Entire Air Force to miss recruiting goal, the first failure since 1999

I’ve never seen it like this in my lifetime. With our shitty economy you would think the military would be a place to turn. But judging by quite a few business and their short falls in employee’s maybe it shouldn’t be such a shocker?

Back in 2008 my oldest boy (who never was interested in the military) lost his job. He searched for quite a few months before he decided the military as an option. He had to get waivers because he was married and had three young daughters but he enlisted in the Army. Did eight years active came home enlisted in the reserves and works for the Army as a civilian. Pretty proud of the kid SFC Steven Borders.

I think we have a convergence of factors. Similar to 1999 we are no longer at war. In the last decade, I observed in many aspects, that the military has toxic leadership issues. The focus people see from the outside is far too much non-military social and racial "equity" projects. All of this affects what retirees like myself, and Veterans in general, might pass on to our kids and the generations coming into adulthood. Why would they want to put up with all that? I just watched a clip on the news of an Air Force General speaking to his CGOs on the need to recognize the racial elements and inequities in the military. While that's fine as an objective to be mindful of, it also has to be recognized there are far too many servicemen and women taking advantage of these sensitive subjects, making false claims and accusations, all in an attempt to avoid their own duties and take the focus off of their own poor performance.

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - When you make race or any other discriminator (religion, national origin etc) a focus issue or a problem then it becomes a problem. When I was in and especially at basic I didn't care that Jose Guilba was hispanic...or Rickey James was Afican American or Paul Kim was an Asian Pacificic Isalnder(ral folks from basic that were my friends)...didn't matter...they were my brothers and I would die for each one of them. Race was never dispalyed as an issue...all we saw was that if you cut any of us we would bleed Air Force blue that's it. BUt when you start adding race to every leadership conversation it becomes a problem. Also there wasn't any of this thin skinned crap...you jacked up you got jacked up...period. IMHO.

Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth - Yeah, what's worse is when this shit found its way into combat zones. And yes, I saw it rear its ugly head in Afghanistan a few times. The irony of the experiences is an individual I observed using race baiting complaints on their first week in country, turned out to be highly discriminatory and prejudice against the Afghans. But many of us got a kick out of watching the CMSgt take this person down several pegs, several times.