The Air Force will continue to offer voluntary officer-separation measures in Fiscal 2012 in order to help the service draw down to its Congressionally authorized end-strength level of 332,800 active duty airmen by the end of that fiscal year. Under the Fiscal 2012 officer 10-8 commission waiver program, eligible officers in certain competitive categories may seek to retire with reduced active commissioned service. Those categories are: line of Air Force, line of the Air Force-judge advocate general, chaplain, biomedical service corps, and medical service corps. Officers ineligible for that program—including some colonels eligible for a selective early retirement board next year—may seek to separate under another initiative: the Fiscal 2012 officer limited active duty service commitment program, according to Air Force manpower officials. (Randolph release) (For more on USAF’s force management activities, read Too Much of a Good Thing from Air Force Magazine’s 2011 archive.)
The top Air Force commander on on the Japanese island of Okinawa has clamped down alcohol and issued a curfew for junior enlisted Airmen and Guardians at Kadena Air Base for the next month. The order came roughly two weeks after a U.S. Marine was arrested for allegedly robbing and…