3,000 Sergeants in the Barrel?: The Air Force says it has notified more than 3,000 staff, technical, and master sergeants that they are vulnerable for retraining in 2006. If the service does not get enough sergeants to volunteer to retrain from overstaffed career fields into those with chronic shortages, it will, as it did last year, nominate candidates for career shifts. (Check the Air Force Personnel Center Web site for the latest vulnerability lists.)
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.