Why Are We Still Doing ILO Taskings!?

[BTDTNM]

When is the AF going to grow a pair and tell the Army "no"!? It's been FIVE YEARS, why can't they fill these taskings? They have had more than enough time and money to fix their personnel problems. The very fact that they had problems to begin with is unacceptable. Going into Iraq shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. We have been messing with them since the Gulf War. The AF is still in a drawdown so I guess this is a way to push people out the door. It's working. I am so sick of the 'warrior' crap. I've been in 19 years and it's been pretty un-warrior. There are exceptions, there are some who are very kick ass but the vast majority of us can't function where there isn't a coffee pot. Knock it off with the Army crap already. We aren't soldiers. The fact that I'm only allowed to fire my primary weapon once every 3 years should be evidence enough.:rolleyes:

Does the Army pay the costs for these ILO taskings? Maybe that's why. Big Blue is selling our butts to the Army as a revenue source. To pay for more F-22's or the jumbo-trons for the T-birds. Anyone in the know please enlighten me. :confused:

[warr1or]

The reason is that the Air Force wants a piece of the action to justify the new "Warrior Airmen Ethos." I would equate it to every major operation in the past 30 years - every branch always wants a piece of the action to try to prove their worth (Operations Eagle Claw, Just Cause, Gothic Serpent).

(yes, I know the irony of my user name, and no, I've never done ILO)

[Vince]

Do you think this is connected to the supposed low re-enlistment rates of mid career NCO's (I think I've heard a blurb about that recently)? I know when I was in, and young, this kind of thing might have seemed cool. But the last few years I spent AD, I wouldn't have thought much of it. I agree that this should stop, maybe let folks volunteer for it and the AF be able to tell the Pentagon "No one volunteered, sorry".
Me personally, I didn't join the Army. If I wanted to crawl through the mud and get shot, etc.., the Army and Marines were all over me in High School, but I chose the AF for what the AF offered.

[ringjamesa]

Because the Army can't get enough people to join or stay in. Check out the thread on the Army IRR Musters-recalls.

[warr1or]

According to the Fiscal 2007 Enlisted Recruiting statistics the Army met their recruiting goal by 101%.

Link is here at about.com (http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/07recruiting.htm)

[Shrike]

According to the Fiscal 2007 Enlisted Recruiting statistics the Army met their recruiting goal by 101%.

Link is here at about.com (http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/07recruiting.htm)

Yep, and they met it by lowering their standards.

[warr1or]

Yep, and they met it by lowering their standards.

LOL true.

"According to a just-released Pentagon report, the Army is approving significantly more criminal history waivers for enlistment than it has in years past. The Army granted more than double the number of such waivers in 2006 than it did in 2003.

In 2006, the Army approved 901 waivers for felony convictions, compared to 411 such waivers in 2003. About 10 percent of the moral waivers approved in 2006 were for felony convictions. Serious criminal history waivers also grew, from 2,700 in 2003 to more than 6,000 in 2006. "

The Air Force gave 0 waivers.

[Vince]

LOL true.

"According to a just-released Pentagon report, the Army is approving significantly more criminal history waivers for enlistment than it has in years past. The Army granted more than double the number of such waivers in 2006 than it did in 2003.

In 2006, the Army approved 901 waivers for felony convictions, compared to 411 such waivers in 2003. About 10 percent of the moral waivers approved in 2006 were for felony convictions. Serious criminal history waivers also grew, from 2,700 in 2003 to more than 6,000 in 2006. "

The Air Force gave 0 waivers.

I'd like to see the numbers for High School diploma waivers.

[ringjamesa]

Meeting the recruiting goal is only part of the solution. You also have to retain the people you have. Also, if the end strength authorized isn't enought to complete all the mission taskings, you have to beg for help from somewhere....
It isn't the waivers that worry me. It is the lowered ASVAB requirements. People make mistakes and I can live with that.

