The Space Force transferred 18 Air Force reservists into part-time roles, making them the service’s first-ever guardians to serve on nonsustained duty, according to a release. The move follows a broader effort by the Space Force to rebuild its personnel a year after sweeping cuts across the federal government and military services left it with nearly 800 fewer civilian employees.

“The initiative demonstrates our commitment to building a flexible, modern personnel system that expands pathways to service and retains the vital talent required to secure our nation’s interests in, from and to space,” Brig. Gen. Matthew Holston, Personnel Management Act Integration Office director, said in the release.

In an attempt to help the branch build out its force, Congress established the Personnel Management Act in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, allowing the Space Force to attract more specialized talent by utilizing full- and part-time workers.

The Act allows for a new, single-component service structure that allows guardians to move between full-time and part-time positions throughout their careers, the release says.

The transition into a single-component service allows for improved quality of life and retention among the force and the ability for the Space Force to capitalize on skill sets guardians develop outside of military service, per the announcement.

Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, the nominee to become the third-ever Space Force Chief of Space Operations, said in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that last year many civilian employees took the Deferred Resignation Program, or DRP, and other voluntary separation initiatives, causing Space Systems Command to strive to hire 100 civilians a month to combat that loss.

In last week’s hearing, Schiess said that the ability for workers to move between part or full time allows for the increase of guardians who want to service while working elsewhere, whether it is in the industry or government, and bring that experience back to the force.

The single-component service structure differs from the construct used by the Space Force active duty, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard, but the pay, benefits and retirement remain unchanged.

It places all guardians in the same unit and under a unified Space Force chain of command, regardless of whether they are full-time or part-time workers, the release says.

“This new construct reduces procedural barriers typically associated with moving military members between different duty statuses while simultaneously unifying the resourcing, training, equipping and force presentation of the nation’s premier space capabilities,” the announcement says.

In the upcoming months, about 225 Air Force reservists selected will be transferred to be part-time guardians.

About 14% of the service’s civilian workforce, roughly 780 employees, got cut last year in what Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, called “mindless.” The cuts have left senators questioning how the Space Force can rebuild the loss of personnel.

“I worry that a lot of expertise walked out the door during that period,” King said during Thursday’s hearing to discuss the nomination of Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess to become the third-ever Space Force Chief of Space Operations.

Committee members argued that space is increasingly becoming a warfighting domain, accelerating the need to increase resources for the service, which includes an “agile workforce.”

Schiess said that a lot of civilian personnel took the Deferred Resignation Program, or DRP, and other voluntary separation initiatives, which was a “significant cut” to the force. He said that Space Systems Command is looking to hire 100 civilians a month to mitigate that loss.

“The Space Force doesn’t have a problem with people wanting to join it,” Schiess said in the hearing when asked if the service is able to find that amount of civilians each month. “It’s just finding the right spot for them.”

The Space Force requested an additional 2,800 civilian employees in their fiscal year 2027 budget request, according to budget documents, for a total of 7,200 civilian jobs.

The Space Force is the smallest military service with a total workforce of 9,400 guardians, with civilians making up roughly half of the force.

A Government Accountability Office report released on July 14 found that the Space Force has not consistently and accurately determined its personnel requirements to meet its mission needs or accurately tracked the number of contractor personnel and the work they perform.

The report states that the Space Force continues to rely on Air Force processes and guidance that may not effectively suit their needs of a smaller service with evolving missions.

“The Space Force’s reliance on potentially outdated legacy requirements, Air Force-assessed requirements, and unit-assessed requirements that have been determined through different methods means that the service is likely operating with an inconsistent and potentially inaccurate measure of its personnel needs,” the report says.

The report recommends that the Space Force chief develop service-specific guidance to accurately determine personnel requirements; track the number of contractor personnel across the service; create a strategic workforce plan tailored to address competency gaps; and reevaluate the effectiveness of the current arrangement of Air Force-provided functions.

