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

I believe that all AFSC's should be required to qualify every 6 months at a minimum. Why not have as many guns in the fight as possible. The more familiar with the weapon, the less likely to experience friendly fire.

I think it is critical that everyone in the armed forces be ready to bear arms. It is quintessential that every service member to be proficient with a rifle especially with today's high OPSTEMPO.

Back around 2004/2005...when I was in still in . The Air Force and the Navy they had the Individual Augmentee Program which took Airmen and Sailors and attached them to Army units. These personnel were trained as soldiers and expected to bear arms if needed. Many of these Airmen or Sailors drove convoys, provided medical support or worked to defend FOB's (etc)

It is best to be prepared for a fight if needed.. than to be completely unprepared in the middle of a combat zone. Deploying to Iraq to drive convoys and having limited soldier skills or training gets people killed.

A prime example of this was seen in 2003 when Jessica Lynch's unit was ambushed in Iraq. Those soldiers in her unit were completely unprepared to deal with hostile forces. They didn't have the proper training to even deal with such hostilities. I realize every member of the armed forces isn't an infantryman but they do need to be able to fire an M16 and render medical aid to their buddies if needed.

Another example would include the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Essentially every military base/camp was attacked by the enemy. American forces were initially caught off guard by the attack. I'm sure at the time many of soldiers during the attack were too busy trying to defend themselves to worry about the Air Force.

Today the armed forces is shrinking to post WWII levels with expanding missions worldwide. With that said... everyone in serving in uniform today needs the right skills to be able to survive in a combat zone.

OK Garrett, Heres the deal. First I agree with you 100%. I always have and I always will when it comes to qualifications. I was core CATM from the moment I joined the AF in 1988 until they made me become a 3PO in 1998. I still worked CATM until 2001 when I had to deploy as a flight chief in support of "Operation Southern Watch". The #1 reason why AF personnel aren't trained is money. 70% of the AF personnel would never in their lives have to handle a weapon for their jobs unless they were going down range. There are people in the AF that retire having not fired since they were in boot camp. So how much does it cost to train these 70% of AF personnel that will never handle a weapon? It would probably take a big chunk out of the national debt. It is more cost effective to train them prior to them going down range, not to mention they are more apt to listen if their life depends on it. Figure out how busy your range is and how busy the CATM folks are then triple their training load with people who will never handle a weapon.
Now consider the fact that many CATM instructors now deploy on a constant basis and have to be back filled with cops who most of the time think they know everything because they can personally shoot but can't figure out why you can't shoot. So you have more failures, more refires more people who for whatever reason cannot qualify and gets them put out because they can't qualify and how much did the AF spend to train that person for the past 10 years and now all of a sudden they are put out because of weapons qualifications. Do you see the $$$$$ adding up? Watered down training of people who already can't shoot spells disaster. People will tell you whatever their opinion is but the God's honest truth is, its about $$$$$. Wrong as that may be, it is what it is and the truth will set you free!

I can out shoot most everyone I know Marine, Navy, Army or Air Force in M4 M16 M9 or any other damn thing. But I grew up shooting so... Not bragging, just stating a fact.

When the time came, my job would be to get the planes off the base (or break them badly), nothing more. I fired my 80 rounds a year in "training" but I can tell you. if the baddies get past the Army/Marines and the SFs, there is not much that a few additional M-16s is going to fix.

I completely agree!!! That being said, I was an infantry Marine first.

When I was stationed at MacDill AFB, we had to have a civilian safety guy from our unit "approve" the standard of our training and act as the range safety officer. The guy was knowledgeable and definitely taught us something but it was still a pain and a little demoralizing from an Army perspective.

The macro reason is that the Air Force seems to place a much higher value on technical expertise in an Airman's skill set than overall combat skills. It makes sense, that's why the Air Force pads all its overseas bases with Army guys around the flight line, right?

It always cracks me up when people refer to the Mark 4 like it is not an M-16. But in any case the navy qualifies everyone on the Beretta 9mil (M9) and the M-16. Some are further qualified on the M-60 and 50 Cal, to a lessor extent the M-40 Grenade Launcher and various other assundries. My personal favorite is the GAU-19 it makes a distinctive sound when fired at you. I put one of those on everything I could find, there are two of them mounted on the SWIFT HSVX-2. Not sure they made it to the production ships though.

I was on the initial response team (formally known as "alert reactionary force" but governor janklow thought that was too militant) the irt was comprised of 80 members (40 from army/40 from Air Force) we were activated to guard Mount Rushmore from suspected terror attack during the 4th of July week. Airmen did not know what battle site zero is. They could not properly load a magazine.(I personally show an e-9 how to load a magazine!) and they whined constantly about the barracks! Army guys had 1 squad to a room. All 40 guys shared 1 latrine. Eventually airman got 2 guys to a room and 1squad to a latrine.

Example: Enemies could parachute