The Air Force exceeded its fiscal 2005 enlisted recruiting goal by sending 19,222 men and women to basic military training.

And while the service had success recruiting for Officer Training School, it fell short in recruiting in some medical fields.

"This was a challenging year for Air Force recruiting," said Brig. Gen. Dutch Remkes, Air Force Recruiting Service commander.

"We had to scale back enlisted accessions recruiting in order to meet the Air Force's manning needs, yet we remained successful at recruiting a diverse, high-quality force representing the best our country has to offer," he said.

Recruiting service began the fiscal year with a reduced recruiting goal of 24,465 -- part of Air Force's force-shaping measures to meet the congressionally mandated end strength of 359,700 Airmen. End strength is the limit set by Congress on the number of people the military can have on active duty.

The recruiting goal was cut again, in January 2005, to 18,900 new recruits.

Recruiting service was successful in recruiting line officers and chaplains. It recruited 727 line officers against a goal of 720, and 35 chaplains against a goal of 31.

Line officers include pilots, navigators and other officers in technical and non-technical fields who attend Officer Training School. OTS is one of three commissioning sources. The other two include Air Force ROTC and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

The service continues to struggle in finding enough physicians, dentists and nurses to meet its health professions requirements. The Air Force recruited 753 health professionals against a requirement of 1,123.

General Remkes emphasized that America's Air Force needs hundreds of physicians, dentists, nurses and pharmacists. It also needs people qualified for special operations, such as pararescue and combat control.

The enlisted accessions goal for fiscal 2006 is 30,750 new recruits. The goal for line officer recruiting is 485, representing a reduction from fiscal 2005 due to continued force-shaping measures.

(Courtesy of Air Education and Training Command News Service)