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Air Force meets 2005 enlisted, OTS recruiting goal

  • Published
RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AETCNS) --  The Air Force exceeded its fiscal 2005 enlisted recruiting goal by sending 19,222 young men and women to Basic Military Training.

Air Force Recruiting Service began the fiscal year with an already reduced recruiting goal of 24,465 as part of the Air Force's force-shaping measures to meet the congressionally mandated end strength of 359,700 servicemembers. End strength is the limit set by Congress on the number of people the military can have on active duty. The AFRS goal was reduced further in January 2005 to 18,900 new recruits.

Recruiting service was successful this past fiscal year in recruiting line officers and chaplains. AFRS recruited 727 line officers against a goal of 720. Line officers include pilots, navigators and other officers in technical and non-technical fields who attend Officer Training School. OTS is one of three commissioning sources; the other two include Air Force ROTC and the U.S. Air Force Academy. AFRS also recruited 35 chaplains against a goal of 31.

"This was a challenging year for Air Force recruiting," said Brig. Gen. Dutch Remkes, AFRS commander. "We had to scale back enlisted accessions recruiting in order to meet the Air Force's manning needs, yet we remained successful at recruiting a diverse, high-quality force representing the best our country has to offer."

The service continues to struggle in finding enough physicians, dentists and nurses to meet its health professions requirements. The Air Force recruited 753 health professionals against a requirement of 1,123.

With the start of the new fiscal year, General Remkes emphasized that America's Air Force needs hundreds of physicians, dentists, nurses and pharmacists as well as people qualified for special operations, such as pararescue and combat control.

The enlisted accessions goal for fiscal 2006 is 30,750 new recruits. The goal for line officer recruiting is 485, representing a reduction from fiscal 2005 due to continued force-shaping measures.