In the hearing, Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., pointed toward how Congress has strived to help the service boost their personnel through the Personnel Management Act, which allows the service to utilize full-time and part-time workers to attract more specialized talent.

“The ability for our folks to be part time or full time is a kind of a novel thing that the Space Force is doing,” Schiess said.

Schiess highlighted how the ability for workers to be either part or full time allows the influx of guardians that want to serve while also having a job elsewhere, whether it is in the industry or government, and bring that expertise back to the force. If needed, it also gives guardians the flexibility to be able to take care of family.

Wicker said that the Space Force’s workforce is needed to counter evolving threats and to deliver operational advantage.

“Our competitors are rapidly expanding their forces and fielding new capabilities,” Wicker said. “The United States cannot afford to respond with incremental growth while the threat accelerates.”

In a Tuesday press conference, Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., and Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., announced their joint amendment’s introduction, calling it pertinent to military readiness and the well-being of American troops.

“That is almost 300 future airmen and women who would not be finishing their training at their expected date,” Cisneros, a former under secretary of defense for personnel readiness, said in the briefing. “This has completely set back the Air Force’s expected recruitment class from entering the future squadrons on time.”

This move comes after a flu outbreak sickened hundreds of trainees at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and killed one. Castro, whose district houses Lackland, confirmed that 284 trainees contracted the flu, four have been hospitalized and one has died.

Over a week ago, the Air Force announced that the training wing at Lackland suffered a localized outbreak over the three weeks prior but did not mention how many trainees contracted the flu.

Keon McDaniel, a basic military trainee from the 737th Training Support Squadron at Lackland, died on June 16 at Brooke Army Medical Center due to a medical emergency. Lackland officials said an investigation into the cause of his death is currently underway. Air Force officials declined at the time to comment on if his passing was related to the flu outbreak.

But Castro, who requested an investigation into McDaniel’s death in relation to the flu, revealed Tuesday that the Air Force confirmed that the trainee did die from the outbreak on base, according to a release.

“This is a tragedy that could have been prevented were it not for the reckless actions of Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth,” Castro said in the statement.

The outbreak caused lawmakers to express concern over the current optional flu vaccine policy for service members and Pentagon civilian personnel that went into effect in April, two months before the outbreak.

Hegseth announced that service members would no longer be required to get the annual flu vaccine, citing the prior policy as “overly broad and not rational.”

Last week, the Pentagon granted exceptions to policy requests, or ETPs, to military services and some federal agencies, allowing for the slight reversal to be included into Hegseth’s guidance.

The services with ETPs granted by Under Secretary of Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata include the Department of the Army, Department of the Navy and Department of the Air Force.

Given that the Marine Corps and Space Force are under the Department of the Navy and Department of the Air Force, respectively, the services are also included in the exceptions.

The Pentagon declined to comment on if all trainees would be required to get the flu vaccine or when the exceptions were requested and granted. The Associated Press reported that all trainees for basic military training would now be required to receive the vaccine, citing a Pentagon official.

Castro confirmed in the Tuesday briefing that the Air Force’s exception to vaccinate all trainees was not approved until after the outbreak occurred even though it was requested about a month prior.

Houlahan said that there has been no indication of flu outbreaks at bases other than Lackland, but it is considered an “ongoing concern.”

“Now, nothing’s ever perfect. You could get the vaccine, and you still may get the flu or any other disease that may come forth, but it does make a difference,” Cisneros, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in the press conference.

The representatives that brought forth the amendment last week criticized their Republican counterparts for previously rejecting the measure’s inclusion in the final NDAA rules package, prompting another push to revert the policy to again require all service members to receive a flu vaccine.

The NDAA is currently moving through both chambers of Congress, with the House and Senate versions awaiting full consideration on their respective floors.