[RLMB]

Meeting the recruiting goal is only part of the solution. You also have to retain the people you have. Also, if the end strength authorized isn't enought to complete all the mission taskings, you have to beg for help from somewhere....
It isn't the waivers that worry me. It is the lowered ASVAB requirements. People make mistakes and I can live with that.

Well said,
The autorized strength isn't enough! If I wanted to do a 365 as a humvee driver with the Army, I would have stayed in the Army... Why does the AF always overextend itself, and then wonder why they can't keep people. I would like to think they are not that stupid, and I also hope that they do not think we are that stupid to not see the politics involved...

[technomage1]

I agree. I don't mind helping out until an organization has had a chance to get back on it's feet, but it has been long enough that we shouldn't be doing this stuff anymore.

What bugs me is the fact that we've had to change the way we do business to cover for their mistakes. I don't mind giving up a body in the window if we've one to spare, but changing the way we deploy because of the burden of their taskings is nuts. I think the Army should pay all associated costs with any ILO tasking we take: all travel, per diem, allowances, any home station replacement costs, the works. That's only fair - why should we have to pay for that?

I think the reason we're losing people is this and the propsed 12,000 person cut coming in June. I don't like the cut, I don't agree with it, but I think it will happen. If I was in a career field like finance or personnel at 8-12 years, and was looking at the axe, I might make the leap too.

[FormerSF]

The answer is simple. The top brass want shiny things and are out of touch with the REAL AF (whatever that is). I got so sick of being bent over I got out at 17 years and have no regrets. Sure I had busted my ass for that 20 year retirement. I always volunteered, always gave it my all, and got tired of seeing people STEP promoted for knowing dirt about someone or being a drinking buddy rather than true performance. I figured it was just my base and SOMEDAY I would be out of there. But the sad thing was it was NOT just my base, NOT just my career field. I talked to NCOs in many different careerfields who all had similiar stories. The PT test was nothing more than a legalized forceshaping. Don't believe me? Compare ours to the other branches. Do the other branches treat the people that miss out by a couple points like children and make them go to classes? NO, they let the people work on their own unless they are REALLY sorry sacks of crap. I worked a 18 hour shift, was up for 26 hours doing the paperwork and reports and had to test with no sleep. Then I was sent to a FATBOY class for missing it by a couple points. A TRUE slap in the face.

Why are we still doing ILOs? Because the brass wants to look good, don't care who it hurts, and the more locations they can go to one day a month for tax free and hostile fire pay the better. Maybe they will get lucky and be there for something they can put themselves in for a medal for...sad but true. America, the military, and the world is falling apart fast. Sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle because I wonder at what point in time I was asleep for 100 years and didn't see it all changing for the worse. The current AF policy is "People have to die, then we scapegoat blame, knee jerk fix it, and lie and sell the fix as the next best thing since sliced bread when the truth is it's not." Not enough people have died to make a change, trust me on that. First time a large number of AF people get wiped out, they will have a fleet of planes sitting there to get them out of ILOs. Until then a couple casualties gives them a "Lead troops in combat" bullet on their OPR even if they were siting in DC.

[Murfsteve23]

I agree with most of the comments on here. Seems as if most AF service members feel the same way about being "warrior" airman. They don't want anything to do with it. Why? Maybe it's because most of us have sat in a chair in front of a recruiter for the Marines or Army, decided that lifestyle wasn't for them, and walked right across the hall to be greeted by Sgt. Joe Blow of the USAF. I'm thankful for what THEY do sure, but it's something that I decided not to be apart of. That is why I decided to cross into the blue.
I blindly joined the air force last year, enlisting for 6 years. I had expected to become a career airman and serve the 20 years, but now that i'm understanding the direction that the air force is trying to go( towards the army), im starting to think ill never reach the 20 year mark, and the 6 years may also be too long. It's sad that I feel this way because I know that I am not alone. If the AF continues to go this route, it will end up with the same problems the Army is facing such as expense problems and troublems retaining service members.

