Department of the Air Force recruiters will now offer waivers for future airmen and Space Force Guardians with certain diagnoses of asthma, hearing loss and food allergies, a major policy change that could open up service to more civilians.
The change, announced publicly this week, is expected to open up service to around 600 new applicants each year, the Department of the Air Force said in a news release.
“We are constantly evaluating how we can bring in the best talent while ensuring our members can serve effectively and safely,” Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein, the commander of the Air Force Ascensions Center, said in the release. “By expanding waiver criteria for manageable health conditions, we can access a wider pool of qualified applicants without compromising mission readiness.”
Read Next: Biden Signs Defense Bill with Junior Enlisted Pay Hike, Ban on Treatments for Transgender Military Kids
The new waivers come as the Air Force managed to scrape by its active-duty recruiting goals, in large part due to policy changes for recruits ranging from allowing higher percentages of body fat to permitting certain tattoo sizes.
Under the prior policy, all cases of asthma — no matter the severity — were disqualifying conditions for service, Col. David Gregory, director of the Accession Medical Waiver division at the Air Force Ascensions Center, said in the news release.
Now, applicants with diagnosed asthma can join. “provided they do not require daily preventive medication, and their rescue inhaler use is kept to a minimum,” the service explained.
In addition to waivers for asthma, the service will now start waiving some circumstances of hearing loss. If one ear has “moderate hearing impairment” and the other ear “meets the standards of mild hearing impairment,” a waiver can be considered, the Air Force said in the release.
Applicants with diagnosed food allergies will also now be considered for a waiver, “provided there has been no anaphylaxis or serious systemic reaction,” the service said.
Retired Chief Master Sgt. Eric Benken, the Air Force’s top enlisted leader from 1996 to 1999 under former President Bill Clinton’s Department of Defense, told Military.com in an interview Thursday that the changes were “long overdue.”
“I trust the medical community of the Air Force to know when someone is deployable, when they’re not deployable,” Benken told Military.com. “I always felt that, in some cases, it was far too restrictive.”
These new waiver changes followed the Department of the Air Force missing its recruiting goal in 2023, by 10%, for the first time since 1999.
In 2024, several policy changes led the way for the service to hit its active-duty goals, barely skating by with 39 extra enlisted recruits to hit its benchmark of 27,100 new service members.
Increasing the Department of the Air Force’s body fat composition requirement up to 26% for men and 36% for women brought in a staggering 5,196 new recruits across the Air Force, Space Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard, Military.com previously reported.
Related: Prep Courses, Policy Tweaks Largely Drove the Military’s Recruiting Success in 2024
Thomas Novelly is a reporter for Military.com focusing on coverage of the Air Force and Space Force. He previously covered veterans, military bases and federal politics in South Carolina for The Post and Courier, where he was part of the reporting team for “Rising Waters,” a project that examined climate-driven flooding and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Prior to that, he was a breaking news reporter for the Courier Journal in Kentucky, where he received a Louisville Society of Professional Journalists award for Best Breaking News Story. Read Full Bio
Doctors and patients said they have been caught off guard by the shift from Health Net Federal Services to TriWest Healthcare…
Sgt. Dakota Honstein, 26 and an active-duty Marine assigned to Lejeune, will face a court-martial between April 21 and May 6…
The Game of the Year Awards seek to highlight games that show technical and creative excellence, and 2024 was a pretty good…
Finnish police and border guards boarded the vessel, the Eagle S, early Thursday and took over the command bridge, Helsinki…
A massive raise for junior enlisted troops next year and a ban on some health care for transgender children of service…
The witness in question is a woman with whom Burke was having an affair and who, according to court filings, went to…
A little over a decade after the Air Force spent some $1.2 million to renovate a former officer's home on Wright-Patterson…
When Ed Meagher reported to Air Force basic training on June 15, 1966, he was a 19-year-old college dropout. Despite two…
Doctors and patients said they have been caught off guard by the shift from Health Net Federal Services to TriWest Healthcare…
The new waivers come as the Air Force managed to scrape by its active-duty recruiting goals, in large part due to policy…
Sgt. Dakota Honstein, 26 and an active-duty Marine assigned to Lejeune, will face a court-martial between April 21 and May 6…
Finnish police and border guards boarded the vessel, the Eagle S, early Thursday and took over the command bridge, Helsinki…
North Korean troops are suffering heavy losses in the fighting in Russia's Kursk region and are facing logistical…
A baby girl froze to death overnight in Gaza, while Israel and Hamas accused each other of complicating ceasefire efforts…
Visit our Customer Support center for solutions or to contact us.
Français 
English