The Army signed contracts with 62,050 recruits, or 101.72% of its goal, while the Navy brought in 44,096 recruits, exceeding its target by more than 8%. The Air Force recruited 30,166 airmen; the Space Force brought in 819 Guardians; and the Marine Corps met its goal of 26,600 recruits.

Collectively, the five services achieved 103% of their active-duty recruiting mission, according to Pentagon officials.

After several years of recruiting shortfalls, military leaders have highlighted recruiting gains in congressional testimony, public remarks and service announcements.

For new recruits and the units waiting to receive them, however, signing a contract is only the first step. Recruits must still complete initial training, occupational schooling, technical certifications and, in many cases, security clearance requirements before joining the operational force.

As recruiting numbers improve, questions remain about how long it takes recruits to become mission qualified and contribute to military readiness.

How quickly recruits move from accession to operational qualification can affect force generation, unit staffing and long-term readiness planning.

Military leaders routinely report recruiting totals and accession goals, but the time required to transform recruits into fully qualified service members can vary significantly by specialty, training requirements and follow-on certifications. Those timelines help illustrate how quickly recruiting gains translate into trained personnel available to operational units.

Little public info on path to readiness

There is no single timeline for becoming fully mission capable. Training requirements vary significantly by specialty, with some support and administrative fields producing qualified service members in a matter of months, while highly technical and special operations pipelines can take more than a year and, in some cases, several years.

To determine what information is publicly available about how recruits become operationally ready, Military Times reviewed readiness documents, service training materials, congressional reporting requirements and Government Accountability Office reports.

The services routinely publish recruiting totals, accession targets and shipping figures. Army, Navy and Air Force leaders regularly testify before Congress about recruiting performance and often release updates throughout the year.

As of publication, Military Times was unable to identify a publicly available, department-wide metric measuring how long it takes recruits to become fully mission capable.

The absence of publicly available reports does not indicate whether the department tracks those timelines internally. Among the systems DoD uses to assess readiness are the Defense Readiness Reporting System and the Chairman’s Readiness System. Those systems primarily focus on unit personnel, equipment, supplies, training and mission capability.

GAO reviews of military readiness describe DoD readiness assessments that include personnel, maintenance, training and mission-capability measures. In a 2023 review, GAO reported that resource readiness ratings measure the status of personnel, equipment, supplies and training, while mission capability ratings assess whether units can accomplish their designed missions.

Military Times asked the Department of Defense whether it maintains a department-wide metric measuring the average amount of time required to move recruits from accession to operational qualification and, if so, whether that information is reported to Congress or made publicly available. In response, Pentagon Press Operations referred Military Times to the military services for information on accession-to-readiness timelines.

Requests for additional information were also sent to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force regarding whether they track the amount of time required for recruits to become fully mission qualified and whether those data are reported outside the services.

Federal law requires the Defense Department to maintain a comprehensive readiness reporting system.

Under 10 U.S.C. § 117, the secretary of defense must ensure the system objectively measures the capability of the armed forces to carry out national defense missions and includes assessments of unit readiness, training establishments and defense infrastructure. The statute also requires readiness policies to be applied uniformly across the department through a single authoritative reporting system.

The law does not explicitly require reporting on the amount of time needed to move individual recruits from accession to full mission qualification. Military Times was unable to identify publicly available documentation showing that accession-to-readiness timelines are included as a standardized department-wide measure.

Timing differs by service and specialty

Military officials do not generally define readiness solely by branch. Training pipelines are largely determined by occupational specialty.

Training timelines vary widely. Some support specialties may require only a few months of initial training, while combat arms, technical and specialized career fields often require substantially longer pipelines. Highly technical career fields, including cyber, intelligence and nuclear specialties, can require 12 months or more of schooling and follow-on qualifications, depending on specialty and qualification requirements. Special operations pipelines frequently extend well beyond a year.

Army recruits complete Basic Combat Training, followed by Advanced Individual Training in most specialties, while some combat arms occupations use One Station Unit Training, which combines both phases.

