Conversation with AFRC commander

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Tom Talbert
  • 442nd Fighter Wing public affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  Lt. Gen. John A. Bradley, chief of the Air Force Reserve and commander of Air Force Reserve Command, answered a few questions for the 442nd Fighter Wing's magazine, The Mohawk, during his visit to the wing May 5.

Mohawk: Currently the Air Force relies on the volunteerism of its Citizen Airmen to support Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF) deployments. Do you think that volunteerism will continue to satisfy the needs of the AEF commitment or will we see more mobilizations in the future?

General Bradley: I think for the most part, units like the 442nd are still going to rely on volunteerism. I don't think we need to mobilize people. To me mobilization is a last resort and my boss (Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. T. Michael Moseley) agrees with that too.

We want to use volunteers. That's the right way to do this business. We have a lot of people who want to volunteer for us. If we're ever in a pinch and we have to mobilize then we do it, but I think we won't need to do that as long as we're permitted to rotate our people and make this a reasonable cycle. 

People will continue to volunteer because they think this is important. Volunteerism is the answer and that's the way we will continue doing business.
There are some specialties, like security forces, where we have to keep people over for long periods of time, in those cases we will have to do mobilizations, but our first response will always be volunteerism.

Mohawk: Do you see AEF deployments moving to six months instead of four?

General Bradley: No! I haven't heard a word about that and as far as I know, it hasn't been discussed at Air Force level. Deployments are going to remain four months.

Mohawk: We've heard it said that the Air Force is looking at the 442nd Fighter Wing becoming a Reserve associate unit in the future. Are there plans to make the 442nd another Reserve associate unit?

General Bradley: No, not currently, there are no plans to do so. What could happen in the future is we may have some active folks associated with us, but there are no discussions to make the 442nd an associate unit. You are still going to be the same unit-equipped wing you've always have been. 

Air combat command may look at trying to do some associate business with us in some areas. They have not discussed Whiteman (Air Force Base) with me at all.