ORLANDO — Missile airmen who are part of the nuclear enterprise will see changes to their deployment schedule and more opportunities than sitting in a silo all day, the head of Global Strike Command said Thursday.
"They'll do three years one assignment and they'll be concentrating on just being crew members," said Gen. Robin Rand. "Then they'll do another three year tour where they'll go into supervisory positions whether it's flight commander [or] stand-about positions at a different location."
Speaking to reporters at the Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, FloridaFla., Rand said missileers will also have opportunities for "career broadening."
"We'll career broaden them in a variety of ways, whether they go do an assignment with the Navy, whether they go work in one of Gen. [Hawk] Carlisle's command posts where there's some type of nuclear connection there, whether they go to a staff job, whether they go instruct at one of our professional military education, or they become instructors in our school houses for nuclear," Rand said.
Rand, the first four-star to lead the command, was brought in last year, largely in an attempt to clean up low morale and personnel scandals that had rocked the command. The problems culminated in the 2014 revelation that many airmen at Malmstrom Air Force Base, MontanaMont., were cheating on proficiency tests, prompting the resignation of the unit commander and the Air Force filing discharge papers against more than a dozen airmen.
The team at Global Strike Command have been "grinding away feverishly the last two years" to fix the problems, Rand said, and after an internal review, and external review, and an independent review, has come up with more than 300 areas that are being worked on.
"I get a monthly update on the things we're doing," the general said.
Global Strike Command is also looking at better balancing assignments for airmen, Rand said.
"I love our bases," he said. "But the fact that some people have to stay at Minot, North Dakota, for an extended period of time - — we’re not talking four or five years, but eight, nine, and ten years - — we’re looking at how can we manage the careers better."
The changes will have a positive effect on the command, the general said.
"We are very energized, and I think the command is well on its way to a recovery and we're going to be better than ever," Rand said.