Depending on military occupational specialty, follow-on schooling can last from four weeks to more than a year. Infantry recruits complete One Station Unit Training, which typically lasts about 22 weeks.

Marine recruits spend approximately 13 weeks at boot camp before moving to Marine Combat Training or the Infantry Training Battalion, and then occupational specialty schools. Depending on specialty, Marine training pipelines can extend for several additional months.

Navy recruits complete approximately nine weeks at Recruit Training Command before reporting to “A” schools. Job training ranges from several weeks to more than a year, particularly in highly technical communities such as nuclear propulsion.

Air Force recruits complete 52 days, or roughly seven and a half weeks, of Basic Military Training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland before entering technical training. Depending on specialty, technical training can last from several weeks to many months, particularly in cyber and special warfare career fields.

Space Force Guardians attend Air Force Basic Military Training before entering specialized technical pipelines focused on cyber, intelligence and space operations.

Completing occupational training does not necessarily mean a service member is immediately considered fully mission capable. Newly assigned personnel often complete additional local certifications, field exercises and collective training requirements after arriving at operational units.

Navy officials said readiness is generally measured through demonstrated proficiency rather than time spent in training. Capt. Candice Tresch, public affairs director for the Chief of Naval Personnel, said sailors first complete initial training, and then continue qualifying at their commands through warfare qualifications, emergency drills and unit-level training.

“There’s really no specific [timeline], in six months you go from the street to proficient sailor,” Tresch told Military Times. “It’s a continuous progression.”

Tresch said qualification timelines vary by specialty, command and operational requirements. Operational demands can also accelerate or extend training schedules.

“It’s not really time-based. [It’s] can you do the mission?” she said.

Constraints to military training, readiness

Government Accountability Office reports, congressional testimony and publicly available military documents describe factors affecting military readiness and training, including schoolhouse capacity, instructor availability, maintenance requirements, security clearance processing and equipment availability.

Recent GAO reviews identified training limitations, personnel shortages, maintenance delays, sustainment challenges and infrastructure constraints affecting readiness across the force.

One GAO review examining sailor-led ship maintenance found that the Navy did not track and report certain personnel data, including the number of sailors assigned to ships but unavailable for duty. GAO recommended that the Navy collect and report additional personnel information to improve oversight and the quality of information provided to Congress.

The services already report numerous readiness measures, including personnel levels, training status and mission-capability rates. Military Times did not identify publicly available documentation showing that those readiness measures include standardized timelines for moving recruits from accession to full mission qualification.

Congress receives regular updates on recruiting performance and unit readiness. Military Times did not identify publicly available documentation showing whether Congress receives standardized, department-wide data on how long recruits take to become fully mission capable.

The services routinely publish detailed recruiting data, including accession totals, shipping figures and boot camp graduations. Whether DoD also maintains or publicly reports a standardized measure tracking how long recruits take to become fully mission capable remains unclear.

Navy officials told Military Times that readiness is generally measured through demonstrated proficiency rather than a fixed timeline and said qualification timelines vary by specialty, command and operational requirements.

At publication, the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force had not responded to Military Times’ requests for comment.

The service selected 6,668 staff sergeants to become technical sergeant out of 25,080 eligible airmen, according to a Monday Air Force Personnel Center statement, for a selection rate of 26.56%.

Senior officials were set to receive access to the select lists through the Virtual Enlisted Promotion Release application Tuesday. The 26E6 promotion list will be made publicly available Thursday morning on the Personnel Center’s website.

The 2026 promotion cycle demonstrates an over 1% increase from last year when officials selected 7,884 staff sergeants to promote out of 30,776 eligible, for a rate of 25.62% in 2025.

Previously, the highest number of airmen selected for this promotion was in 2019, when 9,467 staff sergeants were selected, and the number eligible was 29,328. The number chosen dropped by over 1,200 airmen in 2020 before it increased again to 9,422 in 2021.

