To fill the void created by experienced people leaving the Reserve, AFRC continues to predominantly recruit from among the people who leave active duty. However, due to the fact that the pool of people with prior active-duty service is shrinking, recruiters are now focusing a major portion of their efforts on people with no previous military experience. Even though our manpower levels will remain fairly stable over the next few years, we re going to have to recruit more people with no military experience to meet our needs. This will have a definite impact on our training costs and increase the time it takes to replace members we lose from our program. Retaining the talented members we have is, and will continue to be, a major command objective.
Experienced people are the lifeblood of our successes.
Sherrard said all reservists have a pivotal role to play in helping AFRC meet its future recruiting needs. The challenge for us is to tell the Air Force Reserve story, he said. In that respect, everyone is a recruiter. Over the years, we ve been a quiet force. The average person on the street doesn t realize to what degree we re assisting the Air Force mission.