minot, Grand Forks or Cheyenne, and undoubtedly the defense contractors who rake in millions or billions a year trying to keep a 40+ year old weapons system operational would scream bloody murder.
But would we, as a nation, be any less safe? I doubt it.
True, but that’s a different discussion. And I did say that the precise mix and numbers was fair game for discussion.
Keeping even a small number of strategic nuke missiles and bombers along with subs retains the classical “strategic triad”. Breaking it requires elimination of all items in one of those 3 categories.
No argument that it’s a discussion we need to have, and that we need a better allocation of resources than we have today. There are indeed some “dinosaurs” out there; the question is which need to become extinct.
Hondo…I agree the nuclear Triad is still a viable deterrent. Even in my time in SAC we knew that in the event of an enemy launch against our silos, our birds would be long gone before the enemy’s first strikes happened. Strikes against by then, empty silos. So I believe the land based nuclear missile program is still necessary and though it is certainly classified, launch protocols and times have only improved since the decades past when I served. This is why I am adamant about the importance of qualified, heads up, skilled and knowledgeable launch and maintenance crews. This is something to be taken very seriously in my opinion. If incentives truly will help then I am for them, but only for the top performers as an incentive for top performance and an example to less than top performers to strive to be better. But to offer incentives to less than top performers as a way to coerce them into better behaviors and performance doesn’t make sense to me and is in my opinion sending the wrong message. I understand life in a silo is not glamorous by any means and not a path to long term career advancement. However when an officer or enlisted person signs their name on the line to serve, they understand it is at the “needs of the service”. Then they have some choices, if they have the skills to get into a better arena of service for promotion they can do so. But they have to understand that if they are bringing less to the table than a pilot qualified person, that they are subject to be assigned to personnel, finance, supply (all very needed and necessary) or if they are a cut above that, a missile command position. No it is not glamorous but it is none the less important and in many ways far more important than a single pilot of a single fighter with the strike capabilities of his single aircraft. I hope I made some sense.
“I think one could argue that when the Cold War ended, the reason for the existence of the ICBM force did, too. During the Cold War the missileers were the tip of the nuclear spear that kept the commies at bay.
“Now they’re….uh…what are they? They’re there because the Soviets and the Chinese have ICBMs but that’s pretty much the ONLY reason they’re there.”
I think you just contradicted yourself. We used to go on alert knowing that if push came to shove, we would be ionized gas in the stratosphere. That didn’t change with the end of the Cold War.
I have a story that illustrates the point I think Sparks is trying to make.
One night on alert we decided that we were plain bored stiff. I looked around and decided it might be fun to spit shine the capsule to make it look better. We started small with the chair rails, and then progressed to rack handles and connectors, and finally the floor plate that the rails rode on. This took place over about a month of alerts. Nobody made us do it – we were just bored and tired of looking at grunge. The topside crew noticed the changes, and the subsequent alerts found them spit shining topside. And fresh paint jobs appeared in the tunnel junction and LECB.
Because – pride in themselves and their facility. And that spread to the rest of the squadron eventually.
THAT was SAC; that’s what’s missing now. And no amount of money or number of medals will restore that. It comes from within.
If the French troops manning the Maginot Line had been the best, most motivated, most STRAC troops in the world, their mission would still have been irrelevant to modern warfare.
Sometimes the world moves on. I’ll bet there were some pretty dedicated horse cavalrymen in the 1930’s, too.
Your argument against is based on a premise that as a 40 year old system, ICBMs are obsolete. Considering that presumably they could still put nukes on target a half a world away, are they any more obsolete than a fighting knife at close range is? I am certainly not qualified to answer.. but I’m sure as hell not voluntarily going into a closet unarmed against a knife-armed opponent, either.
That problem starts at just how pussified BMT has become. I guarantee you if even half of the new enlisted got beat like I’d assume y’all in SAC did, we’d at least be seeing LESS issues coming out of that program. As for the officers, I have no clue, man. It all looks like mutual salad tossing to get that next lapel pin once they get past O-4 from where I see things… Maybe it’s always been that way, or maybe things are just deteriorating everywhere.
Weren’t they batting around the idea of giving them all awards of some kind a few months ago? Now they decide to throw money at the problem. As dumb as the award idea was it would have been cheaper, and no more effective than an incentive pay. How is it that a dumb old dud buster can see that neither an award or incentive pay will fix the problem but big Air Force can’t? Ugh…
But they *are* getting a new medal too.
I especially like how the pilots will get flight pay after six years in the career field. Back when I was in, the pilots got flight pay for flying, and had their proficiency flights scheduled around their alerts as part of their training. So they were paid for actually flying an aeroplane instead of watching TV in the capsule.
But the USAF always was and still is run by pilots for pilots…
I’m going to make a bold prediction and say that within the lifetimes of most of us on TAH (I just turned 53, so I’ll say within the next 25 years) we will see the ICBM force completely decommissioned. The Minuteman bases are already nearly 50 years old and the cost of maintaining them is only going to go up.
At some point, it’s going to be clear that the only way to keep them operational is to invest a huge amount of $$ to come up with a new weapons system and when that happens, I think the DoD will simply decide that we can replicate the deterrent effect of ICBMs by other (less expensive and more flexible) means like manned bombers, drones, and submarines.
Dunno about that, Martinjmpr. At least not on comparative cost grounds.
Trident subs and B2 bombers ain’t exactly cheap. They need bases, too. And both need a helluva lot of maintenance that a solid-fuel missile sitting in a silo does not.
I’m guessing that when you total all the support costs, fixed missiles are actually the cheapest leg of the strategic triad.
Civilian subcontractors.
We’re farming everything else out…
Um, dude . . . civilian contractors don’t work for free. Their employer typically gets mucho dinero for their services, even if they personally only see a fraction of same.
Besides – I think this is one of those things that falls into the “inherently governmental” categories that can’t be justified for contracting out. (smile)
The money should be used for those nifty neck scarves they wear!
The colors are FABULOUS!
Its a leader problem, as someone alluded above. Not only were guy/gals stuck in holes in the ground in parts of the most remote mid-west. But, these officers (most of the enlisted support guys don’t have MOSs tied to the missle field) only had to look forward to returning to the same place and duty time and time again for a career.
Look at the missle wings leadership bios, its like they lived and entire career in Groundhog day.