Although the number of airmen selected reached its peak in 2019 with a selection rate of 32.28%, the 2026 promotion cycle marks the highest rate since 2021’s 26.94%.

Over the past five years, the promotion’s selection rate ranged from as low as 14.5% in 2023 to an increase to 25.62% in 2025. This year’s rate is the highest by over 1%.

The news of E-6’s promotions follows the designation of some active-duty officers to majors, technical sergeants to master sergeants and active-duty majors to lieutenant colonel.

To be eligible for technical sergeant, airmen must serve for a minimum of five years in active duty, have held the rank of staff sergeant for 23 months and achieve a 7-skill level, which is a craftsman designation.

Generally, higher retention rates lower promotion rates since it boosts competition as more service members choose to stay in their current roles.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, recruitment numbers dwindled, but after the pandemic, services across the military saw a large increase due to economic uncertainty and unemployment rates.

In a May 2024 letter to U.S. lawmakers, Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, said that officer and enlisted personnel retention rates were declining. She emphasized that it was normal and merely a return to pre-COVID “historic average rates.”

Recently, the Air Force has propelled its efforts to retain airmen with critical skills through monetary incentives and select programs, but it also cut the number of fields eligible for reenlistment bonuses for fiscal 2026.

Over the past three weeks, the training wing at Lackland Air Force Base has suffered from a localized influenza outbreak among trainees at Basic Military Training, an Air Force spokesperson told Military Times.

“Medical professionals and Public Health officials have implemented mitigation measures to isolate and treat symptomatic trainees to reduce further exposure and continue to monitor the situation,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson declined to comment on how many trainees contracted the flu. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, whose district includes the Lackland base, said in a social media post that there were 222 flu cases as of Thursday.

The flu outbreak comes just two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that service members would no longer be required to get an annual flu vaccine, calling the previous policy that dated back to the 1950s “overly broad and not rational.”

The policy change drew criticism from some lawmakers, who called it a mistake.

“It was a reckless decision that put troops in harm’s way and undermined our military readiness,” Castro said in a separate social media post following news of the outbreak.

According to an October 2025 Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division report, the vaccine helped prevent the flu’s impact among older service members and can assist in protecting the overall health of the military, especially in recruit stations, which have the highest rates of flu infections every year.

The highest cumulative hospitalization rate among active-duty service members occurred in individuals 25 years old and younger, the report found.

“Military trainees have historically been vulnerable to acute respiratory disease due to relative immune compromise from physical, environmental, and psychological stress,” the report reads. ^“Multiple studies have reported that recruits have a higher incidence of influenza-like illnesses compared to non-recruits.”

The 37th Training Wing, which is housed at Lackland, trains more than 36,000 troops per year.

Following the enactment of the new policy, military services expressed the need for exemptions.

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata told senators in May the department solicited input from the services, which responded with “a robust set of exception” requests. It is not clear what all those exceptions entail.

The Air Force received an exemption to vaccinate all trainees, a source familiar with the matter told Military Times. The Air Force did not specify when the exemption was put into place. The New York Times, which first reported the outbreak at Lackland, wrote that the exemption went into effect after flu cases at the base spiked.

Keon McDaniel, a basic military trainee from the 737th Training Support Squadron at Lackland, died at Brooke Army Medical Center on June 16 from a medical emergency, according to a base statement. McDaniel was in his sixth week of BMT, and the investigation into the cause of the medical emergency is currently underway.

The Air Force spokesperson declined to comment on if his passing was related to the flu outbreak.

Medical personnel are also monitoring trainees who were in close contact with sick members for symptoms, the spokesperson said, and symptomatic trainees are receiving care with antiviral medications, such as Tamiflu.

Trainees can return to training once they are cleared by medical professionals, the spokesperson said.

Alongside the Defense Department’s reversal of flu vaccination requirements, the department and the White House have taken measures to allow for the return of service members who left because of their refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

About 8,000 troops across the military voluntarily or involuntarily left service after refusing to get vaccinated.

