Enlisted retention is just as disconcerting. AMC's first term reenlistment rate today is 49 percent, down 10 percent since fiscal year 1993. More alarming, our sec Nov-88 ond term reenlistment rate has fallen to 65 percent, a 16 percent drop since fiscal year 1993. (See Slides #14 and #15). These reenlistment numbers strike directly at my ability to launch sorties. Over the past 5 years, Air Mobility Command has experienced as much as a 15-20 percent decline in retention in a number of the key aircrew, maintenance and transportation career fields which are critical to sortie generation, safeguarding our people & equipment and, in general, mission success. (See Slides #16 and #17). Compounding our previously mentioned pilot retention problem is a downward trend in enlisted aircrew retention rates, particularly among our most experienced instructors, the "heart and soul" of our enlisted flyers. For fiscal year 1993 through 1998 our annual second-term reenlistment rate for enlisted aircrew dropped 12 percent. We believe a key retention and force management tool for reversing this trend will be the Career Enlisted Flight Incentive Pay (CEFIP) included in S.4. The Command's security forces represent one of our most serious retention challenges, if not the most serious one. A tremendous operations tempo has stretched this essential career field to the point of breaking. Today, fewer than one in five of the command's security policemen reenlist after one term . . . and barely one half of those who remain, elect to continue following their second term—almost 30 percent less than 5 years ago. These trends, whether taken separately or as a package, represent a very serious threat to Air Mobility Command's readiness. We rely on a very deliberate balance of senior-level supervision, experienced mid-level, on-scene leadership, and a junior labor force to carry out our mission. This growing personnel retention challenge has shaken the roots of this delicate balance we attempt to maintain between the various experience levels (known as 3-level, 5-level, and 7-level), we require to generate and launch sorties and to complete our missions. Many of our essential sortie-producing career fields (which constitute 52 percent of AMC's total enlisted force), plus many of our critical support specialties, now juggle either top-heavy or bottom-heavy populations. Air Force is pursuing a variety of initiatives to rebuild several of our most endangered career fields through increasing accession strength. . . but even this solution requires time and training to grow (and/or re-grow) experience and manning levels to required levels. (See Slides #18 and #19). The backbone of our force is our experienced, mid-level, seasoned NCO corps, and the loss of even one of these troops come at a price . . . in readiness and warfighting capability. When these servicemembers depart from active service, they take with them invaluable "corporate knowledge," knowledge that only comes through experience. There's no surefire metric, no elaborate or colorful graph to casually demonstrate just how much is lost, but it is a very real loss. The administration has recognized this situation and proposed, in its fiscal year 2000 budget, significant increases in base pay, plus additional, even larger increases targeted at mid-term and senior airmen. The third critical key to our success in meeting this nation's global air mobility needs is our global network of mobility support bases. Today, we "own" 12 major bases within the United States plus 13 major operating locations overseas (down from 39 overseas sites in the late 1980s). The condition of the facilities and infrastructure at all of these bases is vital, even critical, to the successful accomplishment of our global air transportation mission. Every facility every runway & taxiway, every hangar, every building directly affects our ability to carry equipment and personnel to the "pointy end" of any contingency operation. Unfortunately, our ability to invest in the facilities and infrastructure we need has degraded-and our facilities have deteriorated badly. . . and that deterioration continues. The net effect is a threat to readiness. The problem is exacerbated by another variable: the age of most of our facilities. The majority of Air Mobility Command's facilities are over 35 years old. Old buildings, as you might imagine, are very inefficient and cost far more to keep functional. That said, current funding constraints inhibit major repairs to or revitalization of our facilities and infrastructure. Regrettably, I don't have just one area that I can point to that we need to fix. My command's shortfalls, with respect to failing infrastructure, extend across the gamut of base facilities. AMC's records today show $165M of critical airfield work required which we cannot fund. Examples include: Grand Forks AFB: $17.5 million for airfield maintenance & repair. Charleston: $8.4 million to repair the north field runway, and $1.6 mil lion to repair airfield runway lights. Pope: $1.0 million to repair the main runway. The list goes on |