Why don't all members of the Air Force have to be fully qualified to be a rifleman in case of hostile events?

I'm About Six Years Older Than Dirt, Served From 61 - 65,
But I Think We All Had To Be Range Qualified Before Basic Training Ended,
Have The Rules Changed?

In regards to modern USAF personnel, recruiting measures are leaning away from actually being "military" and more just a career. As far as training everyone to be on par with basic marksmanship, too far of an unacceptable attrition rate would be incurred with mandate marksmanship for all positions in compliance with the recruiting measures. I absolutely do not agree with it from a personal opinion. Now if it were to come down to the budget comparison, if you don't have a service branch than can fully defend itself, then you do not have a military service branch, you have entry level cub scouts. I do note that specified jobs require it and I tip my hat to the fact. I am repulsed by the lack of self preservation capabilites on a mass with far too many individuals in this country and in the "military" today. Forget the fact I'm a Marine. I do my best to know history. Hardship creates strong citizens, strong citizens create good times, good times create weak people, weak people create hardship. Sic vis pacem, para bellum!

Let me preface my comments with I am prior service Army (12 yrs Active, with the 82nd Airborne Division) and I joined the Air Force Reserver after a 13 year break. I completely agree with your assessment about everyone needing to be prepared. What I cant believe is that in most deployed environments the Air Force keeps all weapons locked up in an armory (unless your in a forward location), the only ones carrying daily are SF. So to your question about what are we supposed to - well the answer is die when an attack comes - because by the time we get to the armory to draw a weapon its gonna be over, and not meaning any disrespect but SF is not infantry and against an elite unit that might specialize in Air Field seizure or rear area disruption like special forces types of units, you do not have the man power or quite frankly the skill set to fight them off. You dont train for those types of scenarios in earnest, because we have units that specialize in these areas you can rest assured that our enemies do too - we should train against units like the 82nd Airborne division or Rangers in large scale air field assault exercises so we can be prepared for the reality of fighting against these types of scenarios. Then on to the weapons skills, the Air Force is only required to fire once every three years, as you are aware shooting is a perishable skill, if not continuously reiterated its gone. The time between shooting is enough to become forgetful and nervous enough to not be mindful of what they are doing. Not all of us have our own AR weapons to stay proficient with. Maybe when something like this happens leadership will rethink how this is done.

I am a retired Air Force officer who qualified on the M16 before going to Vietnam and was qualified on the .38 pistol most of my years in service. For most of us this level of familiarity is adequate for our everyday duties, which could include flightline maintenance, civil engineering or any other of a range of support activities. Aircrew members had different qualification requirements as could other service members whose exposure to combat might be different from everyday duties. Full qualification as riflemen would demand regular training which would be expensive and would require considerable time away from regular duties, with relatively little value in normal operations in return. I agree that some ground combat training is valuable to any military culture, and a higher level of training could be justified--however training airmen to be ground fighters could very well be a waste of resources. We should always prepare for our primary missions and be prepared to execute them fully, which we do well by and large. I have always been grateful to our sister services for their contribution to national security. We also contribute to national security and do it quite well. All of us could always do better and we should try to do more as we are able.

CONOPS. For the vast majority of AF they don't expect to places bases/troops anywhere near frontlines where such a threat exists. The threat to such bases are from acft/missle attack and no small arms can defeat theres. So it becomes a cost/benefit analysis. Why spend a pile of $ to defend against a threat that will not be encountered?

Sounds like the men you were training needed your instruction.

Point well taken.

Because they are more valuable doing the things they do best- flying planes, maintaining planes, arming planes, etc. We don’t need them to be part-time soldiers, part-time airmen, and good at neither.

Air Force bases of operations are never within range of enemy combat troops so they have no need for strong ground force security... These facilities are always fenced in to keep your random suicide idiot from easily penetrating and the ingress-egress points, gates, are always maned with troops who are fully capable in the use of combat weapons... For forward operations, they should rent troops from the Army to defend their positions, personnel, and equipment... The size of the Army contingent would be dependent on an assessment by the Army as to how many soldiers would be necessary to defend and hold against the enemy...

Garrett don't hold your breathe. I just returned from my 3rd combat tour and we would occasionally visit the joint air force & local military base. 1 day I drove up to the gate & was literally asked was that an m4 I had & why did I have it. The Security forces had to call up to a Col to grant us clearance to come on the fob with weapons. Then when we got to billeting we were asked if we had weapons & were told to go to the arms room to turn them in before getting billeting. I dropped off some SF (special forces) and they were carrying their m17 on their hips. The security forces were called on them 5 times in the 3 hours they were on the fob.

Sry but the air force isn't military mind set branch for combat outside of security forces & pilots. Everyone else is just support for them. And from my experience living next to an AF base & traveling to a few overseas, it holds true.

Since we're "out" of Iraq & afghan. Air force bases should go back to being far from engagement areas like they use to be. Hundreds of miles far away from front lines. So there shouldn't be any real concern of worrying about a base being over run. Even in Iraq & afghan when I was there we had only 1 fob breached & they didn't make 100 ft onto the fob cause of our qrf teams were always ready. The rest of the time we were well secure. Plus everyone in the army @ least always carried their weapon with ammo.