The department approved the AI Hiring and Talent Development Plan this month with the goal of maintaining an edge against American adversaries and becoming an “AI-first force,” according to the strategy document.

“This Al strategy is fundamental to leveraging our people as a strategic asset, strengthening readiness and lethality, and modernizing our Air and Space Forces to ensure our nation’s competitive advantage,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in the document.

One main aspect of the plan centers around the force’s ability to recruit, retain and train personnel, per the release. To attract new AI professionals, the force aims to streamline and expedite its hiring process for AI positions, find financial incentives and utilize a “Mission Matching Strategy” to pair candidates with certain defense projects.

To retain the talent the service already has, the department will leverage those already in the ranks by creating a Department of the Air Force Dual-Track Career Model set to give AI experts the ability to move as technical experts instead of traditional management roles, the release states.

For Air and Space service members that are already employed in an AI-centered role — or wish to be — they must prove their skills are aligned with a certain model, instead of previously just needing to fulfill a simple course completion. The training component vies to create a baseline for AI literacy for all personnel.

“AI is not a niche technology of the future; it is now an indispensable capability that must be integrated across our platforms and mission sets now as foundational to our readiness, to enhancing lethality and reestablishing deterrence, and as a cornerstone of our modernization efforts,” Meink said.

The released strategy highlights the different mission areas and directives the department found to be imperative to becoming a more AI-focused force, such as using AI for maintenance and training and fast-tracking the deployment of AI tools to guardians and airmen.

Along with talent and workforce development, the department’s vision includes other efforts to support AI implementation across the force. The other areas are data, technology and infrastructure; partnership and ecosystem management; change management and process re-engineering; and AI governance and oversight.

The document states the force will release an AI implementation plan that showcases the steps the services will take to implement the mission areas in this strategy, but it did not include a specific release date.

The Air Force had a goal of enlisting 32,750 active-duty airmen, and the Space Force set an enlisted goal of 730 new recruits, according to a fiscal 2026 Air Force Accessions Center recruiting snapshot.

“Recruiting success like this reflects the mission of the Air Force Accessions Center, which integrates recruiting and officer accession programs to attract and develop the next generation of Airmen and Guardians,” the Facebook post reads.

In a Wednesday social media post, the Air Force said “mission accomplished” in reference to the met goal and highlighted the force’s Delayed Entry Program, which serves as a waiting list of signed up recruits that are approved to join the military but need to wait for space in Basic Military Training.

In 2025, the Air Force had its strongest Delayed Entry Program numbers in the past decade, with over 14,000 recruits, per a June 2025 Air Force release.

“With our Delayed Entry Program at its largest level in a decade, the future of our force is secure and ready,” the service’s social media post reads.

With fiscal 2026 beginning in October 2025, the Department of Defense announced it met nearly 40% of its DEP accession goals already.

The military overall in fiscal 2025 met or exceeded their recruiting numbers following shortfalls in recent years due to a competitive job market and a smaller number of young Americans qualified for service.

At the Pentagon press briefing Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth commended the historic recruiting numbers and the Air and Space Force for meeting the recruitment goals ahead of schedule. He noted that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps will “soon do the same.”

And the Air Force is setting an even more ambitious recruitment goal in 2025.

Air Force Recruiting Service commander Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein told reporters in a roundtable that the service will hit its goal of 27,100 non-prior service enlisted recruits this year. And next year, he said, the active-duty Air Force wants to recruit 32,500 new airmen — a 20% increase.

“The Department of the Air Force is still hiring,” Amrhein said this week at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Space Cyber conference just outside Washington.

Amrhein acknowledged the 2025 goal will be challenging, particularly as the Air Force faces competition for talented young people from the private sector. But he expressed confidence that the service will be able to meet its 2025 goal, in part by adding 377 more personnel to its recruiting ranks.

