Air Force historian visits AFSOC, 1st SOW, discusses future of career field

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Kelly Ogden
  • 1st SOW Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  "The Air Force Special Operations Command history office has an outstanding program, one of the best in the Air Force," were the words the director of the Air Force history and museum programs used to describe Hurlburt's history offices.

C.R. "Dick" Anderegg, met with base historians Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the past, present and future of the career field.

One hot topic he discussed was the secretary of the Air Force's decision to civilianize the historian career field, a decision made three years ago because of several active-duty career fields identified as "stressed" and career fields that have been continuously deployed over the last five years.

The idea was to put military positions into stressed career fields.

The three-year program began in fiscal year 2005 and will be completed by FY 2007. To date, 90 military history positions have been converted, with 24 left to convert, hopefully, by June.

"The military historians we've had in the Air Force have done a marvelous job, but the SECAF felt it was important to get the uniformed positions to where they had to be," said Mr. Anderegg. "About 30 percent of the historians we are hiring into the program have been prior enlisted Air Force historians."

"One of the major benefits of hiring civilians is we're not driven so much by a permanent change of station rotational schedule," he said. "I expect to see our civilian historians staying in place somewhat longer than the military historians, so there is more corporate memory (continuity).

"If corporate memory means anything to any career field in the Air Force it's the historian career field. It's highly important."

Mr. Anderegg said another advantage of civilianizing the historian career field is the Air Force will be able to hire historians who have a broader experience base than military historians.

"One of the interesting things about Air Expeditionary Force 5 and 6 is for the first time ever all six of our historians that are deployed are civilians," Mr. Anderegg said.

Each of the 114 civilians hired are postured in AEF buckets.

If there is a unit deployment outside the AEF deployment, they'll deploy with them as well (depending on the commanders wants), which means the civilian historians we are hiring have to meet certain physical requirements, he said.

For more information on the Air Force historian program, contact your local history office.