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Press Conference, 17 May 49 (Cont'd)

I think by now officer and enlisted personnel have a fair understanding of what is going to take place. The mechanics of it are as follows. There is at this station a Personnel Redistribution Board. I am the President of the Board. There are two officers from Headquarters, United States Air Force who are members. You will be furnished with a copy of the names of the personnel on the board. Three officers from the Training Command are members. There is one officer from Continental Air Command who is a member, and there are seven or eight officers from this station, in addition to myself, who are members. This Board will examine all the personnel on this station and will recommend putting them in three categories. One, and we think this is the greater majority of the personnel on this station, people who are skilled in a particular military occupational specialty who should be reassigned immediately to other units as directed by Headquarters, United States Air Force and major commands. The second category is made up of people who are determined to need technical training and who are qualified for technical training. Those people will be sent to service schools so that their qualifications for greater service to the Air Force may be enhanced. The third category, which we think will be very small, is made up of people who do not have sufficient qualifications for technical school training and who have not worked long enough on a job to demonstrate they should be immediately reassigned in a particular specific serial number. That means, to go into detail, we have received here recently, during the past three months, 100 of the basic airmen who have gone through the Basic Training Center at Lackland who haven't been here long enough to demonstrate that they should be given an MOS number. We don't know exactly what their qualifications are. When they take certain tests, which I will tell you about a little later on, if they don't demonstrate they are qualified for technical training, we will simply report that small number to Headquarters, United States Air Force, as not recommended for any specific job and it is up to the United States Air Force. We are fairly certain United States Air Force will reassign them in some type of job where they can secure on-the-job-training and demonstrate their usefulness to the service.

Now, the Board is greatly helped by a team of two officers and twelve non-commissioned officers, all airmen from Lackland Air Force base. This team is headed by Maj. McDaniels who is assisted by Lt. Lentz. Both of these officers are board members but they are working for the Board in this manner. They give to all airmen on the station two tests. A Pattern Comprehension Test and an Airmens' Qualification Examination. By means of these tests, they will be able to recommend to the Board, very definitely in the greatest majority of cases, how people should be reassigned. In cases

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