[BTDTNM]

Accepting people with felonies on their records, moral violations (dui's), age requirements, GED vs. HS diploma, the list goes on. The Army will take anyone with a pulse right now. Everyone in the AF is required to have a security clearance. Not so in the Army. If you can't hold a clearance, you are out. I'll be the last one to say we are harder and tougher. 'Smarter not harder' has been around for a long time.

[DomoreWithless52]

To be honest I don't really know why we are still providing Airmen to fill ILO taskings, but I tend to agree with many of you that there is definitely more to it. It seems offering us up ILO is the AF's way to earn "street cred" with the other services, since the AF isn't producing a whole lot of Air Power headlines in OIF and OEF...an F-16 scrambles from balad and demonstrates a show of force...please. A predator blows up 2 men in the act of burying an IED...OK, now that's a headline, a headline that we should see everyday, not twice a month.

But to me the #'s we are providing ILO just seem too small to really provide much relief to the Army, and I believe we may be causing more pain & strain to some of our AFSCs than any substantial relief to the Soldiers. Consider my career field only has 2300 people in it, and we've been sending about 680 Airmen ILO each year for 240 to 270 days each deployment since 2004. A huge burden for our entire AFSC, but basically all we are doing is keeping 2 Companies of Soldiers out of Iraq each year. 2 Companies. So to keep 2 Companies out of Iraq annually since 2004, we have deployed most of our Airmen on 3 ILO deployments, or about 750 days TDY.

While I must say these ILO deployments are very challenging and demanding, I wouldn't trade my convoy deployments for anything. You really learn a lot about yourself and what kind of a leader you can be when all of a sudden you are leading 50 Airmen, Soldiers, and contractors all across Iraq to deliver war fighting supplies. Definitely more "tip of the spear" than driving shuttle bus at Ali Al Salem or Qatar.

The down side however, is that this ILO burden absolutely wipes us out at home station and has made the home station workload and demands so unbearable that many of us are getting out, retraining into chronic critical AFSCs or retiring as soon as eligible. So at this point, I say enough is enough, bring us home.


And when you see the number of contractors over there, especially the very cheap labor of the TCN convoy drivers, it really makes you wonder why the AF doesn't already pull us out of ILO and tell the Army that for less money and less damage & risk to our Airmen you can just hire some more of those TCNs to drive for you instead.

We can only hope our new CSAF will think along these same lines and tell the Army enough is enough.

[Gunner007]

Air force rescue has been filling ILO now since 2006. I spent over 6 months deployed that year and 4 doing ILO MEDEVAC. Honestly it was the highlite of my career flying. Unit morale and enlisted morale was off the charts because we were actually doing something besides sitting at FOB's in the middle of no where on strip alert for 8 hours then flying home. Rescue was AFSOC then ACC so we are use to working with the army and SOCOM folks to some extent. It wasnt a big mission shift. Numerous times we extracted guys shot all to hell who would have died without immediate evac. It was fulfilling to know we had flown hot missions.
Now its 2008, we are stuck in the defacto rut of ILO. We are over deployed, stretched thin and the "good ole days" of MEDEVAC are now replaced for the most part with flying between FOB's shuttling wounded around the AOR. Morale is in the tank, mid level NCO's are walking, guys eligible for retirement are hanging up their spurs because they cant justify the ultra high ops tempo to their families. Rescue guys are typically doing 1-2 tours a year at 4 months a shot.
If ILO was still doing combat rescue like it was in 2006 people probably wouldnt mind because they would feel needed and know they are saving lives. I am guessing someone on high decided rescue should stop being thrown into hot extractions because sooner or later they might lose a bird/crew so lets shelter them and ride them until they drop but not really let them do anything.
At this point i can honestly say ILO MEDEVAC is a joke. Were being overworked for no real reason. Yet we took the tasking and now Big Blue cant get the monkey off our back! Once you accept ILO you almost cant ever give it back. The branch that said they couldnt cover it is going to continue to say they cant cover it, they are almost never going to say yeah give it back so i can send my guys to the meat grinder! Losing guys under your command doesnt look good on an OPR or what ever system your branch of the service might call it. Its the better them than me mentality!

