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From CHIEF page 6 suicide in our Air Force. We’re failing I wish I could give you the answer Now that all military career fields
haven’t had good retention, it’s that miserably at this and need to do better. that works for everybody, but every are open to women, how are you go-
the demand signal has continued to We’re still trying to figure out how we unit has a different requirement to be ing to integrate women into these six
increase at a rate that far exceeds can help our airmen maintain work- successful. When we get asked, writ- battlefield airmen jobs?
what we have in capacity. So it’s the life balance, serve in this great Air ing awards packages tends to come up
insatiable demand for ISR. We’re Force and not do it at the cost of ev- as an example. Any person who comes in [to those
bringing on more F-35s; we still have erything that’s important in their lives. jobs], male or female, has to meet those
our legacy weapon systems that re- You can change your process locally [gender-neutral] standards. They’re
quire fighter maintainers. How do you figure out what you however you want to. There’s not that very arduous and difficult career fields.
need to do less of to make room for many requirements that are coming The vast majority of people in the Air
What’s the biggest thing on your growing requirements? from the air staff level on these type Force today, when it was just restricted
plate in the coming year? of things. We’re also going to continue to males, couldn’t do it, or wouldn’t do
What we try to do is communicate to focus on how we access airmen into it, or didn’t have a desire to do it. So
The demand continues to increase with the tactical level units on: What the Air Force. that dynamic is not going to change
for air power. And that means air- are you doing that we’re requiring you dramatically. Once we start [bringing
men. The numbers are what they are. to do that we shouldn’t do? We have As the Air Force scales back, could in] females to these career fields, we’ll
We have to figure out what we’re not “Airmen Powered by Innovation,” closing or consolidating bases be part learn along the way. We’ll make sure
going to be able to do and prioritize we have the “Every Dollar Counts” of that? we provide the same support the way
what we are going to do to meet that campaign that reduced a lot of effort we would any other airman.
demand signal. That’s going to be the at the local level. That doesn’t mean We put in the budget every year a
biggest challenge as we try to plus there aren’t things coming from the request for [a base realignment and We’ll be very thoughtful about that
up the force to fill in the vacancies Air Force level that we need to aggres- closure commission]. The [National as we go through. We’ll work out the
where necessary. We’re going to do sively look at and determine if we’re Defense Authorization Act] will ei- logistical parts that you didn’t have to
that at the same time as we’re fight- going to do that anymore. ther authorize us to do that or not. So, work before. We worked them in other
ing the enemy globally. the indication is it will not. We clearly career fields, but it takes time. If you
It’s challenging, given what people want to be able to get at some of our were to go back 50 years ago, there
We have lots of other things go- are asking us to do, to stop doing any- infrastructure. Because it takes people were a lot more career fields that were
ing on that we have to pay attention thing. But we need to. to run a base, it takes resources to run restricted and didn’t have any females.
to. We’re working hard at getting a base. If it doesn’t get approved [by We’ve walked this path before.
our head wrapped around [reducing] What do you think the Air Force Congress], we’ve just got to press on.
might be able to put to the side?