Originally Posted by TankerDriver

Manning in the ANG and AFRC is not an easy thing to manage because we maintain a force with a bunch of "free agents". There are no bonuses tied to commitments to keep people in past 10 and you run the risk of an empty squadron by letting your most experienced guys stay past 20 because they're free to push that button at a moment's notice. That's exactly what's going on right now.

The uncertainty that 9/11 brought to the airline industry kept a lot of guys hitting 20 in the mid to late 2000's in until the units were kicking them out at 28 yrs. Instead of flushing them and replacing them with fresh meat, we took pride in the fact we had a squadron full of Lt Col's with 10's of thousands of hours. Well now that just about everyone is sick of the AD mentality and ops tempo being forced down our throats, people are leaving in full force.