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I'm a USAF officer in acquisitions, and I've been serving for 4 years. Within the first 2 years, I had to go through a Force Shaping Board (aka Reduction in Force). This certainly woke me up, because I had this dream of going career with the military and that made me feel less secure about my dream.
My question is, with large government bailouts being handed out like candy, do you think we could see more personnel cuts within the next couple of years?
From what I see, acquisition officers (and enlisted contracting personnel) will be used more and more for deployments, while civilians and contractors run the stateside operations. There are some bases that will keep you gainfully employed and put you on the track to Major, why others are dead end. I assume you'll be pinning on Captain in a year or so, so find out which bases have better opportunities for growth and promotion before you take your next assignment. All I can suggest is get your Level I, II, III certs as soon as possible. Me personally, if I could be a GS-12 or better in the acquisition world I'd take it. The potential for promotion is much higher in acquisitions than any other government sector job.
My question is, with large government bailouts being handed out like candy, do you think we could see more personnel cuts within the next couple of years?
Yes. USAF end cap was cut to grow the Army and Marine end cap.
No one (R or D) was willing to give a permanent increase in the authorized amount of people in the military until it was almost too late. To pay the force regen model for the war, and do the transformation, all garrison slots that could be made civilian were first fixed, then the Army (mostly) started getting permission to go over the cap at the expense of a few slots from the USAF (maybe Navy too, not sure).
Now, the new end caps are in place (google search "grow the army"). Most of that growth won't come at the expense of USAF slots, but yeah, USAF is ripe for reduction, IMHO.
At the individual level though, for any service-member, it is UP or OUT. That won't change.
I would expect an increased operations tempo with multiple small-scale deployments, similar to the Clinton years, while maintaining a slow reduction in Iraq and uptick in the 'stan. Think Yemen and other hot spots. This will tax the ground pounders more than ever.
It's so volatile right now...Excessively high spending bills are getting passed and some and some are currently getting debated...
Best advice I can give anyone is have a backup plan...They can release you at any time for any reason...Furthermore, random BS could come up to get you released...Eg, thugs back you into a corner...Either get stomped and messed up or fight back and you get kicked out...Again, always have a backup plan...
I'm paying off all my debts to be sure. I paid all my student loans and my cc, the only thing I have left is my car. After that, I'll start saving for a fat downpayment for a house. And if I get kicked out within the next four years, that saved up downpayment could be my emergency funds.
There are plenty of Aerospace jobs right now...unfortunately though, if DoD funding is cut, so too will Aerospace feel the pinch. I kind of feel like if funds are cut from the DoD to recoup money from bank bailouts, you'll lose jobs anyway!
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