About six months after rolling out a tougher, more combat-centric, entry-level U.S. Air Force training program, leaders of the change say they have one big concern: that follow-on training will let trainees’ new skill sets go to waste.
Col. Kellie Courtland, commander of the 37th Training Wing out of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, said the Air Force’s Basic Military Training Next’s evolution, now in version BMT 3.0, is turning fledgling airmen into strategists by orienting them to the fight earlier on.
“Everybody’s into BMT Next. We can create you the best air-minded badass warrior you’ve ever seen, but that is of no value if when they get to tech training, it’s lost there, and those things are not continued … or you get out to your first operationalized unit, and that fire you’ve got burning, all those skills you learned, everything that you saw is lost at that doorstep because nobody keeps it going,” Courtland said. “So we have to pull that thread all the way through into the operational Air Force, or it’s lost right at our doorstep.”
“It used to be, [trainees] would ask you those very simple questions about, you know, when will I get to fly home and see my parents next,” she continued. “Now it’s the really tough questions … ‘Ma’am, if they’re targeting us so closely and we’re actually hunted out there when we go out and deploy, how do we work through that? What tools are we going to have for that?’”
BMT 3.0, which did a partial launch in April, purports to put trainees in closer touch with combat conditions, giving them, for example, the opportunity to touch, load and rearm an F-16 Fighting Falcon — a chance they previously wouldn’t have until follow-on technical training.
A new air training range at San Antonio-Lackland will include two C-130 Hercules aircraft and space to perform exercises focused on “defend, operate, generate, sustain,” Cortland said, with the full range expected to be nearly complete by the end of 2027.
But Courtland and her senior enlisted advisor, Chief Master Sgt. Caleb Vaden, emphasized that the core of the amped-up training wasn’t just about getting closer to combat airframes and operations. They are also stressing the airmen more in situations akin to combat operational tempo.
“We’ve got some sleep deprivation involved, so they’re built to endure at the foundational level, and then integrated to win,” Vaden said. “They know how it is to integrate as a team, read a mission order, execute that order, debrief that order, troops leading procedures — all those foundational things that should happen in Basic are now happening.”
Despite the added intensity, though, Courtland said the course hasn’t seen higher trainee attrition rates compared to the legacy program.
“People want this,” she said. “They like that connection to the mission and what they’re going to do, and I think they’re motivated by the success of others, too. Watching their teammates get involved in this, and being excited about this and being ready for this, and just that ability to go out there and touch and feel the mission instead of … folding clothes up in the dormitory, is massive for what they get to do.”
Leaders are still working, Cortland and Vaden said, to develop the right kind of training for the military training instructors so they can deliver the rigor and the combat focus the new program calls for.
But Courtland said more prospective instructors are now “knocking at the door.” Maintainers and support personnel who previously weren’t interested in an MTI role are now applying, she said, because of the increased emphasis on operational requirements.
Now, Courtland said, she wants the home station units that receive newly trained airmen to keep challenging them and encouraging the combat-focused mindset so the benefits of the changes don’t get lost.
While the changes to BMT might not be fully complete until the early 2030s, Courtland said, officers are already asking about incorporating similar combat-focused updates to Officer Training School. And that’s a real possibility, she added, though the decision is ultimately up to “the powers that be.”
“Everybody has heard that, and that feedback is out there,” she said. “But it’s good, because it shows people want that. They know it’s the right time. They understand the environment’s change, and with that, we have to change. And that starts with training.”
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