Alexis Bailey

Air Force members who do not routinely cross a defended perimeter when deployed may not have received sufficient training for doing so when they need to. The authors conducted surveys and interviews to determine the kinds of experiences airmen have had "outside the wire," worked with subject-matter experts to categorize them and suggest training levels, and developed a series of recommendations for course content and further areas for study.

The Air Force typically trains 30,000 to 40,000 new airmen a year. It utilizes two methods for training enlistees: centralized initial skills training ("schoolhouse" training) and decentralized on-the-job training. The authors develop a methodology to determine the most cost-effective combination of the two, based on a cost-benefit analysis of seven Air Force specialties.