Airmen in select nuclear career fields are now eligible for assignment incentive pay and special-duty assignment pay. Effective Oct. 1, select officers and enlisted airmen in eleven nuclear career fields and assignment areas will receive between $75 and $300 per month, according to an Oct. 2 release. “The airmen selected for this incentive are critical members of our Air Force’s number one mission,” said Col. Zannis Pappas, nuclear and missile operations career field manager on the Air Staff. Eligible for the extra pay are command post airmen, nuclear aircraft maintainers, security forces, missile maintainers, aircraft armament systems technicians, nuclear weapons and support personnel for ICBM complexes, among others. It will take several months before these airmen will see the bump in their pay, but the Air Force will retroactively compensate them back to the Oct. 1 start date, states the release. Air Force Secretary Deborah James unveiled this initiative in September.
Every year, Congress and the military debate which combat assets should head to the boneyard and which have more life left in them. Lawmakers often opt to keep Air Force systems that bring jobs to their districts, which complicates matters as the service looks to modernize and ditch certain platforms.…