Before that expansion began, the Air Force had 1,390 recruiters, he said. Some of the 377 airmen the recruiting service is adding will focus on special warfare recruiting, while others will fill support roles, he said.

The first 80 of those new recruiters have already finished training and are hitting the field, Amrhein added, and 20 more are coming in November and December.

At this time last year, the Air Force had about 8,800 new recruits waiting to ship out to basic training, Amrhein said. That number has now grown to 11,000, and is a sign that the Air Force’s recruitment is healthier and more likely to reach its higher goal in 2025, he added.

Many of the new recruiters will be stationed throughout the southern United States, he said, but a few will be assigned to locations in Europe and the Pacific. Additionally, some will be part of a new concept called agile recruiting cells.

Those cells will be made up of two or three recruiters and assigned to squadron headquarters, he said, where they can follow leads or be temporarily surged to areas that need more recruiters.

Amrhein noted that a series of changes to recruiting processes — including reinstating the enlisted college loan repayment program, an accelerated naturalization program, greater use of medical waivers and more lenient policies on tattoos and marijuana — helped the service hit its goal this year.

But the changes do not mean the Air Force has lowered its standards or brought in less-qualified recruits, he said.

The Air Force in January also cut the time non-citizens must hold a green card — from 10 years to two — before they can join, Amrhein said. That change, in conjunction with an accelerated naturalization program at basic military training, has broadened the pool of highly qualified people, he said.

“We’ve had 1,400 folks get accelerated naturalization” at basic training, Amrhein added.

And in 2025, the Air Force wants to further expand opportunities for airmen who are on their way to becoming U.S. citizens, he said. The Air Force is considering allowing recruits who are green card holders to be conditionally selected for jobs that are typically only open to U.S. citizens. Those recruits would then be able to enter their job once they become naturalized, Amrhein said.

The military has also loosened its requirement on how long new recruits have to be off medication for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and reduced the medical reviews that happen for recruits who had childhood asthma, he said.

Amrhein said the Air Force this year started working with the Civil Air Patrol to buttress its recruiting network and encourage more young people to join.

Having been medically rejected three times before ultimately receiving a medical waiver to join the Air National Guard in 2018, I know firsthand how illogical and infuriating this process can be. But, it was through my efforts advising over 400 similarly rejected applicants that I realized that larger-scale change is needed. By my calculations, over 15,000 applicants are medically rejected each year without applying for a waiver, with even more denied at the recruiter’s door or self-selecting out from applying at all. At a time when the military is facing a recruiting crisis, shouldn’t it be doing everything it can to bring in applicants who are ready and willing but currently unable to serve?

More than 15,000 applicants per year rejected without a waiver appeal

How many potential recruits is the military missing out on? According to a 2022 Accession Medical Standards Analysis and Research Activity report, 1.35 million applicants received a physical at MEPS from 2016-2020. Of that population, 13-16% were medically disqualified, yet only 47-66% of disqualified applicants applied for a medical waiver. By my calculations, from 2016-2020, as many as 85,000 applicants were rejected and did not apply for a medical waiver.

Why would an applicant not request a waiver? The answer comes down to incentives — and who actually does the paperwork. For most applicants, recruiters determine whether or not to submit for a waiver review. However, recruiters are evaluated by the total number of recruits they bring in, often based on monthly or yearly quotas. This disincentivizes them from prioritizing applicants who require waivers, which require more work, take more time, and may ultimately result in rejection. Additionally, recruiters are neither medical professionals nor empowered to evaluate an applicant holistically, which, in fact, is the intent of the waiver process. So, recruiters are unfortunately being put in the position of effectively making waiver decisions when they decide not to submit an applicant at all.

