Air Force lieutenants await news on future

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — In three weeks, hundreds of Air Force lieutenants will find out if they made “the list” and will be forced to leave the military.

A special board is meeting this month to decide which of the nearly 2,100 lieutenants commissioned in 2002 and 2003 will get to stay and which will be looking for another job. Forty-three percent of the lieutenants commissioned in 2002 and 2003 will be separated.

The Air Force wants to cut nearly 900 lieutenants from the force due to an officer surplus that personnel experts attribute partly to high retention spurned by a weak economy and burgeoning patriotism after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The board’s results were supposed to be released in June, but now many officers could learn earlier than planned. May 10 is the tentative date the Air Force Personnel Center has set to release the board’s results, according to the center’s Web site.

Waiting to find out has been excruciating for officers such as 1st Lt. Melissa Riddick, a protocol officer for U.S. Air Forces in Europe headquarters at Ramstein Air Base. The married mother of two children is the breadwinner in the family. Although she is confident she would be able to land a job outside the military, she doesn’t think it would measure up to being in the Air Force.

“I’m not sure I can start off in the civilian sector with the same standard of living,” she said.

The Air Force announced last fall that it needed to cut an unexpected excess of junior officers. The Air Force has about 4,000 too many company-grade officers and is understaffed in the enlisted ranks by 6,000, according to a briefing by the Air Force Personnel Center on its Web site. Currently, the board is looking only at the lieutenant ranks.

If the Air Force did nothing, a study shows it would cost the service $2.4 billion, or about $200 million annually. There are almost 700 lieutenants in Europe and more than 950 in Pacific Air Forces. However, only those in certain career fields — such as security forces, public affairs and communications — who joined the Air Force in 2002 and 2003 could be separated.

Plans to slash the officers have been an emotional issue among lieutenants, many of whom entered the military to make the Air Force a career. They will be judged largely on how they look on paper. Commands submitted forms evaluating each lieutenant from the 2002 and 2003 groups.

Career fields with too many lieutenants will see larger cuts. A dozen career fields have been removed from the list due to lieutenants agreeing to leave voluntarily.

Once the force-shaping board announces its results, officers who didn’t make the cut will be separated by Sept. 30.

Many officers are preparing for the possibility that they will be released. Those who are separated will have the chance to join the Army as part of the Blue-to-Green program, but most are expected to find a civilian job.

Riddick has brushed up on her resume-building skills.

First Lt. Brandon Reynolds, logistics readiness officer at Ramstein Air Base, was able to finish his master’s degree in international relations while stationed in Germany. He also has been preparing for the possibility that his Air Force career will come to an involuntary end.

He and others are anxiously awaiting the board’s results.

“It’s a little unnerving, a little anxious about it,” said Reynolds, who is married, “but at the same time, ready to hear the news one way or the other.”