After a 10-month sprint to resurrect a program that ended more than half a century ago, the Air Force promoted its first class of 30 new commissioned officers Dec. 6 at a ceremony attended by Service Secretary Frank Kendall.
With a second class already filled and ready to start in January, and hundreds of applicants having expressed interest, leaders are already discussing the possibility of expanding the course in the future to as much as double the current planned flow .
The Air Force’s race to bring noncommissioned officers back into the force began with an announcement by Kendall in February as part of two dozen “key decisions” to optimize the service for great-power competition.
While under the previous warrant officer program, which expired in 1959, Air Force warrant officers could serve as pilots and crew members, Kendall specified that the new program would focus on information technology and cyber areas “to maintain technical leadership in these very high-level areas” . perishable skills.”
The relatively small number of commissioned officers the Air Force plans to create is expected to increase the overall proficiency of the units to which they belong.
The Air Force is establishing a new school for new noncommissioned officers
“This program then had to take their, I would call it, identified expertise and hone that for future use so that they can be the most credible advisor and technical integrator, and be able to then provide those kinds of things to teams,” Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein, commanding general of the Air Force Recruiting Service, told Air Force Times in an interview Dec. 5. “So there’s a critical leadership element that the program is actually designed to have.”
To help guide instruction for the enlisted warrant officer “candidates,” as they were called, during the 40-day course at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, the service leaned on the expertise of the Army and Marine Corps, which both have active NCOs. programs, said Maj. Nathaniel Roesler, commander of the new Warrant Officer Training School, or WOTS.
All Air Force WOTS instructors attended Army noncommissioned officer training at Fort Novosel, Alabama, Roesler said, and attended the elementary school in Quantico, Virginia, where Navy noncommissioned officers are trained. In addition, a detachment of Army National Guard Bureau noncommissioned officer advisors on six-month temporary duty status were sent to WOTS to advise training, he said.
An important lesson that Air Force WOTS personnel learned from the other services was the emphasis on doctrine during training, Roesler said.
“When you come to the Marine Corps elementary school on the first day, they give you teachings to read,” he said. “So that’s something that we’ve reiterated here … those Air Force doctrine publications are things that we’ve emphasized from the beginning. And that’s coordination, those are things that you don’t often spend a lot of time reading about when you’re in the operational Air Force.
Although certain aspects of the Army and Marine Corps noncommissioned officer programs were absent or limited in WOTS, such as land navigation and tactical care of combat casualties, the physical training component of the course was robust: the graduates improved their performance on the Air Force PT test by an average of 5 %, Roesler said.
The 450 applicants the Air Force saw for the first 78 slots reflected the immediate interest in the new program.
“One of our candidates … was a 19-year-old senior sergeant,” Roesler said. “He knew he was signing up for more than 20 years, and he went for it. But he had the feeling that he had seen NCOs from other services working [U.S. Cyber Command]and he felt like this was something that the Air Force really needed, so he signed up for more time so he could help keep this program going.
Amrhein said his experience at the U.S. Transportation Command and supporting the 2013 troop repositioning in Afghanistan exposed him to Army noncommissioned officers and the cultural impact of their expertise.
“You can bring that expert in, and they can lead a team that presents solutions and options to the leaders of the organization’s commanders so they can make decisions and move on them. And that’s where that trusted advisor comes in, based on the level of expertise that they have,” he said. “I think we’re going to find that these NCOs are going to do exactly the same thing for the U.S. Air Force in these specific roles.”
The initial planned throughput for warrant officer training is 150 candidates per year, Amrhein said, but added that officials had already mapped out a way to increase throughput to nearly 300 graduates per year if the service should require it.
As to whether the warrant officer program could ever again include pilots — another field where demand for services exceeds supply, Amrhein declined to speculate.
“The future is really getting these first graduates into the field, and then seeing that integration, not just at the Air Force level, but you know, how do they integrate within the joint force,” he said. “It’s really exciting to see how that develops over time as this pool continues to grow. And then get that feedback about what adjustments need to be made to the program.”
