What would you say if I gave you a $225,000 bonus in return for working nine years at your job? I’d give you $112,500 up-front, and the rest would come over the course of the ensuing nine years. If a nine-year commitment is a little too much, I could just pay you a $25,000 bonus every year you stay. Sound like a good deal to you?

This is the offer put forward by the government to over 250 Air Force pilots. But only a handful have accepted the deal. Far more have hung up the jumpsuit, and gone to seek employment elsewhere.

Empty cockpits have plagued the Air Force ever since it was hit hard by the sequester, which began on January 1. The defense budget immediately lost $470 billion to government cuts. The implications for the Air Force have been felt across the board from the maintenance man to the pilot.

The Air Force has stood down almost one third of its active-duty squadrons in an effort to cut costs. This leaves grounded pilots in a state of unease. Not only do they find themselves unable to advance their career, but they twiddle their thumbs while becoming less prepared for military service.

The longer a pilot is not flying, the longer it takes for him to prepare for active duty again. According to National Public Radio (npr), “Fighter pilots must fly and drill their skills on a regular basis, from dogfighting to helping ground troops under fire. Otherwise, they lose their certification.” npr interviewed Lt. Col. James Howard, who told them that these skills are “extremely perishable.”

If you entered the Air Force to train as a pilot, there isn’t much incentive to stay if you spend your days playing cards in the hangar. Not only do you risk losing your skills, but also losing your job.

If the budget cuts continue, the Air Force will need to make additional cuts in 2014 and 2015. According to the Air Force Times, Air Force secretary Eric Fanning has reported that the service would have to cut 25,000 airmen and 500 planes in the next five years.

So not only does the Air Force have a shortage of servicemen, it may be unable to even maintain those it currently employs!

No pilot relishes investing his time in an institution that may not be able to keep him. So the threat of losing pilots in coming years is causing the Air Force to lose pilots today.

“If you’re not flying your F-22 because it’s grounded, you might as well go fly something else,” Fanning told the Air Force Times.

That is exactly what is happening. Commercial airlines, facing problems caused by a large number of aging and retiring pilots, are recruiting pilots who are disenchanted with their lives in the Air Force. The opportunities for a stable career and income are more appealing than a life of unease and uncertainty in the Air Force—even with the government payouts to those who choose to stay.

There are, however, far more pressing issues than unhappy pilots. With such a smaller Air Force and untrained, unprepared pilots, America’s power is severely compromised.

America has a vast military network capable of rapid response to situations around the globe. But cutting military spending is leaving it woefully ill-prepared for rapid deployment.

“The Pentagon is likely to face steep, across-the-board budget cuts beyond the end of this fiscal year, the two top lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee warned on Friday, as they asked the secretary of defense to lay out in detail the consequences of slashing $52 billion from its budget next year” (Washington Post, May 3).

The Post quoted Lt. Col. Elizabeth Robbins, a Pentagon spokeswoman, commenting that “the readiness of our force is rapidly eroding due to mandatory sequestration cuts. We are deeply concerned about sequestration continuing into the next fiscal year.”

In a May 7 article titled “America—Hollowing Out the Military,” former Trumpet writer Ron Fraser stressed the dangers of weakening our defenses while allowing old enemies—primarily Germany—to come to power.

[The] cold hard reality is that the Anglo-Saxons are on a downward spiral to ultimate enslavement by an old archenemy. An enemy which held them captive over 2,700 years ago (2 Kings 17), and which during the past century sought twice to overrun them by initiating aggressive warfare.It’s an uncomfortable message, one that is extremely hard for the average Joe to face up to. Yet your Bible, the infallible Word of God, prophesies of a third and final, successful attempt by old Assyria, in its modern clothes as a united German nation, to enact a siege against the Anglo-Saxons to the point of reducing them to slavery once again, as was anciently the case (2 Kings 17:20, 23).

It certainly is a hard truth to swallow, but if you believe God is true to His word, then you can see this prophecy is set to come about!

Looking at the two nations today, it is clear which one is on the rise. America’s military is hollowing out, and Germany is taking on an ever more active role militarily, with deployments across the world in various training and peacekeeping missions.

America’s military is deteriorating at an increasing rate. Rows upon rows of grounded planes are a silent, stark reminder of the fact that the U.S. military has had its day.

Be sure to go back and read Mr. Fraser’s article. And don’t forget the incredible hope that lies beyond the terrible times to come.

As Mr. Fraser concluded his article:

God knows His people—He knows the ways of all nations. He knows the extent of their rebellion against His law, that law of love which is the only true way to genuine happiness (1 John 4:8; 5:3)—and He knows exactly the type of punishment for their sins that will move them to repent, en masse! (Revelation 7:9).That’s the great hope bound up in all of this inevitable suffering to come, initially brought upon a nation that is in rank rebellion against its God by the one other nation alone that He has selected as the rod of His anger with which to mete out that punishment (Isaiah 10:5-7).Read our booklet The Epistles of Peter: A Living Hope for a moving vision of that which becomes the greatest of hopes to the genuinely repentant! It may just stir you to the very action which will end up saving you from the drastic effects of the punishment soon to come upon the Anglo-Saxons and their brother nations for their massive rebellion against a loving and merciful God!