[JckSneed]

When is the AF going to grow a pair and tell the Army "no"!? It's been FIVE YEARS, why can't they fill these taskings? They have had more than enough time and money to fix their personnel problems. The very fact that they had problems to begin with is unacceptable. Going into Iraq shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. We have been messing with them since the Gulf War. The AF is still in a drawdown so I guess this is a way to push people out the door. It's working. I am so sick of the 'warrior' crap. I've been in 19 years and it's been pretty un-warrior. There are exceptions, there are some who are very kick ass but the vast majority of us can't function where there isn't a coffee pot. Knock it off with the Army crap already. We aren't soldiers. The fact that I'm only allowed to fire my primary weapon once every 3 years should be evidence enough.:rolleyes:

Does the Army pay the costs for these ILO taskings? Maybe that's why. Big Blue is selling our butts to the Army as a revenue source. To pay for more F-22's or the jumbo-trons for the T-birds. Anyone in the know please enlighten me. :confused:

Because the SECDEF told the AF they would do the taskings period. The AF had no choice. Army went straight to SECDEF and said AF has personnel we need them. SECDEF said AF pony up. The AF chain had nothing to do with ILO taskings but Mosley's fight to stop them cost him political clout.

[Silver Fox]

Air Force ILO taskings have nothing to do with reinforcing a new 'warrior airman concept' nor does it have to do with the Army screwing up in any way shape or form.

No, we do ILO taskings because of this:

When this war was launched, top planning at the pentagon estimated that current numbers of Combat MOS forces were sufficient to fulfill the mission at hand. They were correct.

They did not however, wargame the possibility that we would be there this long at this high level and ops tempo. The Combat MOS numbers were not adequate to fill this type of role. The Army new it, and this was known in higher echelons (Rumsfeld), but it was ignored as no one even considered the possibility we'd still be there in 2008. Everyone expected things to run rather flawlessly and seamlessly. Don't ask me why, perhaps they were in fantasy land at the time.

So, the invasion occurs. The occupation begins. As the Army new, and informed top leadership, the Combat MOS forces in the Army were being broken down. There simply was not enough of them to perfrom ALL combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as securing all the Air Force's assets and running supplies. The Air Force was never required before to secure it's own ass or run it's own convoys.

The Army, trying to fill this short fall, began deploying Military Police as Infantry. When the strain on Military Police became to great, they started deploying Field Artillery first... then other MOSs to fill Military Police and Infantry Roles.

Finally the Army realized it could not handle the strain on it's combat MOS forces like this, as it was sapping their CS and CSS career fields of much needed man power to perform their own respective missions.

Here comes the Air Force and Navy. The Army tells the Air Force and the Navy it's time for them to step up and start handling more of their own shit. The Air Force needs to start running it's own air base defense operations entirely, because the Army needs it's MP's back. The Air Force also needs to start running it's own convoys. The scandal at Abu Ghraib only highlighted the fact that the Army Infantry and MPs were over-stressed, as many cases of internee abuse were NOT done by actual MPs, but by other MOSs with a few weeks of 'EPW Operation Crash Course' training under their belts.

To fix this, the Air Force agrees to take over some of the EPW operations with it's own Security Forces, to allow these MPs tasked with this assignment to continue doing convoys, a job the Air Force didn't want.

They ended up getting them anyway, and to me this is a right call. The Air Force needs to be able to handle it's own base defense in its entirety, and run it's own convoy operations. The detainee operations hand over was only temporary, and most of these taskings are now in the hands of the Navy who will then turn that mission over to the Iraqi Police.

