DOD last week put out data on its recruiting and retention figures for the month of October, covering the active, Guard, and Reserve components of all services. In the active forces, all four services exceeded their recruiting goals. Ditto for four of the six Guard/Reserve components. One that didn’t do very well was the Air National Guard. It signed up only 588 of the 1,010 new airmen it sought, or about 58 percent. On the other hand, ANG retention was about 110 percent of its goal of 986. It’s just a single data point, and a mushy one at that, but it’s something worth watching.
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.