Those Loose Air Force Nukes

What Happened at Minot--an In From the Cold Special Report.

"Nathan Hale" breaks a story. This caught my attention.

“Only one nuke troop was promoted to Chief Master Sergeant (E-9) last year. Why stay in a career field where your chances of getting promoted are so low? They have cross-trained senior NCOs from missile maintenance and even supply to fill the [nuclear] ranks because the Air Force is cutting manpower in favor of UAVs and fighters.”

The result, he says, is a career field where experience levels are dropping, particularly among the NCOs and officers who provide critical leadership.

“No officer wants to be in nukes,” the source explained. “It’s boring, picky, and can be a real career ender. The glory is in the war. Even conventional munitions is better because they get a chance to deploy to the Middle East and build up bombs for combat. Nuke techs are a drag on resources because they typically don’t deploy. Senior officers fill the key slots just to fill a square on their resumes.”

Whenever the most dangerous, most critical, and most deadly aspect of your military branch becomes the least desirable for the highest quality people of your service, it is an invitation to mistakes. Considering the topic is nuclear weapons on US soil, mistakes are simply not an option.

There is a promotion process problem in the DoD that someone needs to get on top of, and it isn't just the Air Force. It is becoming too similar to the processes of promotion we see too often in public service, a seriously flawed government system of politics that all too often leads to accountability problems, a process in which an entity loses sight of its business priorities. When nukes go flying away unaccounted for on an air force base in the United States due to a leadership issue, the USAF has lost sight of its business priorities.