So you see, it has nothing to do with Army error or Air Force "Warrior Airman". It's simply logistics.

Also, as Gunner007 pointed out, morale among ILO units has been much higher on average than other units of the same AFSC in theater. With the exception of a few people, who in my opinion would bitch about any assignment given them, those who do the ILO missions jump at the chance to do them. Many volunteer for repeat tours (I know many folks who have done two or three consecutive ILO tasks and are now volunteering for 365 ILO tasks because it's as close to the fighting as they're going to get.) I fully support these taskings.

[BTDTNM]

Whatever happened to 'Soldier first, MOS second'? If having about 16% of the Army total force deployed for a period of time is not sustainable, what is? I'm not buying it.

[Silver Fox]

Did you not read what I wrote? Yes, every soldier is a rifleman first, but those people have jobs that have to be performed as well. Eventually you have to let support and combat support troops do support and combat support, or you have no support or combat support.

There's nothing difficult about that. It's much easier to pull Air Force Security Forces, Logistcs and Transportation troops... whose tasks are readily transferable to the army tasks for Military Police, Logistcs and Transportation troops... and it's much more efficent to do so... than it is to make a cook stop cooking, an intel guy stop analyzing, and a personnelist stop working pay issues to do those missions. In addition, these "ILO" missions are missions which the Air Force had repeatedly told the Army we would pick up again and again and again. With the exception of detainee operations there's always been talk and false hope given to the Army that Air Force Security Forces would do all Air Force Area Security Operations, and that our Transportation and Logistics folks would do our own supply convoys... this was just the DoD making us ante up.

It's logistics. Pure and simple.

[BTDTNM]

So are you saying the Army isn't self sufficient? Even at the levels that are currently deployed? How big is that logistics footprint? Here we are 5 years into it and they still don't have enough combat support folks? Even in a heavily contracted out war? How many personnel do you need to support one warfighter?

[Silver Fox]

In these circumstances? It's not that they're self sufficient, it's just that they needed us to start doing jobs we were capable of doing. You *could* say they weren't self sufficient, but then you'd have to turn and say that because the Air Force doesn't do it's own security or all of it's own convoys... we aren't self sufficient either. That's why were joint services under the Department of Defense, hua.

-E-
To whomever negative repped me, go back and check history, we have been telling the Army since shortly after the Korean War that complete security was something we needed to do.

[pobdeweese]

When is the AF going to grow a pair and tell the Army "no"!? It's been FIVE YEARS, why can't they fill these taskings? They have had more than enough time and money to fix their personnel problems. The very fact that they had problems to begin with is unacceptable. Going into Iraq shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. We have been messing with them since the Gulf War. The AF is still in a drawdown so I guess this is a way to push people out the door. It's working. I am so sick of the 'warrior' crap. I've been in 19 years and it's been pretty un-warrior. There are exceptions, there are some who are very kick ass but the vast majority of us can't function where there isn't a coffee pot. Knock it off with the Army crap already. We aren't soldiers. The fact that I'm only allowed to fire my primary weapon once every 3 years should be evidence enough.:rolleyes:

Does the Army pay the costs for these ILO taskings? Maybe that's why. Big Blue is selling our butts to the Army as a revenue source. To pay for more F-22's or the jumbo-trons for the T-birds. Anyone in the know please enlighten me. :confused:


I'll tell you why, the Air Force has always felt it has something to prove to the other branches. Period, the end.

[Smeghead]

I'll tell you why, the Air Force has always felt it has something to prove to the other branches. Period, the end.

Not always, but lately yeah. For the longest time Air Force people (pre-Airman with a capital A) prided themselves on being the most un-military, smartest, best QOL, sit at home and "send the officers off to nuke the commies" service. Now we have a group running round ashamed of that heritage. People who want to play Army without really being in the Army, running around the AOR with a ton a cool gear and having really kewl war-stories to tell. We are apologizing for joining the Air Force.