Let’s take 2020 as a case study, when the military services saw the following numbers of applicants, disqualifications, and waivers based on AMSARA’s 2022 Annual Report:

• Army: 120,500 applicants, 14% disqualified (16,750), 8,500 did not apply for waiver.
• Navy: 46,300 applicants, 16% disqualified (7,400), 3,100 did not apply for waiver.
• Air Force: 39,500 applicants, 16% disqualified (6,200), 2,500 did not apply for waiver.
• Marine Corps: 42,500 applicants, 14% disqualified (5,700), 1,800 did not apply for waiver.

So, in 2020 alone, 36,000 potential service members were rejected and 16,000 did not apply for a waiver. When you consider the previous four years as well, 192,000 applicants were medically rejected and 85,000 did not apply for a waiver.

It is important to note that these numbers are an underestimation of total applicants, since recruiters often exercise a “pocket veto” that prevents applicants from processing at MEPS or appealing for a waiver. Additionally, these disqualification statistics do not include the increased rate of disqualifications under MHS Genesis, an electronic health records system launched in 2023, which automatically flags civilian medical and prescription records. This forced disclosure of any and all potentially relevant medical records — which may be outdated, inaccurate, and irrelevant to an applicant’s ability to serve — will now cause only more hurdles.

The question remains: how many of these rejected applicants might be able to serve if given the opportunity to apply for a waiver?

Automatically push all applicants for a waiver

In the near term, a simple fix to this problem would be to automatically push all disqualified applicants for a waiver review. This would immediately double the number of applicants receiving waiver reviews and consequently increase the number of waivers approved. It would end the pocket veto of recruiters, who can slow roll or prevent applicants from applying for waivers. And it would give all applicants a chance to be evaluated holistically as to whether the potential risks they pose are outweighed by the value they bring to the military despite their medical conditions.

Waiver approval rates are currently 60-70%. How many of the 85,000 applicants currently rejected without a waiver might receive one if given the opportunity? There is no way to know for sure. But if we assume, for example, that 25% might be waived, the military could have received 21,000 additional recruits in the past five years. While this would not solve the entire military recruitment crisis, this improvement would result in a significant step towards improving the military recruitment crisis and is wholly within the military’s control.

Tailor medical requirements to job requirements

Requiring all applicants to apply for waivers is only a band-aid solution. Given current qualification standards prevent 77% of American youth from being eligible to serve, changing these standards would increase the supply of potential applicants to much more than just 23% of American youth. The long term solution, therefore, is to tailor military medical standards to military roles (i.e. MOS/AFSC). The military already exercises more waiver flexibility for jobs which are not physically demanding, such as chaplains, lawyers, and doctors, and has increased medical requirements for physically demanding jobs, such as fighter pilots and special forces. Why not expand this practice to all career fields?

Today, many military roles such as intelligence, logistics, or cyber, while critically important, are no more physically taxing than their civilian equivalents. Shouldn’t these roles have lower medical barriers to entry? Each Service could grade each MOS/AFSC as high, medium, or low risk from a physical and medical perspective and update standards and waiver recommendations accordingly. Just like applicants are currently waived for a specific branch, in the future they could be waived for specific jobs. If they wanted to switch, their medical status would need to be taken into consideration.

The needs of the military

Some will argue that tailoring medical standards and waiver guidelines is tantamount to “lowering standards.” I agree that not all conditions should be eligible for a waiver and that neither fitness standards nor job requirements be lowered. Deployability should be considered as well, yet deployability for support functions often means working on an established base or even deployment in place. Overall, the point is that medical standards should match the job, not be needlessly strict and standardized.

At the end of the day, the needs of the military come before any individual applicant. But what, exactly, are the needs of the military? Right now, the military needs to recruit thousands more qualified, competent, and fit individuals per year. The military can make simple changes to eligibility right now to open the floodgates of applicants who are already ready and willing to serve. The question remains whether the Department of Defense will choose to do so.

Joe Schuman is an Air National Guard officer and has published multiple articles on military recruitment issues as well as advised over 400 applicants on navigating the military medical waiver process. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Defense. He can be reached at joeschuman1234@gmail.com.